Page 60 of Stay Toxic

And that sound seemed to draw Shasha’s attention like a beacon.

One second his gaze was on his sister, and the next he was staring at me with an intensity that had me squirming in my chair.

“Is that the guy?” she whispered. “The one McCoy was talking about a few days ago?”

I swallowed hard, unable to break the eye contact with the man across the room, and said, “Yes.”

“He’s gorgeous,” she whispered again. “The red tie with the black suit is…wow. I thought I only liked a man in cowboy boots and Wranglers. This is a definite positive.”

I’d only ever dated men that were a bit more rugged.

And I wasn’t saying that Shasha wasn’t rugged, because he was. I’d felt his hands on me, and they definitely weren’t smooth, baby-face hands. They were rough and callused, denoting a level of work ethic that you didn’t get from not working with your hands.

But he cleaned up really, really well.

“I feel like I need a fan,” she whispered. “He’s looking at you like you’re his personal kryptonite.”

I snorted. “He wants nothing to do with me. Every time I’m near him, he’s warning me away.”

“Well,” she said as she stood up, forcing us to break eye contact with her body. “I’d love to stay and chat, but there is a bottle calf that needs to be fed here in a bit. McCoy is running ragged, and I promised her I would help. Check in when you get to Houston. If you stop, text. When you go anywhere, text.”

I smiled at my sister and stood up, too.

It was time for me to leave as well.

Even if the last thing I wanted to do was leave the coffee shop where Shasha was.

“I’ll call or text,” I promised as I turned my back on Shasha. “And if you and McCoy still need help Tuesday when I get home, let me know. I don’t go back to work until Wednesday of next week.”

“Aces.” She smiled. “You know she can always put you to work. I have to go to work Monday, so I won’t be there.”

We said our goodbyes and the two of us walked out of the coffee shop.

I was very much aware of the eyes on me the entire time, though.

I only looked back once, and when I did, it was to see the woman who was standoffish with her family staring hard. But not in a bad way. In a way that had me thinking she was very much aware of something that was between her brother and me, she just didn’t know what.

Yet.

I had a feeling she would find out what it was that Shasha and I shared, even if it was a whole bunch of nothing.

I’ve wasted half my life telling people how to pronounce my name.

—Brecken to Shasha

BRECKEN

I hated teacher work conferences.

I hated even more that continuing education was mandatory for a job that I already worked a whole lot of overtime for.

Yet, there I was, at a teacher conference with ten other teachers from my school and was getting separated from them into ‘houses.’

See, to make it “fun” the organizers of this conference had a great idea.

That ‘great idea’ was separating us ALL up and putting us into Harry Potter houses. Or, maybe not actual Harry Potter houses—I was loath to admit this, but I’d never read Harry Potter once—but houses that were loosely based on Harry Potter houses.

Protos, Altruismo, Reveur, Amistad, Isbindi.

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