40-Love - Olivia Dade Page 0,82

bullshit, älskling,” he told her, his tone so tender it took her a few seconds to realize what he’d actually said. “Total fucking bullshit, and you should know better.”

When her mouth dropped open, he took advantage.

After a pleasant interlude, he pulled back an inch. “I don’t know what happened in your relationship with Jeremy”—the word sounded like an epithet—“because I wasn’t there. You were.” Another sweet, searching kiss. “I can tell you one thing for certain, though: You may be a master of practicalities, but you also have an enormous heart.”

“You don’t know that.” She wanted to believe him. She did. But how could she? “You can’t know that, not after a week.”

“All right, then. Let me prove it to you.” His lips nuzzled against her earlobe. “All your plans for the school. Are they practical? Is that why you’re working so hard on them?”

Concentrating on something other than the tease of his breath in her ear was nearly impossible, but she tried.

Hungry students. Race-based disciplinary discrimination. Bullying. All the other problems she wanted to address.

Practicality would mean focusing on standardized test scores instead. Would steer her toward saving the school’s limited resources, rather than spending more money on the children in their care. Would take her far afield from the initiatives she’d formulated with such enthusiasm, especially given the number of school board members notably unwilling to talk about race and racism.

Belle had already pointed out how much time and effort those initiatives would require. She’d cautioned that Tess might need to scale back her plans to suit a reality in which sleep was still a necessity and not everyone would agree with her priorities.

Tess was committed to them anyway.

So she had to concede the point, if only begrudgingly. “No. They’re not especially practical. I figure some of my ideas will meet with significant resistance. Or I’ll be told we don’t have enough money or people to make them work.”

“But something drove you to come up with those plans.” He didn’t even sound smug, damn him. “If not practicality, then what?”

Swallowing over a dry throat, she told him the truth. “I care about those kids, and I want their lives to be better. I want our school to be better.”

Funny. She’d been so caught up in the logistics of everything, she hadn’t stopped to consider why she’d chosen to pursue those particular goals. She hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge the raw emotions driving her onward.

Hope. Outrage. Passion.

None of them practical. All of them essential in a good principal.

“You love those kids, Tess. With everything you have.” He tucked strands of hair behind her ears and cradled her face in his hands. “And I know you feel like you fucked up with Belle. But this is what I heard.” His eyes on hers were steady. Determined. “You came into the room. You got worried. You asked if she was okay, and she lied. You asked what had happened, and she wouldn’t answer. Then you tried to get her to open up by talking about practicalities, because she wasn’t ready to discuss how she was feeling or why. And once she’d relaxed a bit, you swung back around to check whether she was angry at you or victimized or hurting in some other way you could fix. She wasn’t.”

Put so plainly, it didn’t sound like such a failure of friendship, such a condemnation of her and her ability to read people and deal with their emotions.

Maybe his reading of the situation was generous, but it wasn’t inaccurate.

She took a deep breath, another, for the first time in what felt like hours.

His thumb brushed away a stray, stupid tear. “Tess, maybe she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened. That doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.” He ducked his head close, so close he comprised everything she could see. “Tonight, she said she’d talk to you, and she’ll probably tell you everything. But if she doesn’t, she may simply need more time.”

Tess would hate that. Hate it. Lucas was right, though. If Belle needed time to work through whatever she was feeling, she should get it, and Tess needed to prepare herself for that possibility.

“Even if you did screw up with her, it’ll be okay. If not now, then eventually.” Leaning forward, he nudged her nose with his own, a playful caress. “I mean, look at us. Remember our second lesson?”

Somehow, that memory had already mellowed, had already become more amusing than bitter. “The lesson where we shouted at one another in