Page 28 of Beg, Borrow, or Steal

“What is that?” he asks as if his eyes are betraying him.

“A cat.”

“You really do have a cat.”

“You thought I was lying?” I laugh, scoop her up, and nuzzle my face into her fur. Now he really looks like he’s seen a ghost as he watches me snuggle her. Apparently he thought I went home every night and plugged myself into the wall to recharge.

“I’ll admit,” he says, cautiously, “I’ve always pictured you as more likely to wear animals than snuggle them.”

“First, that’s horrendous and I never would. Second…” I lift abrow. “Just how oftendoyou picture me, Jackson?” I guess a little of that flirtation from the road has lingered.

His smile is a feral thing. “More than either of us is comfortable with.”

Oh.

He steps in a little farther and does a complete circle, seemingly taking in the scenery. It makes me nervous. I love my house and my décor, but I live on a teacher’s budget. Everything is pretty minimalist because I enjoy a tidy space. Big white couch. Cozy blankets. Pottery vases passed down from my grandma. Golden-toned, wooden breakfast table and chairs acquired from a yard sale. But there are a few choice pieces in my house that I saved and scraped and eventually splurged on, like my couch, my cushy area rug, and my mattress. Those things were nonnegotiable for me.

Having Mr. Top-of-the-Line-Everything in here is making me antsy. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Is that why there’s one coaster out of place?” he asks, pointing to the rogue one sitting on the arm of my couch instead of the coffee table.

I hurry across the room and return it to its pile, then realize it was a trap. Jack’s motorcycle boots creak on the floor as he moves around slowly to run his eyes over every corner of my space. I half expect him to be taking pictures of anything slightly incriminating. He’ll point and laugh at any mess he can find.

“You decorate your house like your classroom,” he says, eyeing an end table I picked up at Thrift N’ Stuff.

“Well, not all of us are willing to live outside of our means, and—”

He turns to me with a smile. “Let me stop you there. That wasn’t in any way a criticism.” His smile is so warm right now I could roast a marshmallow in front of it. “You have the best classroom atschool. Every year I find myself just trying to keep up. And you thrift a lot of your stuff, right? I think I heard you tell Shirley that once. It’s amazing. Your classroom feels like walking into a home every year.”

Did Jack just compliment me? Like an outright, blatantcompliment.And honestly, it was the greatest one he could have ever given me.

Since the classroom is where my students spend the majority of their days during the school year, I want it to feel like a second home for them. Or maybe a first home when I know they don’t get the love and attention they deserve from their parents.

Every year at least one of my students goes through something terribly difficult. It’s a fact of life. It was a fact ofmylife when my parents died mid-school year. And when it happened to me, I didn’t have a teacher who strove to make my days at school comforting and safe. That’s why I got my degree and teaching license and decided to become the second-grade teacher I needed back then.

And for me, the first step in creating that comfort is ambiance. I strive to make it look like a cozy living room with nice rugs, standing lamps, cushy chairs in various places, and a peace corner where kids can escape to when they need a minute to themselves full of things like fidgets and cute stuffies to snuggle. (All of which are fire marshal approved.) Most people think I spend a lot of money on my classroom décor, but in reality, like Jack said, almost everything is donated or acquired through yard sales and thrift shops. My siblings like to drop stuff off for me now and then too.

Every teacher in our school tries to make their classrooms special in some way, but Jack is the only other one who has ever gone as overboard as me with his decorating. Where my room is a cozy escape, Jack’s classroom is always a sensory explosion. Not in a bad way—but engaging. It’s colorful in all the right places. I would havehated him for how amazing his classroom is if I didn’t also know how much the children deserve it.

“Thank you,” I say, hesitantly. “I just want the kids to feel peaceful when they’re with me.”

He nods. “I need you to go shopping with me when it’s time to furnish my house. You have an eye for decorating that I don’t.” He pauses and grins. “Though I imagine you’d struggle with the amount of color I’d want. If you haven’t noticed I lean toward retro colors. Reds, warm brown. Green.”

As he says it, my beige living room automatically repaints itself in my mind. I’ve never considered it before, but…suddenly it seems even cozier.

And then, as if he hasn’t just completely blown my mind with apologies and compliments and statements about shopping for home goods together, he casually turns to my bookshelf/record collection and peruses my inventory. Natural as can be.

I’ve been openly collecting old records for a while, but my romance book collection has been tucked in a box beneath my bed until last year when I found out my sisters shared the same love of delicious bodice-ripping romances, and I moved them proudly to the bookshelf in my living room. Jack isn’t looking at the romances, though; his eyes are focused on the top shelf at my small collection of mystery novels. It consists of two series. Both were given to me by Noah because he wanted to be included in our book club but didn’t own any romance novels.

Jack’s body is unnaturally still. If not for the subtle rise and fall of his broad shoulders, I might have thought he stopped breathing.

“Jack?”

“I’ve gotta go,” he says quickly on the heels of his name. He pauses on his way out the door. “Thank you…for accepting my apology.”

And then he’s gone.

June 4

---