Page 80 of Grin and Bear It

I frowned as I checked my inbox and, yep, there they were.

“Did you want more feedback? I don’t normally do second drafts but—”

“We’re fine,” Maddox insisted, looking at his brother. Knox just nodded.

“OK. Well, I wanted to talk about the flowers.”

“No need.” Maddox had always been the quieter of the two, but these days, you couldn’t shut him up. “It’s fine, right, Knox?”

“Fine,” was all his brother would say in a voice scoured clean of emotion.

Right. So very fine.

“So can we go?” Knox asked. “The guys are waiting and…”

“Yeah, sure,” I said with a wave of my hand. “And thanks for getting those essays done. I appreciate it.”

“No problems, Miss,” they said as they made for the door, taking off down the corridor the moment they got out.

Right. I settled back in my chair, feeling a growing sense of unease, but before I could sink down into that, Michelle, the union rep, was at my door.

“Hey, Ellie,” she said, walking into the classroom. “I heard June got on your back today…”

And just like that, my lunch was an awkward combination of hastily snatched bites of my sandwich, and Michelle’s damning summary of June’s character before it was over and then I was due back in class.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that I managed to read the card and when I did, I was kinda glad for the timing. My cheeks flushed as I read the text.

You, me and Lin,tonight,it read.Let us take you out for dinner, spoil you, and if we do a good job? You can provide the dessert.

I wanted that with every breath, able to imagine the two of them in nice shirts and pants, one man on each arm, but… I could see the boys’ stricken stares just as clearly.

Was this what it was like being a parent? I’d had older colleagues tell me I was missing something, that not having children of my own meant I couldn’t empathise with students or parents on the same level and right now I had to wonder. Was parenting this push/pull between what you, the adult, wanted and what the kids needed? I sighed and then rubbed at my face, sure a nice quiet night at home was what I really needed.

But, really, I wanted it, everything Nash had described.

The idea was delicious and I couldn’t bring myself to say no to it, but my conscience was still kicking my arse, forcing me to focus on the situation with the boys.

What time for dinner?I asked Nash via text.Because we need to talk.

Chapter40

Nash had told me seven-thirty, which gave me four hours after I finished school. That was plenty of time to get ready, I told myself.

And it should’ve been.

My plumbing didn’t strike back, knocking me out cold in the shower, and I had the chance to scrub, pluck and shave everything. In some ways I wished there’d been another shower emergency, because if I was lying passed out on the bathroom floor, I could have excused myself from all of this.

“Why is it such a big deal to go out on date night?” I’d asked Coll after the millionth time she made a fuss over Derek just slumping on the couch with me. “I’d be in uncomfortable clothes, feeling weird and awkward, spending far too much on expensive food when the takeaway place around the corner is just as good.”

“Because sometimes a girl likes to feel special,” she’d told me, reaching out and squeezing my arm. “You deserve to feel special.”

Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but that wasn’t how I was feeling as I paced back and forth in my bedroom. I’d started out strong, getting clean and then applying my makeup carefully. My attempt at a smoky eye was what went wrong first, my stupid winged eyeliner going on different on one eye than the other. I looked quizzical, not because I was wondering what the hell I was doing, but due to the uneven application of a thick black line over each eyelid. I’d tried to fix that with another swipe of liquid eyeliner, but that seemed to just underline the issue. Then I let out a huff of frustration, wiping everything off and starting again. I’d finally emerged from the bathroom with much less dramatic eye makeup, but it set the tone for the afternoon, a sharp twist of anxiety grabbing at my guts and twisting.

Why, you might ask. It was a Tuesday night, not Friday or Saturday. It was just dinner and I remembered how I’d gone so blithely to meet dickhead Derek at Diablo’s. Why the hell would I get more worked up about Nash and Lin taking me to dinner? I couldn’t tell you why, just that I wrenched my wardrobe doors open and started raking through my cupboards, dragging out school clothes, nice clothes, fancy ones and, finally, the ones Mum had bought me. I held each piece up and against me, discarding one, two, three pieces straight away because they felt weird on my skin, still more because I was pretty sure they didn’t fit, being my emotional support skinny clothes I was always going to fit into one day, and that had me walking out and grabbing a garbage bag and then stuffing them in, no longer wanting them in my room, my house, anything.

“Hey, El…” Colleen’s voice trailed away as she saw me storm back out of my bedroom, several bags in tow. “Doing a clean out?”

“No…” I stopped, frowned and then shook my head. I couldn’t deal with questions, I couldn’t. “Just no.”

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