If I Could - B. Celeste Page 0,17
used to, but it almost makes it easier because everybody knows everybody. I’ve also been assigned two different study hall periods, split throughout the day, a resource sharing period where students can come ask for help if they need to, and a lunchbreak. Overall, not a bad schedule.
The first half of the day flies by quicker than I expect it to. The study hall I have is a mixture of high school students, some I recognize from my class, but most I don’t. Knowing that the proper etiquette for the period is to be productive, I try to give them basic ground rules. No fooling around or disrupting classmates. They can get a pass to the library for the period so long as they’re back by the time lunch rolls around so I can get the passes back, and one person can go to the bathroom at a time. After the quick five-minute breakdown, I got a few eye rolls, a couple more grumbled acknowledgments, before I let them do their thing.
I’m sitting behind my desk, getting ready to make my way down for some lunch, when the knock at the door comes. When I look up, I see Harper entering with an extra something in her step that I can appreciate even if it won’t go anywhere. I mean, it’s hard not to notice the knockout body she has wrapped in that dress, and her confidence while owning it is sexy.
“Hey, you.” She gives me a bright smile before stopping at my desk. “I was just about to head to the teacher’s lounge. Are you coming?”
“Need to grab some lunch first.”
She makes a face, her voice sounding incredulous. “You didn’t bring any?”
I have the nerve to be embarrassed, palming my cheek with a timid smile in return. “I may have forgotten in my haste of triple-checking I had everything else prepared for today.”
Her eyes get big, then a “aww” escapes those painted lips. “First day jitters, huh? Well, the school food isn’t terrible here. Their salads are pretty good, actually, mostly because they buy them premade and prepackaged.”
“What about the other stuff?”
Her eyes go to my body, doing a slow perusal downward, then back up again. “Let me put it this way. You look fit enough to be okay starving for a day.”
Laughing lightly, I get her gist. “Got it. I’ll remember to bring lunch tomorrow then.”
She waves me off. “I can share mine. I brought a sub from a local deli. If you’re not vegetarian, I’ll share it with you.”
As we’re heading out, I see Reece walking toward us. A pile of papers in one bent arm as he smiles at Harper and I. “Off to lunch?” he guesses.
“I warned him about the food,” she says chipperly, earning her a chuckle.
His eyes move to me. “I should have done that over the weekend. Harper is right, you’ll want to avoid the food here for the most part.”
I retort, “Unless it’s from the vending machine?”
Harper makes a noise. “Vending machine food is almost as bad as the cafeteria’s.” She pauses, exchanging glances between each of us on either side of her. “You saw each other over the weekend?” I wonder if Reece hears the same pitch in her voice as I do. The one the tells me she’s a little put off as if she wanted to be invited.
All I offer her is, “Yeah.” She doesn’t need to know that we ended up getting the first coat on the house done, then a second the next afternoon once it was dried. We shot the shit, and it was nice, making me feel a bit more at ease about being in a new place with nobody I knew around. He learned that I preferred watching football over baseball, even though I liked playing both and was better at the latter sport, and I learned he liked reading dystopian novels about fucked up worlds because they’re “more realistic” in his eyes, only securing my belief that something happened to him that’s made him so cynical.
In the two days we hung out and worked on my house, first painting, then doing some quick repairs inside, his phone rang with the same name on the screen at least four times. Donna. He never picked up once, always telling me he’d call back later. If he did, it wasn’t when he was with me, and I doubted that someone would call him that much unless he was avoiding them altogether. Knowing it’s none of