Matt & Zoe - Charles Sheehan-Miles Page 0,10
and human and heterosexual, so my eyes drop to her well shaped breasts, but I force them back up to her eyes. She has intense blue eyes.
Angry looking eyes. And I don’t have time to deal with her crap today, I have an appointment in just a few minutes with a student who lost her parents. I can’t remember the woman’s name… Chloe? I’ve always been terrible with names.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes. I don’t know how you found me at work, but you need to go through your insurance company—”
“Stop.”
“I don’t have time to—”
“Mister P!” The voice comes from behind the blonde woman. A four foot tall blur races into the room—eight-year-old Jasmine Welch.
Jasmine Welch.
Oh, dear God. The woman who wrecked my car is Jasmine’s older sister?
Jasmine flies into me, head-butting my stomach. I’m caught by surprise, and I gasp, suddenly winded. “Jasmine,” I croak. I lift her up and hug her.
“Mister P, I missed you so much.”
This little girl lost her parents? Just a few days ago? She was the kindest girl in my second grade class last year. Ahh, crap. I have to blink my eyes to keep them from watering and spilling over. I look up at the blonde girl—Chloe?—and meet her eyes.
She looks mortified.
Chapter Four
Mabel Stark (Zoe)
Mister P.
I should have realized. But how would I? The signs said Mister Paladino and that's his name, of course, but I just didn’t make the connection. But there he is.
Matt Paladino is about twenty-eight. He’s just shy of six feet, with dark brown, almost black hair, and his tanned face has a neatly trimmed beard along a square jaw. It’s a teacher workday, I realize, so maybe he’s dressed more casually than usual, or maybe he just doesn’t care about looking professional. Right now he’s wearing blue jeans and a dark gray t-shirt tight enough to see that he’s an athlete of some kind. Not a weight lifter—he has more the look of a gymnast or dancer, with powerful biceps. I look away, almost as annoyed with myself as I am with him.
He stands the moment he sees me, his face just a little red. “I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes. I don’t know how you found me at work, but you need to go through your insurance company—”
What the hell? The moment the self-important bastard starts to brush me off, I reach for Jasmine’s hand. We can go straight to the office and demand a different teacher. Jasmine doesn’t need this—
I don’t get a chance. She evades my hand, shouts, “Mister P!” and runs right around me and into the classroom. He throws his arms out and hugs her as she buries her face in his shoulder.
I sag, confused and—well this is crazy—jealous. Except for the brief hug she gave me when I got her out of the emergency shelter, Jasmine has been pretty standoffish. She looks at me a little sideways, as if she doesn’t think I’m going to stick around—or that I might do something dangerous and unexpected.
It sticks in my throat a little bit that she runs to this guy.
When he looks at me, I can see that however much of a prick he might have been to me, he feels for her. His eyes are glassy, not running with tears but definitely a little watery.
He eases her to the floor. He coughs, covering his mouth with a fist, then says, “I’m Matt Paladino. I guess you—” Damned if he doesn’t get this self-effacing grin on his face. “I guess you knew that.”
I reach out and shake his hand. “This is a little awkward,” I say.
“Hey Jasmine,” he says. “You remember Mabel Stark?”
Her eyes widen. “Is—is—is she here? Can I f—f—feed her?” As she stumbles over the word, her face scrunches up in frustration.
He points to the back of the room. “She just ate a little while ago, but you can see her. I bet she’s on her wheel right now.”
Jasmine runs to the back of the room.
“Mabel Stark?” I ask.
“White dwarf hamster,” he says. “She was sort of a mascot last year.”
I swallow. I roll my eyes up toward the ceiling and say, “Maybe we need to start over.”
He raises an eyebrow.
I’m a little tongue-tied. “I mean—”
“Pretend like yesterday never happened?” he asks. Maddening.
I grit my teeth. Then I say in as calm a voice as I can muster, “For Jasmine’s sake.”
“Look,” he says. “We don’t have to pretend anything. It was my fault,