Page 1 of The ABCs of You & Me

ONE

SOPHIE

There is absolutely no way that I’m seeing what I’m seeing.

There is absolutely no way in hell that Foster Walsh is crouched down next to a nine-year-old kid, very patiently explaining something. I cannot believe that when my friends ask how my first day went, I’m going to have to say,Remember that boy I was in love with from the ages of five to eighteen? Well, he’s an educational assistant at the school I’ve been assigned to. Oh and he’s my best friend’s older brother. Did you hear that, Cass? Your brother is an EA in the same building I’ll be spending the majority of my time in. Thanks for the heads-up, my now-former best friend. Also he’s even hotter than I remember, so… awesome.

When Foster looks up at me, frozen in the doorway, he doesn’t seem to register who I am. It feels like a punch to the gut when he immediately looks back down at the student’s work.

“Jessica Morris, I’d like to introduce you to our new social worker, Sophie Hore. She’s stepping in for Hazel while she’s on maternity leave.” I do my best to focus on Jessica instead of on the stupidly hot man behind her. “I’ll introduce you to Mr. Walsh later,” Principal Wong says, gesturing for me to follow her.

I glance back as Foster’s eyes find me, and his lips quirk in a barely there grin. Heat spreads across my face as I stumble over my feet turning to follow the principal. I know that grin. I saw it many times when I was younger. He definitely recognizes me.

There isn’t much for me to do today other than get myself acquainted with my office and the files Hazel left behind. But the minute I sit down, my mind immediately goes back to Foster, as I knew it would. He hasn’t changed much in the last eight years. His dark red hair is perhaps more styled than it had been in our youth, and he’s filled out his tall frame well—a little too well.

Sighing, I pull my glasses off and set them on the desk before hiding my face in my hands and releasing a groan that can probably be heard in the hallway.

Those amber eyes, always glinting with a bit of mischievousness, flash in my mind. And my memory starts flipping through all the times he looked at me growing up. We’d played together as young children, but as we got older we didn’t hang out because we thought the opposite sex was carrying some horrible disease. Eventually, Foster came back around as a teenager, but it was usually to tease Cass and me or dare us to do ridiculous things. Then one day he was packing and heading off to university. I stood beside his old black Honda Civic with his family as he said his goodbyes. After he’d hugged them, he stood in front of me and opened his arms wide. We’d hugged before, but this one had lasted longer than usual. I kept expecting his arms to loosen, but they remained wrapped tightly around me. It would have been so easy to melt into him, but his family standing there only made me hyper-aware of all the places our bodies touched.

“Good luck,” I whispered as he stepped back, my fingers itching to tuck the piece of unruly hair that flopped across his forehead. I loved his hair. Next to his face, it was my favorite thing about him.

“You two behave,” he said, amber eyes flicking between Cass and me.

Cass raised her hand in a Girl Guides salute, except she had her forefinger and middle finger crossed. “Promise.”

Foster smirked back before he’d reached out to ruffle her hair.

The last time I’d seen him was that Christmas when he’d brought his out-of-province girlfriend home from school, crushing my fragile eighteen-year-old heart.

School and life had pulled us in different directions in the years between then and now, my heart slowly mending with a relationship of my own, only to be ripped to pieces five months ago.

When the lunch bell sounds, I’m brought back to the present, where I sit alone in my broom closet of an office. I have no clue if I should head to the staff room or stay put. There were no directions on how to engage with the teaching staff outside of dealing with students. Is it customary to eat with them or stay completely separate? This isn’t the only school I’m assigned to, but it is my home base, and building relationships isn’t exactly a bad thing. For today, though, I decide that I’ll hide away here, except when I reach for my lunch bag, it’s not there. In my haste to get to my first day on the job, I must have left my lunch sitting on the counter at home. I can already hear my mother. “Of course you did,” she would say through laughter before asking how the rest of my day went.

When I’ve convinced myself that I can survive one day without lunch, my stomach lets me know that that’s not an option. I’ll have to venture outside of my little office in search of a vending machine. At least I know I’ll find somewhat healthy snacks there since the province did away with junk food, not that I’d be upset if I had a bag of all-dressed chips or a Kit Kat. My stomach grumbles again, and I take a deep breath before rising and walking out into the hall. I find a vending machine around the second corridor I turn down.

“That one will turn to sawdust in your mouth.” My finger pauses over the P as my heart lodges in my throat. When I turn my head, copper eyes and a cocky grin greet me. “Hey, Soph.” Cool as a fucking cucumber.

I drop my hand and fully turn to him, not sure how to proceed. Adrenaline and something else course through my body. An urge to run away, perhaps?

“Oh, hey, Foster,” I manage to squeak. “I was”—I wave at the vending machine—“checking out the options.” A slightly too high laugh escapes, and I want to melt into the floor as nervous energy prickles across the surface of my skin.

The grin fades from his face as he looks behind me. “Don’t tell me that’s your lunch.” His eyebrows draw together in concern.

I shrug. “I don’t have— well, that is, I forgot my lunch. I made it, so I have it, I just don’t have it on my person. It’s still at home. It’s in a bright pink bag too and yet I left it on my counter like an idiot. ”Shut up, Sophie.

His face relaxes as he raises a blue nylon bag. “I’m happy to share.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to?—”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, Soph.” He grins, and I give in. I’d be the worst spy. All it would take is Foster grinning at me and I’d spill all my secrets.

The softness of his gaze puts me at ease instantly.Magic eyes, I think as I slip my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels, immediately regretting it when I realize I’m not nearly as close to the vending machine as I thought. My back slams into the glass, and relief rushes through me when the whole thing doesn’t topple over. I’m going to pretend I meant to do that and not acknowledge it, or the way Foster’s eyebrows are nearly in his hairline.

“I guess it depends what you’re offering,” I reason, sounding as bored as possible while feeling as far from bored as I have ever been.

“Some japchae, kimchi, and a couple chocolate chip cookies.”

I stare back, wide-eyed. I’m not exactly what you’d call an adventurous eater despite my mother’s countless attempts to make me one. “All I understood was chocolate chip cookies.”

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