Page 44 of The Friend Game

I bite back a smile as my stomach flips. He wanted to see me! My heart does a little happy dance in my chest.

“Well, Pastor Abbott, let me let you in on a little secret.” I tap a finger to my lips, before continuing. “I’ve been trying to come up with an excuse to see you all week too.” Luke’s answering smile makes me forget about Belinda for a second, and my mind wanders back to my earlier pottery fantasy as I get lost in the rivers of his eyes that flow into the seas of mine— just like in the song. Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the Righteous Brothers singing that very line.

“You know if you two walk around the school gazing at each other like that no one will buy your just friends story,” Belinda’s teasing voice cuts through our moment and both of us hop to attention; Luke shoving his hands into his pockets and me running a hand through my hair.

Luke lets out a shaky laugh. “Not sure what you mean, Belinda.”

“Sure.” Belinda rolls her eyes, then turns back to the record player. I realize with a start that “Unchained Melody” wasn’t just playing in my head— Belinda turned on my Righteous Brothers record. I was actually hearing it. Which means Luke was also hearing it!

I can’t decide if this is embarrassing or not. I don’t have time to give it much thought since Luke is now backing out the door, a look of regret on his face. A spasm of guilt pulses through me. The last thing I want is to mess up Luke’s job. Belinda’s last comment clearly upset him, and I understand why. The last thing he needs are rumors about us floating around.

“I should go,” he says. Belinda checks her watch.

“Me too, I have a class in ten minutes.”

Luke gives me one last smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Chapter 16

THINGS GOING WELL in my life the last couple of weeks: teaching, art club, the trajectory of my bank account.

Things not going well in my life the last couple of weeks: my waiting for Luke plan.

Or the friend game, as I’ve taken to calling it.

After Belinda called us out for being too flirty with each other, Luke made himself scarce. Outside of Wednesday chapel service (where he's up on stage, and I’m sitting in a chair so far away that he could get a restraining order against me and I’d be well within my rights to sit there) and the occasional hallway sighting, I haven’t seen him.

As we’ve been over: I get it, I really do. But also: it stinks. I’m choosing to focus on the good things, though. After all, not having a boyfriend affords me plenty of extra time to do important things like stare at the pottery wheel in my storage room and debate with my inner self whether or not to use it. And hoo-boy do those debates get heated.Presidential candidates would kill for the skills my inner self has.

Today there’s another art club meeting though, which means less time for conversations with my pottery wheel. I finish setting up the supplies for today’s project: Christmas wreaths. Thanksgiving was last week, so today seemed like a good day to hop into a holiday project. Or at least that’s what I thought.

The eleven students who file into my room ten minutes later couldn’t disagree more.

“We want to do pottery,” a fourth grader named Agatha announces, and her fellow art club members all start chiming in with their agreement.

“But it’s the holiday season,” I sing-song with false bravado. “Don’t you think it will be fun to make your own decorations?” I gesture to the metal wreath frames set up on the tables in front of them.

“My mom already has two wreaths on our front door,” Mia says with a shrug.

“Yeah mine too,” Agatha agrees. “And she had them made by an interior decorator, so I don’t think she’ll take them down to display one of mine.”

This is why I should have gotten a fake teaching job at a normal school. One where the kids have never even heard of an interior decorator.

“Please, Aunt Hannah.” This is from Ellie who’s sitting with her hands clasped in front of her,her lower lip jutted ever so slightly out. I’ve seen her use this exact pose on her dad. Now I understand why he usually gives in.

“What’s the point of having a pottery wheel if we never use it?” Caroline asks, eyes wide. Andoh my gosh, did these kids plan this ambush or something? I feel like a penguin that just came head to head with a pod of orcas—I’m not making it out of here alive.

And I know that’s a very random comparison, but the other thing I’ve been doing due to my lack of boyfriend/social life is watching way too much of the Discovery Channel.

Note to self: go to the karaoke bar tonight and hang out with Brooke. Rejoin civilization.

“I don’t know guys.” I flap my little penguin wings in one last attempt to escape. “There are eleven of you and we only have one wheel.”

“We can take turns,” the matriarch orca, AKA Agatha, suggests with a flick of her tail, AKA her long brown hair.

“Yeah!” her pod agrees and down I fall off my icecap: their penguin dinner.

The worst part of it all is that I actually bought a ton of clay last week, because apparently I’m a penguin who likes to live dangerously.

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