Page 46 of The Reading

“But you’re here now,” Donnie pointed out, and when I looked over, my doctor, police officer, firefighter, and veterinarian had all their heads hung low, trying not to laugh.

Could this be any more embarrassing?

“Yeah, why can’t she be your wife now?” Roger added.

“She’s nice, too,” Trevor Edmonton said, joining in on the quest to get me married off. “She lets us have snacks on Fridays if we’re good all week.”

I stepped up closer to my group of kids. “Class, I think Mr. Valinsky-”

“Don’t you think he’s handsome, Ms. Ainsley?” Carly asked, and her words hit me straight in the gut since she was his niece.

“He also has money,” Lilly said, refusing to be left out of this ridiculous discussion. “So, you won’t ever be homeless.”

I choked on that. “Uh…thanks, Lilly…but…uh, I have a job, too,” I said, trying to clear my throat. “I…I promise that I’ll never be homeless.”

“But it’s the husband’s job to make sure that his wife is never homeless,” she argued, and I didn’t know what to say to that.”

“I promise that I will never let Ms. Ainsley be homeless,” Wyatt vowed, and I could only gawk at him.

When he threw me a wink, that snapped me out of my stupor. “Class, we’re not here to talk about Mr. Valinsky getting married-”

“Why not?” Brandon Styles asked. “A husband can be a career, can’t it?’

When my police officer, veterinarian, firefighter, doctor, and hockey player started laughing, I just lowered my head and ran my hands down my face.

*****

Wyatt~

Iknew that Chanel Ainsley hadn’t expected career day to take this unexpected turn, but it was working in my favor. Nothing upped a man’s chances like a bunch of enthusiastic seven-year-olds cheering in his favor.

Chanel Ainsley had always been the girl that got away, though she had never actually been mine. The plan had always been the NHL, so rather than try to sell Chanel my dreams in exchange for hers, I had decided to put mylife in the hands of fate. Luckily for me, it looked like I’d made the right decision because here I was, back in Patch, and Chanel Ainsley was still single.

At about five-foot-three, she had dark brown hair, bright amber eyes, was petite as a fairy, and she was thirty-one to my thirty-three. Our ages had been the main reason for my decision to let the cards fall where they may. When I’d been a senior, ready to head off to college, Chanel had still had two more years of high school to get through, and that would have been too much of a strain on a relationship. At the time, it’d been better to wait for her than go after her, only to have it not work out later.

Knowing that the plan had always been to come back to Patch, I’d been careful during my college years, and I’d been super careful during my stint in the NHL. Gold-diggers were a ruthless species, and I had lucked out with being selective when most athletes weren’t.

“Uh, well…yes, being a husband can be considered a…a career,” Chanel stammered. “However, careers are more vocationally-”

“I don’t know what that word means,” the little boy said, interrupting her.

Not daring to lose my momentum, I asked the class, “So, what do you guys think? Do you think it would be okay to ask Ms. Ainsley out on a date?”

“What about the girl that you said you liked?” a little blonde-haired girl asked. “You’re not supposed to date someone if you like someone else.” Sadly, she seemed like she knew what she was talking about. “That’s what my mom said when my dad started dating his secretary.”

I could feel all the adults in the room wince.

Ouch.

“That’s true,” I agreed carefully. “It just so happens that Ms. Ainsley is the lady that I like. I just haven’t gotten the chance to tell her that yet.”

“He’s liked her for a long time,” Carly, my niece, added. “He used to ask my dad about her all the time when he was playing hockey.”

Crickets.

While I hadn’t been above using these kids to help my cause, I hadn’t expected Carly to tell the entire classroom all my business, either.

“That’s awesome!” the little boy named Donnie exclaimed.

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