Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

trip. But everything with Daniel Jennings felt like cheating.

She walked inside and set her laptop on the counter. She had to look him up and cancel this instant. A text message, not an email, to ensure he received it.

“I’m home.” She said it out of habit and obligation, but she didn’t say it loudly.

She found ‘Jennings, Daniel’ in the school directory. His cell number. Just having his name and face on her screen felt inappropriate. What if Byron saw?

No. Byron wouldn’t care. Or notice. Or even come upstairs except for food. She turned toward the basement door. The quiet basement door. Was he even here?

She found a note on the fridge pinned by a magnet.

Out with friends. Back later.

Out where? With who? Back when? She didn’t warrant an explanation? Or invitation?

She crumbled the note and threw it away.

“I’m engaged to a teenager.” She muttered it. Leaned forward over the counter, resting on her palms. “He’s twenty-seven but he’s still a teenager. And somehow I became his parent.”

It was true. An awful revelation. So disgusting she turned her face from the trashcan.

I go to work, come home to feed the boy playing video games all day, and he takes off leaving me to worry.

A mother. I’m his MOTHER!

A low point in her life. The nadir of an engagement. She knew without looking that Byron’d accomplished nothing today. Made no money. Took no step in his career. No step toward his goals. Or his health. Or their future.

It was only a note on the fridge. But it also felt like a nail in their coffin. Daisy Hathaway was engaged. Her fiancé was not.

She slammed the laptop closed. Walked out of the kitchen, booties clicking.

An hour later she returned. Scribbled her own note.

Out with a friend. Back later.

The note had started out neat. By the final word, she was writing in irked slashes.

Daniel wasn’t due yet but she grabbed her bag and fled the house. Outside she breathed freer, the air crisp. She felt like she’d walked into a clearing after a dark hike.

19

It wasn’t a date but Jennings took a shower and put on his good Levi’s. One spray of Polo Black, only enough for her to detect in the car or if she got close. And if she got that close, well, then, it was her fault. He wiped his palms at the thought. He plucked Daisy Hathaway off her curb at seven and drove to Mill Mountain Coffee, and he tried to calm down.

The coffee shop was as it should be—high ceilings, tile floors, wooden tables, wrought iron chairs, the menu written in chalk on blackboards.

Hathaway claimed the biggest workspace and unloaded her bag, and Jennings ordered two coffees. He came back with the hot mugs and set his backpack in the adjacent chair. Unpacked his planner, a textbook, a laptop, and a binder of supplemental materials. She reached for his planner and flipped it open.

“Wow.” She browsed. “I’m impressed.”

“Why’s that?”

“This is thorough. And precise. Most teachers aren’t.”

“I want to do it well,” he said.

“Even the dreaded SOL objectives. Your handwriting is perfect, Daniel.”

“My mom insisted, growing up.”

“What was your undergrad GPA?”

“I was a salutatorian. One of fifty.”

“You rat. You made better grades than me.”

“Obviously.”

She laughed and when she did she spilled her coffee onto the table. He stood faster than she did.

“I got it.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said but he’d already reached the napkins.

They mopped it together and threw the sodden mess away. He picked up her empty mug.

“Daniel, thank you, I’ll get it.” Their fingers brushed as the mug transferred and he nearly fumbled it. His nervous tension was a naked truth open to both of them.

At the counter she requested a refill and decided it was absurd to keep pretending. Absurd and impossible.

Hathaway set the full mug on their table. Reached across and took his hand. Squeezed it and let go.

“Let’s get something out of the way,” she said.

“Okay.”

“You’re terrified of me.”

Jennings grinned. A rupture of sheer panic and then the pressure released.

“I wouldn’t say terrified.”

“The manners, the ma’am, the Ms. Hathaway?” she said.

“You’re the clumsy one spilling her coffee.”

“I know, but…Daniel.”

“Terrified is the wrong word.”

“What’s the right one?” she said.

“I’m deliberate and cautious.”

“Should I be flattered? I think I am. You’re this big strong man who can’t talk around me.”

“I’m not great with girls.”

“I’ve seen you talk to others easily.”

“That’s because, ah, you’re Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I’m what?” she said.

“Wow, that sounded bad.”

“It did.”

“I like history and there are a lot of presidents. But the 26th, Teddy, is my favorite. By a long shot. I’d be starstruck around him. Like I am around you.”

“That’s an unusual explanation, Daniel. A first for me.”

“Being starstruck is a compliment. My opinion of you is higher than of your peers.”

“Okay.” She smiled at him, the smile of a girl who knew the boy had a crush and she wouldn’t pretend otherwise. “Thank you, Daniel.”

“It’ll pass. I’m still acclimating after the Army and the military hospital. Not everything is dirt and crude jokes now. There are girls who smell nice.”

“You didn’t date in the Army?”

“Like I said, that wasn’t my world.”

“I’m glad we’re friends, Daniel. Even if I make you nervous.”

The word friends felt forced. Like she wasn’t sure if either would believe it.

He said, “Should we get to work?”

She slid back his planner. “One last thing. Would you like some advice?”

“Sure.”

“I love the gentleman act you do. I’m into it. Most guys don’t try, but they should. However, you need to mix in some naughty.” She grinned at his expression. “What I mean is, be a gentleman who’s obviously thinking risqué thoughts. That combination will be irresistible.”

“My, my, Daisy.”

She sat up, remembering something. Pushed her hair back. “This advice is for use on other women. Not on me.”

“Because you’re engaged.”

“That’s…that’s right. I thought you’d forgotten.”

“You wore an engagement ring when I first met you,” he said.

The unspoken fact that she’d stopped wearing it hummed in the air.

“I should more often, I suppose.” She extracted her planner. Flipped it open. Pursed her