Page 74 of Love Lessons

Look what you’re doing to her, I told myself. Kissing her here, inside this school? How stupid and reckless. I should’ve just left her alone, but now I had her completely and utterly freaked out. I’d done nothing for this woman except give her another problem to be anxious about.

And she hadn’t even read what I’d written in that book yet.

I considered stealing it off her desk before I left, but ultimately, I decided the damage was already done. My feelings for her weren’t exactly a mystery. The words I’d written inside that book would only confirm what she already knew.

When I left that day, my goodbye felt more final—because I wasn’t sure I should return at all. The only way to kick this addiction we both had was to put some space between us, right? We clearly couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves. “I’m sorry,” I said, lingering in the doorway between her classroom and the hall.

“It’s fine,” she assured me—but her faux smile said it was anything but.

It was time to let this die.

* *

“Oh. My. God. Finding out the art guy knows the STEM guy is the best thing that has happened to me all day.”

My favorite purple-haired barista, whose name I still didn’t know despite becoming an essential part of my morning routine, was completely beside herself when Owen and I walked into Riverside Coffee together. “We’re actually cousins,” I informed her as I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket.

Her mouth dropped open. “Mind. Blown.” She put her hands up to the side of her head and theatrically mimicked an explosion. “My two favorite customers are cousins? I am so not okay right now. It’s like two worlds colliding.”

Owen and I laughed, and then I turned to him, saying, “Hey, let me get your coffee, since this meeting was my idea.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t fight me on this. “All right,” he said, stepping aside so I could pay for our drinks. He had no idea why we were here, and when he saw me step out of the Jeep with a folder under my arm, he raised his eyebrows in confusion. I had my father’s voice inside my head—all of those little tidbits of old-school advice he’d given me years ago when I first entered the workforce. Don’t let them pay. Take the lead. Control the conversation. Wear a tie.

Using those tactics on my cousin felt a little dirty, but I’d spent all weekend formulating the perfect plan for mine and Finley’s lives—and a lot of that banked on how well this meeting went.

I was not, however, wearing a tie.

We sat at a table in the corner. “I come here some afternoons just to be around other humans for a little bit,” Owen said as he sat down. “Entrepreneurship can be a little isolating.”

Perfect segue. “Agreed. So, is most of your team remote, then?”

“Yeah. Mostly. That seems to work better for everyone.” He held his coffee cup with both hands and looked down at the folder in front of me. “So whatcha got there, cuz?”

I took a deep breath. “I have a few ideas I want to share with you. And just—I promise there’s a point to all of it, okay?” I waited for him to nod before continuing, opening the folder as I spoke. “I’ve spent the last few days learning everything I can about STEM for the Win. I’ve scoured all the content you’re putting out there across all the platforms. And there are a few areas you’re not tapping into that I think you could be.”

Owen’s eyebrows raised and he sat up a little straighter, glancing at the papers in front of me. “Okay,” he said, nodding with a grin. “Let’s hear them.”

“Right. So, first of all, look at this,” I said, handing him the sheet that broke down one of my ideas. “I think you can offer teachers a database of STEM clip art and stock photos via a monthly subscription. This is something I could work on for you—your content would be one hundred percent original.”

Owen looked over the sheet of paper I’d given him that broke this project idea down into three columns. “Oh—wow. I hadn’t thought of something like that.”

“I know my way around a DSLR camera, and obviously I could provide you with unique clip art. Something like this can consistently bring in extra income for you each month.”

“You’re right about that,” he said, glancing up at my face. “You officially have my attention.”

“Good,” I said, sliding another paper across the table. “Because there’s more ideas where that came from.” I spent the next fifteen minutes or so revealing to Owen all the information I’d spent all weekend outlining—custom character illustrations, SFTW merch designs, a better and more unique website, and ways to incorporate art into his STEM projects. “You know a lot of schools are calling it STEAM now?”

Owen nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been looking for ways to add art into the mix—that’s not exactly my area of expertise.”

“Well,” I said, glancing at the barista, who was half-hidden behind the register to watch a video on her phone. I turned back to him. “Every STEM guy needs an art guy, right?”

Owen smiled at me for a long time. “Mason, this is…” He inhaled, flipping the pages in front of him with his thumb. “This is all really amazing stuff.”

“You like my ideas?”

He nodded emphatically. “Yeah, every single one of them.”

“Good,” I said, leaning slightly forward as I prepared myself to get to the point. “I want to be the one to integrate all of these things.”

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