Sweetest in the Gale - Olivia Dade Page 0,14

whiteboard abruptly crackled to life, the voice of their principal coming through loud and clear. “To all faculty and staff, this is a reminder that our meeting begins in ten minutes in the cafeteria. As promised, we’re providing sandwiches, fresh veggies, and brownies. I’m not saying you should hurry, but I am saying swarms of locusts are slower and less comprehensive in their consumption of available foodstuffs than you are. Again, you have ten minutes. Then the floodgates open, and no sandwich is safe. Also, someone better save me a brownie, or you’re going to have a very cranky principal for the rest of the week. You’ve been warned.”

The speaker went silent, and Candy snorted.

“She’s funny,” he said, “and a vast improvement over my previous principal.”

“Before she was a great principal, she was a great teacher.” Candy’s brow compressed. “I need to run a couple of errands before the faculty meeting starts. I don’t mean to cut off our conversation, but—”

He heaved himself to his feet, suddenly tired enough to sleep right there, sprawled over her desk. “No worries. I have a few things I should do before then too. And as Tess noted, lateness is not a good strategy for this particular meeting, not if we want free lunch.”

“Which we do.” Her pale lips curved. “Even though we’ll only bitch about its inferior quality and quantity afterward.”

Somehow, despite his exhaustion, despite having dredged up and shared memories of Marianne, he discovered he was grinning too. “As mandated by teacherly tradition, hallowed and ancient.”

“I’m sure Mildred was there when they carved the appropriate runes.” She gathered her purse and notebook. “As one of the village elders, naturally.”

Somehow, he’d never suspected Candy might contain this brand of humor. He should have, though, given that ringing, wholehearted laugh of hers.

Shoving his hair back from his face—dammit, he really did need a cut—he huffed out an amused breath and followed her out the door. “It’s a wonder she didn’t clarify the Frankenstein issue with Mary Shelley herself.”

“They didn’t frequent the same social circles.” She produced her room key and locked the door behind them. “Shelley was too young and vibrant, and”—getting up on tiptoe, she whispered into his left ear—“Mildred didn’t approve of that whippersnapper Byron.”

She’d remembered. Remembered and spoken so he could hear her, her rush of breath against his skin minty and damp and rippling through his body in a shockwave.

When he bent and leaned close to whisper in her own ear, her fine, soft hair caught on his beard. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you just made Mildred the hero of this particular tale.”

Apple. Her hair smelled like an apple, surprisingly sweet and clean.

He could have stood there and inhaled that scent all day.

“Dammit.” With that murmur, her lips must have been a hairsbreadth away from his skin, and he squeezed his eyes shut at the bolt of sensation down his spine. “Byron was a complete dick. I guess Mildred got it right. For once.”

He indulged himself with one last comment, one last lungful of fragrant air near her pink, plump earlobe. “Maybe you should make that a new project: the Byron and Most of the Romantic Poets Were Total Dicks Initiative.”

Then he moved one painful step back. Another. Even though she was cackling now, her frame shaking as her laughter echoed in the halls, and he wanted so badly to know how that felt up close, one body to another.

“Oh, God,” she wheezed, “they’re the worst, Griff. Such incredible, unrepentant assholes.”

“They really are,” he managed to say.

Then he was laughing too, hard enough that the guilt couldn’t dig in its claws and gain purchase in his flesh.

It would find him again, he knew. Sooner or later. Probably sooner.

So he’d bask in this respite, the sunshine of their shared mirth, while he could.

Four

In his peripheral vision, Griff spotted Candy the moment she appeared in his open doorway. But he couldn’t interrupt the student in front of him, not given the young woman’s current state of distress.

Out of the student’s sight, he held up a forefinger, requesting a minute.

Then he listened with his full attention once more, not only because his hearing loss necessitated that kind of concentration, but also because Shantae Kingsley—like every other student—deserved it.

“I did the assignment, I swear, Mr. Conover.” When he passed her the tissue box, she snatched several and dabbed her eyes. “I don’t know where it went, though. I checked my locker, I checked my backpack, I went back to