my rocker. I want to lower my gaze as his becomes more scrutinizing, but force myself to hold it.
Sherm settles in at his seat without a word, the shark jaw firm in his clutches. He’s really supposed to wait in the playground with the other students until the bell¸ but I’m not going to turn him away after the trouble I made for him.
“Good morning,” I say to Rob, then, same as every morning this week, mentally kick myself for not coming up with something more clever to show I’m not mortified over what I did, even though I totally am. Something like, You were really good in Gone in 60 Seconds.
Why didn’t I think of that faster?
“Morning,” he returns with a brisk nod.
I know there are things I wanted to say—questions I need answers to. They all scatter from my brain at his paralyzing gaze. I hate that he unnerves me like this.
“I’ll be back at two thirty,” he tells his little brother, then turns for the parking lot.
“Wait!” I call.
He turns and steps back into the door.
“Do you have a second?”
His honey eyes darken a shade, and that curious-uncomfortable look is back.
I gesture with a tip of my head that we should talk outside. He steps back and lets me pass. My shoulder brushes his chest on the way by and holy smokes, he’s solid.
“I just wanted to check that everything was okay with Sherm. Has he seemed anxious or upset about coming to school this week?”
He glances past me at his brother. “No. He seems fine.”
I nod. “Good. Okay . . . good.” I clear my throat. “Also, are there any activities or sports Sherm likes? We’ll be doing PE later, and I’d like to choose something he’s comfortable with.”
His eyes take a sweep of the playground. “He and his friends played a lot of street hockey back home.”
“In Philadelphia?”
His eyes snap back to me and narrow.
“I saw in his school record that’s where you came from.”
“He also likes baseball,” he says. I seem to have his full attention now, his gaze drilling through me. But I don’t miss that he didn’t answer the question.
“Baseball,” I say. “We can do that.”
He nods and turns for the parking lot. “It’s okay if I take my car?” he asks, then looks over his shoulder at me. “You’re not going to alert the local authorities?” His expression is deadpan, but there might be a spark of amusement in his eyes.
“You were really good in Gone in 60 Seconds!” Okay . . . that sounded much more lame out loud than in my head.
He just looks at me like he thinks I’m crazy, but when I glance over my shoulder as I step through the classroom door, I swear I see a smile crack that hard exterior as he heads down the walk.
A giddy little tingle courses through me as I fight a smile. I shake my head at myself. The Hormone Portal strikes again.
When Rob gets to his car, he stands there for a minute with his head down, as if debating something, then looks back toward my room. I know this because I’m stalking him from my classroom window. As his eyes sweep systematically across campus, always alert, I see by the ripple of his forearm, where he grips the door of his car, that every muscle is taut, as if he’s ready to spring.
His physique, intensity, hypervigilance, and all his concern over security . . . it’s all starting to add up. I’d bet my bottom dollar he’s ex-military. When my bestie, Chuck, came back from Afghanistan, he was just like this, always on alert. It took him six months to start to relax.
Finally, Rob gets into his car and pulls away.
I can count on my fingers the number of times Sherm has spoken in the last week, but I have something I hope might bring him out of his shell a little. I started his reading assessment on Monday, but he clammed up with the reading aloud. I know he’s an amazing reader, I just need to find a way to make him comfortable enough to read out loud so I can finish.
“Hey Sherm, look what I found,” I say, fanning out the stack of paperbacks I pulled off Mrs. Martin’s shelf that I hoped might catch his interest.
He looks over the titles, among them Shark Munch, Bullies of the Deep Blue Sea, and Sharks! and plucks A Shark’s Story from my fingers. It’s the thickest of