the four, and has a picture of a hammerhead shark swimming through an old shipwreck on the cover.
“That one look good?”
He nods and flips open the cover.
“Do you like to read, Sherm?” I ask.
His eyes lift to mine and he nods again.
“Do you have a favorite book?”
He looks at the paperback in his hand. “Harry Potter,” he says on a breath.
“Me too! Which one do you like best?”
His gaze flicks to me and he shrugs.
“How many of the Harry Potter books have you read?” I ask.
“All of them,” he says, flipping a page in the book.
Progress.
I shift a hip onto my desk. “Did someone read them to you?”
He shakes his head.
“You read them yourself?” I say with a grin. “That’s amazing, Sherm.”
Something that might be pride flickers in his gaze as he lifts it from his book to me, but then it fades back into the sadness that’s always there.
The bell rings and students start filtering into the room. “If you want, you can take that home tonight,” I say, gesturing to his shark book.
He doesn’t answer.
I look at him a moment longer before making my way to my desk, wishing I could see past his skin to what’s making him so sad.
Despite several warnings yesterday, Jason and his buddies continue to pick on Sherm, finally knocking him down in the playground at afternoon recess. I escort Jason and his cohorts to the school office, then bring Sherm back to the classroom to clean up. Once his scraped palm is bandaged up, I pick up the phone to call Rob, but then think better of it. This is a conversation I’d rather have face-to-face. He needs to know that Sherm was hurt, but there are things I need to know too. It seems to me Sherm’s scraped hand might be the least of his hurts. Rob’s guard is always up, and it would be too easy for him to evade my questions on the phone, but something happens between us when I look into those incredible eyes. Something that I don’t think strong, silent Big Brother likes. I have a sneaking sense his eyes truly are the windows to his soul, and I want to be looking into them when I ask the tough questions.
But by the time two thirty rolls around, I’m nervous. More nervous than I should be about having a guardian-teacher chat about a troubled student. I wait at my desk as students file out the door, but when I see Sherm stand along with the rest of them and start to shuffle past me, I spring to my feet. “Your brother’s not coming in for you?”
He shakes his head.
I follow Sherm out the door, but everything in me screeches to a halt in a shower of sparks, like an engineer throwing on the brakes of a moving freight train, when I see Big Brother’s not alone. There’s a woman standing very close to him, and they appear to be in the middle of a heated conversation. She reaches for his face and brushes the backs of her fingers over his stubbled cheek, and when she backs away, I see she’s really pretty. What appear to be designer clothes fit like a glove over curves that make me look like an adolescent boy by comparison. Hair that sandy color between brown and blond falls in long waves nearly to her perfect, round butt. When Sherm reaches them, she leans down and wraps him in a hug that melts my heart. She obviously loves them both, a fact that simultaneously cinches and lightens my heart. If Sherm has support at home, that’s half the battle. And if Rob has a woman who loves him, maybe she can help him past the PTSD I suspect he has. It was stupid of me to think a guy like that would be unattached.
When my eyes shift to Rob, his intense gaze is locked on me.
Oh, God. Could this get any more mortifying? What happened last week with his car was embarrassing enough, but now he probably thinks I’m some kind of sick voyeur. I take a deep breath and start up the walkway. Rob says something to the woman, who nods and opens Sherm’s door for him, then starts toward me, meeting me halfway.
I can’t keep my gaze from sweeping over his hands on the way to his face. His only ring is the topaz pinky ring on his right hand, so maybe she’s a girlfriend? Or maybe he just doesn’t