Page 13 of Substitute for Love

AVERY: Yeah. Twice my age. Jumpsuit. So sexy.

CLAIRE: Does he have any friends for me? Lol

“See ya, Hal. I left a huge mess for you in room 101.”

Avery looked up. Gabe was waving at the janitor.

“That’ll cost you extra!” the janitor yelled back.

Was there anyone Gabe didn't know?

Avery noticed Gabe noticing her, so she dipped her chin down and pretended to go back to texting, heat tingling on her cheeks and ears. Again, she almost told Claire about the hot sub, because Claire would eat that sort of thing up. And yes, Gabe was hot. Adorable, goofy, and completely steaming hot.

Instead, she texted her mom.

AVERY: Coming home soon. Do you need me to pick up anything from the grocery store?

She glanced up and Gabe was gone. Avery took a deep breath and sighed. It was just as well he wasn’t there. This long day of awkward interactions with him needed to end. Plus, herfeet ached. She limped a little as she opened the health app on her phone. Nearly eight thousand steps. She screenshotted it and shared it with Claire.

AVERY: I didn’t even need to go to the gym today. Check it out!

CLAIRE: Did you lift weights, too?

She slammed into someone as she walked towards front of the office. “Oof. Sorry.” Embarrassed, she looked up from her phone. “I wasn’t… You again?”

“Ouch.” Gabe playfully rubbed his shoulder, smirking. “Are you following me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Returning this.” She held up her sub binder. Hard to believe it had only been that morning since she was handed the wrong one. School days were longer as a teacher than as a student.

Turning to Doreen, Avery handed her the binder. “So, is there any way to, I don’t know, make the sub binders look different from each other? Mine and his got mixed up this morning.”

Doreen appeared surprised, but in a giddy smiley sort of way. “Oh, dear. That was definitely an accident. No one would ever do such a thing on purpose.” A twinkle in her eye made Avery suspicious.

“See ya tomorrow, Doreen,” Gabe said, then held the front door open for Avery, the blaring sun and wave of oven-type heat reminding her to fish for her sunglasses out of her purse.

Once they were outside, he said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s always trying to play matchmaker. She almost set me up on a date with the fifty-year-old vice principal.”

Avery cackled and quickly covered her mouth. “No way. She did not. Did you go out with her?” She giggled at the thought of an older woman fawning over Gabe.

“Nah. She shut me down. It’s been hard to show my face around here.”

Avery tried not to laugh.

He stopped at the curb, eyeing Avery as she walked towards him and stopped next to him, the closeness bringing added heat.

She swallowed. “Are you ever serious about anything?”

“Are you evernotserious about anything?”

Touche.“Well, I gotta get going,” she said. Then she remembered her car wasn’t even in the parking lot. It was all the way across the street in the neighborhood. If Gabe had arrived after her, where had he parked? He literally walked straight ahead to almost the closest spot and opened the door of his small red pickup truck.

She gawked. “How did you get that spot?”

He shrugged. “What? The teacher I subbed for left right as I arrived.”

Avery shook her head. If only half of her life could work out as well as it did for Gabe the Hero Sub. While she was over here trying to figure out how to put her life back together. Unlike super sub Gabe, who had everyone at the school wrapped around his finger.

She limped forward, again cursing her poor choice of footwear. Then came the hum of Gabe’s truck inching along right next to her. At first, she refused to turn her head. She didn’t want him to think she was desperate, or needed him, or liked him, or…

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