Chapter 3
I grabbed a cart and passed by the art supply aisle, which reminded me of my students. The majority of my kids came from safe, solid households, but a handful struggled at home. I would do my best to provide what I could, bringing them extra food and water bottles on Fridays to take home for the weekend, but a teacher could only do so much.
Once you tell someone your profession, it was always the same reply: “How is it making $100 a year?” Or, “Well, at least you spend all day playing with kids!” Neither was accurate, but I suppose they were both an element of my job.
It’s no secret being a teacher puts you in an uncomfortable financial position, but it’s all about budgeting and giving yourself margins. Unfortunately, our school wasn’t great at budgeting. It forced me to dip into my own account for some extra necessities—in this case, necessity meant patching the hole little Timmy Miles put in the room.
Thankfully I didn’t mind doing it. I had no clue how to fix the hole, so I had previously done some Google research and found a few random tutorials. There’s a custodian at the school who could probably fix it for me. However, Arthur was sixty-two, and I knew better than to add to his endless list of tasks. He was constantly running around the campus patching, repairing, and replacing, and my heart went out to the sweet man.
This being said, I didn’t want my kids sitting in a room with a hole in the wall. So, therefore, I’d figure out how to fix this for them.
Pushing my cart farther, I reached the end of the aisle and grabbed some putty and a spatula, and headed back to the checkouts. As I turned my cart, I was hit with a wave of déjà vu.
My cart nearly smacked into a sizable figure, and as I tipped my chin up to apologize, I recognized him immediately.
Here we were all over again. Grant Dawes was standing in front of me in the same aisle in the same store, but his face was different this time. His hands were in his Carhartt’s, and he wasn’t carrying any supplies, but he still held a longing face as if he were looking for something.
“Hey, crazy seeing you here!” I smiled up at him brightly, hoping maybe he’d recognize me this time. He held a blank face for a moment and just grunted his reply, “Well, it’s a small town.” Yep, same as last time.
“So…what are you here for?” My attempt at small talk is pathetic, but I wondered why he was roaming around the aisles with absolutely nothing in his hands. “You know what I do for a living, right? I’m just getting some stuff before driving back home.”
I kept grinning and replied, “Well, I just didn’t expect someone like you to be in this section, is all.”
“And where is someone like me supposed to be looking?”
He raised an eyebrow down at me, and I probably sounded just as rude as he did, but something about this guy made my curiosity spike. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you seemed like you hired other people to do this part of your work.”
He grunted angrily, “Trust me, honey, I do all my dirty work.” I ignored the way he said honey and dirty in the same sentence and how it put butterflies in my stomach. He looked down at the putty in my hand and curiously raised an eyebrow at me, “Is that for the house?”
I shook my head. “No, one of my students put a hole in the wall. Our repair guy up there is a sweet old man, and I try not to bother him.”
His face was hard to read, but his once tense posture had now relaxed, and he seemed more comfortable. The lines on his forehead settled, and he looked almost handsome. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had given me butterflies like this, and we had barely even had a single conversation with each other. I’d had male interests before. I wasn’t exactly a prude. But I had focused on my work, art projects, and volunteering, so I didn’t have time for extra people in my life- especially this guy. Besides, men like Grant, who slept around, had previously put a bad taste in my mouth.
“I can fix that.” Excuse me? I pursed my lips inward and cocked my head to the side. Was I speaking out loud? I refused to be another notch on this dude’s bedpost, no matter how good he looked.
“The hole…in your room at the school?” Oh. Well, that made more sense.
“Oh. I, um…that’s okay. I think I can figure it out.” He nodded. “If you say so.” Sarcasm laid on his tongue.
I decided it was best for me to part ways. “All right, well, I’m going to go. My students have a busy day coming up, and I should probably get ready. Bye, Grant.”
It wasn’t necessarily a lie. We had a busy day planned, but nothing that should make me want to rush out of a store like I saw a ghost.
“Bye, Hart.”
I walked back to the front of the store as if that nickname didn’t give me goosebumps up my arms.