Page 53 of Substitute for Love

CLAIRE: Meet me for lunch? Or during a prep period or whatever?

CLAIRE: Please…. Gabey baby?

Gah.His jaw tightened. He hated when she called him that. He closed his eyes. She wasn’t going to leave him alone.

GABE: Fine. Prep period after lunch. Meet you in front of your gym. I’ll text when I get there.

He closed his phone and tried not to think about what in the world she wanted. To get back together? To explain herself?

“You texting the other sub down the hall?” a student on the front row blurted. Everyone else giggled.

Gabe shook his head. “I’m texting the principal about your behavior.”

“Oooh!” A bunch of students reacted and the student in question smirked.

“Alright, how about five more minutes? I’m dying to talk about history!” he said excitedly while the students groaned.

He paced the classroom, monitoring students as they worked, all the while trying not to think about Claire. Or Avery. Or the food near his desk.

Finally the lunch bell rang and all the students scattered. He pulled a small table from the corner of the room into the front near the white board, then wiped it clean with a Clorox wipe. He looked around, wondering if teachers kept tablecloths in their classrooms.

He shook his head. “Not a date. This is friends. Eating together.” As he placed the food on the table, a little knock sounded. Avery peeked in through the window. She smiled, and his heart warmed.

Good grief. Get it together, man.

The door creaked open as he placed the last of the food on the table. Avery came in. “Oh, wow. Look at this feast!”

Gabe ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s nothing. Glorified Lunchables.”

“It looks great. I’m starving after the morning I’ve had.” She pulled up a chair across from him and sat as he handed her a paper plate he’d brought.

“Oh? Creative writing isn’t all unicorns and rainbows, eh?” He sat across from her, but waited until she filled her plate before he loaded up his own.

She shrugged. “I don’t get it. These kids come here to learn, right? They might as well make the most of it. Maybe I’m the odd one out, but I think creative writing is fun.”

He smirked. “I hate to break it to you but you are a little odd.”

She scowled playfully, reached across the table and whacked him on the shoulder. “Hey!”

Rubbing his shoulder playfully, he almost asked if she worked out at the gym, but he didn’t want to go down a road that could possibly lead to Claire. He was not looking forward to meeting up with her after this. He tried to put it out of his mind and focus on the moment.

Avery put together a sandwich of crackers, meat, and cheese. “Everybody likes stories. Books. Movies. Digging up fossils and figuring out the story of an ancient civilization.” She winked at him, and he tried not to read anything into it. He stared at her eyes, then her lips, wishing they could relive the moment in his truck on Saturday.

“Hello? Gabe? You okay?”

Snapping back into focus, he smiled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We love stories. But maybe we like consuming them and aren’t sure how to create them. How do you teach someone to make a story from scratch?”

She looked up as if in thought, bobbing her head as she considered his question.

Gabe nibbled a cracker on its edges, turning it around and around until the cracker disappeared. “I can take stuff I find on a dig site and put the puzzles together to create what I think makes sense. But how do you make something up?” He shrugged. “No idea. I bet most of your students don’t either. They need somewhere to start. To get the ideas flowing.”

Avery followed his cracker devouring with amusement as she rested her head on her hand. “You are a paradox, you know that?”

“What do you mean?” A few cracker crumbs flew out of his mouth and they both cracked up laughing.

“I mean, here you are nibbling a cracker like a little kid, yet you have such mature insights.”

He reached over and took her hand in his. “Thank you, Avery. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

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