it dropped to inspect her nails, her green eyes were filled with something between mortification and amusement.
“My sister asked about you,” she said. “It was nothing. This is just my daily reminder of what a child can absorb when you think they’re really not paying attention.”
Hunter rolled out of his pose, grinning at the ceiling and propping his hands underneath his head. “This is such an interesting session. What else did your mom say?”
Adi’s nose wrinkled. “She said—”
“Shut it,” April snapped jokingly, widening her eyes at her daughter. “Do they look like girls to you?”
Adi’s warm brown eyes came to me first, then went to Hunter before she shook her head. “Nope.”
“Then we don’t tell them what was said when we were having girl talk.” She smiled sweetly. “Now, weren’t you in the middle of something?”
“We were,” I said, even though I was burning to know what else had been said about me. I never would’ve thought that she’d discuss me with anyone at all, much less that I would’ve been the subject of classified girl talk.
I’d gotten the general gist of it from Adi’s comments, though. If I was correct, then I needed to set the record straight at some point. Money, or lack thereof, had never been a deciding factor in who I dated and never would be.
As for the movie reference, well, not every guy with money who got involved with a woman without any could be equated to that story. April wasn’t a hooker, for starters. But also, I wasn’t interested in paying anyone for their company. Surely, that set us apart from the movie.
Even so, April avoided my gaze for the rest of the session and I didn’t get a chance to speak with her privately to let her know what I thought.
We kept explaining what they could expect, showed some basic exercises Adi could start with at once, and made sure to answer all their questions.
When our hour was up, April hopped off the bench and finally looked at me again.
“Where do we go from here? Will you call me to schedule the next session, or do we do that now?”
Oh, so now we’re all business again? I sighed internally. I liked getting those glimpses of who she was when her shields were down, but it didn’t seem like she lowered them very often.
While I understood that she was probably embarrassed, I couldn’t see so much as a trace of it anywhere on her features. “I’d like to see Adi three times a week. We can look at our schedules now to find the times, or we’ll give you a call. We’ve got a few minutes before our next session.”
“Okay, let’s do it now.” April fished her phone out of her pocket while Hunter suddenly appeared with the tablet we kept our calendar on. “Is there any possibility we can do it when my shift ends? My sister will be dropping Adi off for me, so she’ll be at the hospital anyway.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
Hunter nodded. “Let’s go through your shifts for the next two weeks and see if we can work around them. Then we’ll see how that works before we schedule the next sessions.”
“That’s perfect,” she replied, taking the tablet from him and speaking while she compared our calendar to hers. “I have to do more shifts to work in some of the time I’ve been out, so we might just be able to make this work despite how busy you guys are.”
She whistled between her teeth as her eyes darted from her screen to ours. “Wow. You really are busy, but I think I’ve worked us in.”
When she’d found suitable slots that were available, Hunter added their names and grinned at Adi. “We’ll see you around, kid.”
He glanced at April and lifted his fist for a bump. “Good luck with the extra shifts. Those hours can really suck.”
“You’ll be a welcome face back,” I commented without thinking, and I saw Hunter bringing his palm to his face from the corner of my eye.
Well, this is an awkward end of the day for us.
April nodded after a beat. “Okay, then.”
She took Adi’s hand and led her out of the room. I groaned out loud when the door banged shut behind them.
“You’ll be a welcome face back?” Hunter cracked up, shaking his head at me. “That was smooth, bro. Really.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, but he completely ignored me.
“You know what would help you come back from that?” he asked, but I could tell