Least Likely to Fall in Love (7 page)

He had no crazy hopes that he’d escape an inquisition, but he just couldn’t confess his sins to his daughter. Ever since it had been just the two of them, they’d been so close. Learning he’d been an asshole in an earlier form would interfere with that, damage it beyond repair. He couldn’t risk that now. Maddie needed him. That Eric boy had been way too interested.

He tried deflection. “Pretty dumb not to slap on a glove, right?” He waved his hand in front of her face. Sometimes annoying Maddie could derail her plots.

But not this time. “Yeah. So, I could tell you guys had a history. It didn’t end well.” Her eyes were bright with curiosity.

He flipped the air conditioner on. “It just sort of ended, not good or bad.”

“Were you friends in high school?” Her eyes got huge as she considered the possibilities. “Boyfriend and girlfriend?” Her voice squeaked at the end, but he couldn’t tell if she was happy or unhappy, mad or sad or glad.

“No.” And that was all he was going to say on the issue.

When she started to speak, he talked over her. “Listen, it’s been just you and me for a long time now. What would you think if I started to date again? Not Principal Mason.” If that was her only objection, he could sort of understand it.

Maddie’s eyes were huge at this point. He was doubly glad they weren’t surrounded by an inch of black. That might have been a spooky effect.

When she didn’t answer, Ryan shrugged. Maybe this was a bad idea for another reason besides the fact that his current obsession hated his guts. Maddie was number one with him.

No matter how tempting he found a certain principal or spending time with a woman who
liked
him.

He glanced over at her and she was shaking her head as she stared out the window. She was still processing it. All circuits were busy at this point.

Finally, she sighed. “I don’t want to get up in the morning and run into Principal Mason in the bathroom, you know?” The revulsion on her face was dramatic. He’d laugh about it. Later.

And she was pretty clear. It wasn’t time to start dating yet, no matter what parts of his body told him it was past time. Way past time.

She huffed. “But that’s not fair, is it? I guess…If you want to…” She scratched her forehead. “Ask someone out then.”

But not Lindy. That was the answer he was getting. And that should make him happy.

Lindy’d nearly ripped his heart out on the turf beside the field house. Working his way through her fortified defenses would be a nightmare and require patience he didn’t have. Besides that, he already carried the guilt of the stupid shit he’d done as a kid. If he did manage to talk his way around her objections and then hurt her again, he’d have to face the fact that he was just an awful person, not a decent man who’d made bad decisions.

But when he thought about the way it felt to hold her next to him, her sweet flowery smell, how she fit, and never, ever kissing her, he was sad. Morose. Deflated. He’d have to get out the thesaurus to find other words because sad didn’t cut it. If he didn’t pursue her, he’d be missing something special. Then he realized that she was absolutely right. This wasn’t a romantic comedy. She’d deserved better as a girl. She deserved only the best now.

Unfortunately, coming home, facing his history and his mistakes, reminded him that he didn’t qualify as the best in any way.

Maddie was staring hard out the side window. And the fact was that he already had something special, something better than he deserved. His relationship with his daughter was more important than anything else.

Daydreaming about Lindy was just wishful thinking, a way to answer his guilty conscience or something. He’d just open his eyes and spend some time assessing his options. There were other women, plenty of women who wouldn’t leave finger-shaped bruises in the middle of his chest if he got too close or make him lie awake at night with his past mistakes on a constant loop.

He’d had a chance to know Lindy. If he’d done the right thing then, everything now would be different.

But he hadn’t. And the truth was that, no matter what he wanted, staying away from Principal Mason was better for her. And he was man enough to do the right thing now. As he finished the short drive home, he pondered all the words he knew for sad. Despondent was a good one.

Lindy had done her best all week not to think about the confronting Ryan behind the field house. Every time she had a quiet moment, the memory of his arms and Ryan Myers close enough to touch would sack her like she was a slow-moving quarterback. If he’d leaned closer or moved faster, she might know what it was like to kiss Ryan today.

School was good for distraction. Whether it was a good day or a bad day, there were always a million phone calls and enough paperwork to keep three principals busy. Unfortunately, it was just an average week. There was no good reason to cancel her appointment with Maddie, no matter how badly she wanted to. And she couldn’t be selfish enough to choose avoiding the past over helping Maddie. So here they were again.

“Thanks so much for pitching in to help out with the new artwork, Maddie. I know Coach Ford is pretty happy about all the work that we accomplished over the weekend.”

Maddie worried a loose thread on her jacket cuff but didn’t answer.

“How have your classes been this week?” Lindy had no idea whether it was her own discomfort alone, but the air in the office was disappearing rapidly. Getting help with the conversation would pump in some oxygen.

Instead, Maddie shrugged a shoulder. “Fine.”

“How’d the Spanish test go?” Lindy rolled her pen across the desk and then forced her hands away from it again.

“Got an A.” Her tone of voice said that they both had known she would.

Lindy slumped in her chair. While she wracked her brain for another topic, she rolled her shoulders and did her best to relax her neck. “Okay. You don’t want to talk about that. What would you like to talk about?”

Maddie stared holes in her jacket. “How did you know my dad in high school?”

Why this moment had never occurred to her when she’d come up with the brilliant idea to bring in her yearbook, Lindy had no clue. Showing Maddie pictures of her own awkward years was only supposed to prove that she knew what she was talking about, not stir up old hurts.

She should have kept a firm grip on the book. Of course, that would have had no impact on the fact that she and Ryan were on the same damn page.

She prided herself on her intelligence, but she could still pull some bonehead moves.

“We were in the same class. That’s all. I didn’t know your dad well. There were almost two hundred kids in my graduating class. We were part of different groups. You know how that is.” Lindy did her best to deliver it all with a breezy, lighthearted tone that sounded one-hundred percent natural.

When Maddie frowned as she considered the answer, Lindy wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off.

“When you were bullied, what happened?”

Lindy licked her lips. There had to be a way out of this tight spot. “We aren’t here to talk about my experience today. I’d rather hear about yours. Have you had any more trouble with Rob or Blake this week?”

Maddie waved her hand. “No, no trouble. Rob waved at me in the cafeteria on Wednesday. That’s never happened before.” She wrinkled her nose. “That kid Eric’s been a bigger nuisance. He sits with me at lunch now. I think he’s flirting.”

Lindy wanted to do a victory dance. Boy talk was easy. And diverting. “Are you flirting back? He’s kinda cute, right?”

Maddie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m not trying to.”

“How come?”

Maddie snorted. “I don’t want to be one of those fake girls, you know? Even if he is the first boy to treat me like anything other than a cootie carrier.”

Lindy laughed. “Well, flirting because you like somebody back isn’t fake at all, is it? Plus, it’s fun.”

Maddie’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”

Lindy rolled the pen on her desk. “So, Rob and Blake are treating you better. Do you see other instances of bullying around the halls?”

Maddie straightened in her seat. “You aren’t going to ask me to name people, are you? Because I don’t—”

Lindy shook her head. “Nope. Unless you want to. I just want us to talk about what the right response to bullying is. Not just for you, but everybody.”

Maddie relaxed against the chair again. “I know, I know. If you see something, you’re supposed to say something. But I… Most people are afraid that the bullies will just turn on them.”

Lindy nodded. “Sure, but you know who shouldn’t be afraid of bullies? Teachers. Do you think people who see something should be afraid to talk to teachers?”

Maddie said, “Some people are.”

Lindy hated that answer. “I wish there was some way to fix that. Bullying was bad enough when I was a kid, but today it’s like… It’s just dangerous. Life and death sometimes.”

Maddie’s lips twitched but she didn’t say anything.

“It’s one thing to be afraid to flirt with somebody because attracting any attention is scary. It’s a whole different thing to be afraid of death.” Lindy glanced out her grimy window and waited for Maddie.

“I’m not afraid to flirt because of last week. It’s just… I don’t know how to do it very well.” Her eyeliner-free eyes were serious. She looked entirely too young to be worried about flirting and boys, but there was no way on earth Lindy would say that out loud.

Lindy smiled. “I wasn’t talking about you, but the thing about flirting is that it just takes practice. You shouldn’t be afraid to give it a shot. You’re smart enough to ace the test of letting Eric know you like him.”

Maddie scooted forward and picked up the pen off of the spotlessly clean surface of Lindy’s desk. “Principal Mason, you said we aren’t here to talk about you but we sorta are. Because you understand, right? So I’d like to know more about what happened to you and what you did to get over it.”

Lindy glanced at the tiny clock on her computer. Twenty minutes. That’s all she had to navigate here, maybe less. She crossed her fingers that Ryan would arrive early.

As she cleared her throat, Lindy battled the urge to tap her fingernails on the desk. “I moved to Lincoln just before eleventh grade.” She sighed. “This is a particularly bad time to start in a new school. Everyone had gone to school together since kindergarten, so I was an outsider and…” She shrugged a shoulder. “I was a little weird, too.”

When Maddie didn’t say anything, Lindy said, “My parents had just divorced, and my mom had gotten a job at the hospital. She was a nurse, made pretty good money, but it was still hard to be the only parent, the only income. We lived over by the interstate.” Maddie understood exactly what that meant. She and her mom hadn’t starved, but they certainly hadn’t lived on the right side of town, either.

“Instead of trying to be cool and different like you, I just did my best to fit in. But I was never right, you know? My hair didn’t do what it was supposed to do, my clothes were close but they never had the right brand name. And I was way too smart. Ruining the curve will put a big target on your back, especially when you’re the new kid in town.”

Lindy checked the clock again and mentally cursed at just how little time had passed. “Lots of names, usually related to my height or weight. I don’t know if it was the divorce or the new place or what, but I made a much bigger target. Going into the bathroom might be fine or it might be a nightmare because of the way girls talk. I was nominated for homecoming queen as a joke.” She pressed both hands flat on the desk. “That was my senior year. Thank God I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Once someone put a note in my locker to let me know that he and his friends had spent some solid time in the bathroom talking about my breasts. The picture was…not artistic.”

Maddie was silent and sat with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“And I didn’t tell anyone about it.” Lindy tangled her fingers together in a knot on top of the desk. “I did my best to show everyone none of it bothered me. But it did.”

Lindy smiled. “And then I graduated. And I went to college with all kinds of people, none of whom had been friends since the cradle. I tried new things. I crossed overalls off of my list of possibilities. Eventually, I met a boy who made me want to try flirting. I made good grades and no one wanted to murder me for them. I graduated with honors. I worked as a teacher and got my Master’s degree and now I’m back at here at Lincoln but I’m running the place.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Like a boss.”

Lindy waited tensely for Maddie’s quiet laugh. When it came, she heaved a mental sigh of relief. Whenever she used a catch phrase around the kids, she worried she would get it wrong.

When she realized how close a resemblance that thought bore to her high school self, Lindy wanted to smack her own forehead. No matter how hard she tried to get away from that girl, she kept coming around when she least expected it.

“Maddie, the thing is… This is just the beginning. Life isn’t like high school. At the same time, no one deserves to be afraid to come to school. I want everyone to feel safe here, so that they can get started on figuring out where they’re headed.”

After another glance at the clock, Lindy took a deep breath. If Ryan wasn’t here yet, he would be soon. She’d make it out of this alive.

When Maddie’s phone beeped, a sure sign of a text from her father telling her he was waiting, Lindy had to fight the urge to throw her hands up in the air. Maddie didn’t even glance at it.

“Maddie, what are you thinking? Have you faced anything like that?” So help her, if she heard about anyone sexually harassing another person in her school, she was going to go full-on prison warden here, warrior princess style.

Maddie blinked quickly and sniffed. “No, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Lindy huffed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s good.”

Maddie pulled her phone out and checked her text. “Dad’s out front.”

Lindy put both hands on her desk and stood. “Great. Next week, let’s brainstorm ways to help other students who are bullied.” Thinking about Rob and his wave in the cafeteria, she added, “And to educate the bullies without singling them out.” If they could figure that out, they ought to patent the system and make millions. Every school in the nation was dealing with bullying in varying degrees. And probably many workplaces. And just about anyone with an internet connection.

“Okay, let me grab my stuff and I’ll walk out with you.”

Maddie waited patiently and Lindy tried to assess her mood as she grabbed her purse and followed her out of the office and down the hall to the steps in front of the school.

Maddie waved at her dad but didn’t move to go down the stairs.

Lindy stopped with her. “Everything okay, Maddie?”

She turned her phone over and over in her hand. “Well, I was just wondering…” She glanced over at the truck and then tucked a curl behind her ear. “You know, when Rob waved at me, there was this sort of relief that the whole thing was over. I didn’t have to worry about seeing him again. You know?”

“That’s great. I’m so glad that Rob’s big enough to make a step in the right direction.” Lindy made a mental note that she still needed to talk to Rob. Understanding why he’d been involved was critical to stopping his behavior.

“Have you ever confronted your bullies, Principal Mason? Do you worry about running into them again? Like, wonder what you’d say if they showed up out of the blue?”

Crap. The danger of working with a smart kid was that they were bound to pick up on things that were better off glossed over. “I used to. Now, I just… I have everything together and it would be hard to hurt me like that now, you know?”

“Are you sure about that?” Then Maddie trotted down the steps and over to the truck. With a quick wave, she slid in and Ryan drove away.

When Lindy was sure she could navigate the stairs without missing a step and breaking her neck, she did the same. Eventually, she realized her tight grip on the key ring was causing tingles in her fingers and loosened her grip.

Put on the spot like that, Lindy wasn’t certain the right answer had come out. And she had a hunch that Maddie knew more than she was telling and that her question about whether she really had it all together was uncomfortably close to the heart of the matter.

***

When Maddie plopped down in the passenger seat and slammed the door, Ryan tore his gaze away from Lindy. She was a statue at the top of the steps. Today, instead of the business-y suit or the too-cute jeans and Lincoln High T-shirt he’d seen her in on previous occasions, she was wearing some kind of silky dress. The skirt fluttered around her knees in a light breeze and her hair twirled behind her. If she’d licked her lips, he might have died on the spot. But he was going to move on. Maddie didn’t want him dating Principal Mason. Lindy certainly didn’t want his attention. That should be enough for him, too.

“You know what bothers me, Dad?” Maddie reached over to twist the radio knob to land on her favorite pop station. The dangerous expression on her face dared him to say anything, so he bit back his complaint.

“What?” Ryan did his best not to cringe. Clearly, this was going to be a doozy.

“The best case scenario is that you didn’t do anything to stop the bullies. Even a hundred years ago, the classes here at Lincoln were small enough that it would be hard to miss someone picking on Principal Mason.”

Ryan bit his lip. He had nothing to say.

Maddie shook her head. “But that would be a relief, because the other choice is that you were one of the bullies.” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head and blinked like she was fighting tears.