Spying Under the Mistletoe (Love Undercover #2) - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,24
surprise him. “That’s okay. Thanks for asking. What else did you do?”
“I came up with a list of Christmas songs the kids can sing for the concert. Now, I just need to find someone who can accompany them. You don’t, by any chance, know anyone who plays an instrument, do you?”
“Sorry, I don’t. So other than coming up with the list of songs, did you do anything else exciting last night?” He doesn’t sound particularly disappointed by the extent of what I’ve told him. It’s more like he’s expecting there to be something else.
“I watched some TV”—an old episode of Outlander because Jamie Fraser’s accent is damn sexy—“but that’s about the extent of it. What about you?”
Landon opens the side door, and we step inside the building. “My evening was pretty much the same. Except I worked on my teaching plans and watched hockey.”
I laugh. “You sound as boring as I do.”
After checking in at the office, we head to our classrooms.
“I heard the good news,” Ava says, coming toward us down the hall. “That Tabitha agreed to let you do the Christmas performance.” Her gaze flicks momentarily to Landon before returning to me.
“More like the parents and teachers at the meeting agreed it would be a good idea. She was outvoted. So it looks like she won’t be pulling any strings to get the school board to prevent it from happening.”
“And she was okay with that?”
“She kept whatever she was thinking off her face, but I suspect she’s waiting for me to screw up with the show so she can say ‘I told you so.’ ”
Landon and Ava exchange glances again. “Which is why we won’t give her that satisfaction,” he says.
I swear it must be a full moon…or whatever it is that turns cute, curious kids into abominable monsters.
Even my typically sweet little angels have sprouted horns in the past few hours.
And I’m not referring to unicorn horns.
Melissa goes racing around a table, squealing as Anton chases after her with a blue monster puppet on his hand.
I remove it. “Is there any particular reason you’re chasing Melissa around the classroom when running inside is against the rules?”
He lifts his chin, the confidence of a cutthroat attorney oozing from him. “She took my pencil.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Melissa’s closing statement involves sticking her tongue out at him.
“All right, you two.” I remove a pencil from the holder on my desk and hand it to Anton. “Go sit down and practice writing the letter L. Both lower and upper case.”
“But—” Melissa starts to say.
“No buts. We don’t run in the classroom, and you both know that. You save it for outside. And you don’t use poor Wilfred here for terrorizing other students. He’s a happy monster and doesn’t like to be wrongly stereotyped to be something other than what he is.”
“What does ste-re-type mean?” Jackson asks, his eager face peering up at me, even though he wasn’t part of the initial conversation.
“It means believing that everyone from the same group has the same characteristics. For example, assuming a really tall man is a great basketball player. For all you know, he doesn’t like sports. Or maybe he’s a talented hockey player and doesn’t know the first thing about basketball.”
At “hockey player,” Landon’s image pops into my head.
Nope, not happening, I tell my brain, my body, and anything else that’s listening.
I’m not going there. Being a single woman is a good thing.
I’m independent.
I’m strong.
Okay, the lack of sex in what feels like a lifetime sucks, but there’s definitely more to life than being in an intimate relationship with a man.
Besides, that’s why God invented vibrators.
“Wilfred might be a blue monster,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean he’s scary because the monster stereotype says he’s mean and scary. He can be a giving monster who likes to help everyone he sees. And just because he’s a blue monster doesn’t mean he loves cookies. Does that make sense?”
All three of them nod and return to their tables.
By the time the final bell rings, I’m more than ready to go home and soak in the tub. But before I can do that, I’m scheduled to volunteer at the retirement village. I haven’t told Mathilda yet that the Christmas show doesn’t have to be canceled after all.
The kids all leave, and I pack up my stuff to work on at my place.
Landon pokes his head in the classroom, like he’s done several times during the day. “Are you going home now?”