Page 344 of Branded
Saved by the bell. Literally.
Kids began pouring into the classroom, settling at their desks, the noise inside the room increasing exponentially as they got ready for their next subject—art. But I got my reward for the sweat and the uncomfortable conversation with Ethan’s teacher—and that was in the form of two little boys who didn’t go straight to their desks.
One belonged to me and wrapped his arms around my middle, hugging me tight enough that I struggled to breathe.
The other was Finn—Ethan’s teammate that I was just starting to know.
“Hi, Ms. Blackstar,” he said, screeching to a halt.
“Hi, Finn.”
“Can Ethan come over this weekend after our game?”
Game being Ethan’s team’s first hockey game. At nine in the morning. On Sunday after I’d schlepped drinks and food until three in the morning.
I couldn’t wait to watch him play, especially since he’d been working so hard at practice. However, I wasn’t looking forward to getting him up and to the rink and getting him dressed and ready for the ice (since five-year-olds weren’t great about getting their own hockey gear on) for a game that began at nine in the morning after my shift the night before.
Alas, such was the life of a single mom.
And I thought that I might be able to rope Cas into the gear wrangling. A professional could do it faster, right?
And God, I missed him.
“Mom?”
Right. Two boys were looking at me, eyes pleading, and it was almost impossible to resist their adorableness.
“I’ll talk to your mom at practice tonight,” I said and then added because how could I not add more to that in the face of so much childlike hope and potential disappointment, “But it’s fine with me so long as it’s fine with her.”
The boys turned toward each other, huge smiles on their faces.
Then Ethan was hugging me again, his smile pointed my way. “A sleepover and hockey and friends! This is going to be the best weekend ever.”
I squeezed him back before nodding toward the table where both of the boys sat. “You should get ready for art,” I said, playing it cool even though I was thinking the same thing, thinking that it absolutely would be the best weekend ever.
“’Kay,” he said, releasing me and racing over to his table, Finn on his heels.
As I watched them, lips curved up, I saw Mr. Philips had been watching us.
Being familiar. Or maybe…it was just that he saw too much.
Damn.
I avoided his eyes.
And then I went back to organizing books.
Thirty-Three
Cas
The kid was a movie talker.
Normally, I hated that, hated when people talked during a movie, especially when they could just watch the actual movie and find out answers to all the questions they had and get more material for the pithy comments they found it necessary to impart on the world—and do it after the movie.
But Ethan was cute as fuck.
So, I didn’t mind his questions.
