“You’re welcome.” Luke’s wariness transformed into a warm smile as he stood, and picked the chair up. “I saw it in a window on my way home last night. I figured we had the rest of the week. May as well start with a bang. Go big or go home, right? Of course, some of the fun is missing because you and I already know who we’re matched with, so there’s no trying to solve the secret of who is leaving the gifts.”
“Well, maybe not, but he was still definitely a surprise.”
Amanda wished her own plan to surprise him hadn’t gone completely awry. She remembered her breath stopping just a little yesterday when his hand touched her arm as he picked up her gym bag. She didn’t know exactly what she’d been hoping for with that over-the-top hug, but another moment like that would have been something she could have saved as a memory in case her twist on Luke’s plan for The Cupid Caper fell as spectacularly as that chair just now.
“Good. I’m glad you liked him. Are you about to head out for the day?”
“No drill team practice today and I’m strangely caught up on my grading. I think I’m going to leave at a respectable hour for a change.”
“Well, then, let me shut down here and I’ll walk you out to your car.” He punched a few buttons on his computer. “Hopefully there will still be enough people around to notice us together. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
Amanda nodded. She leaned back against the high table behind her and looked up at the clock on the wall.
She felt a delicate pricking across the top of her right foot and looked down.
“Mouse! Mouse!”
A small, white rodent with a pale pink tail scampered off the edge of her black shoe and toward the corner of the knee space under Luke’s desk.
Without thinking, Amanda reacted, jumping to the side.
Luke spun around to check out her shriek and Amanda bounced into his chest with the side of her body.
Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around his shoulder and tried to pick her right foot up off the floor. Under her trembling palms, he felt like a solid brick standing between her and the offensive bundle of fur, ears, and tail.
“I think you found Kevin.” Luke didn’t move.
The crown of Amanda’s head rested below Luke’s chin and the exhale after his words gently stirred the top of her hair. Her heart raced like a finely-tuned race car competing for a title.
But she couldn’t tell if it was all because of the mouse.
She leaned in a little more closely, felt the piqued cotton of his collared casual shirt against the bare skin of her arms below the short cotton sleeves of her own shirt.
Amanda knew this surge in her veins wasn’t all due to the mouse.
“Kevin?”
“White mouse, about so long?” Luke spread his thumb and forefinger about two and a half inches apart and moved his hand closer to Amanda’s face. With his other hand, he held her steady.
She fought the paradox of wanting to run far, far away from the mouse, but never wanting to leave the closeness of Luke. “Mmm-hmm.”
Amanda realized she’d been reduced to speaking in monosyllabic muffles. She knew it meant something significant, but couldn’t really process any coherent thoughts.
And again, if she was being honest, it had nothing to do with the mouse.
“That’s Kevin. He escaped from the biology lab next door yesterday. Kathy Moore’s been looking for him. He’s the control for a feeding experiment they’re doing. I expect he got jealous that Mortimer gets dessert every night.”
As the shock of the mouse-moment passed, Amanda slowly pulled her hand off Luke’s shoulder. She could feel the definitions of the muscle groups as her fingertips slid toward his chest.
Luke turned his head and looked right in Amanda’s eyes. She couldn’t tell much difference between the black of his pupils and the intense blue of the irises.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do that, Amanda.” His voice sounded lower and more measured than usual.
Amanda’s mind formed a single coherent thought about her one wish, to make Luke think of The Cupid Caper as more than a joke. To make him think of her as more than just someone who worked at the same school. To make the dream she’d held for two years a reality.
She willed herself to not back down.
“Do what?”
He flicked a hand at the base of her neck and moved the heavy curtain of curls.
“That.”
Apparently the monosyllabic disease had gotten to both of them. She took a breath, hoping it would steady her. It didn’t. Instead, the intake of air heightened every sense she had. The undernotes of Luke’s sandalwood cologne stood out like the clean woodsiness of the outdoors after a rain. His pupils dilated slightly, deepening the darkness. The dryness at the front of her mouth pushed back across the curve of her tongue. Her palms warmed as they molded to the plane of his chest.
And the sound of two teenage girls talking in the hallway sounded so loud, Amanda almost thought they were headed for the chemistry lab.
“Hey, Dr. B!” A high-pitched voice shouted in a sing-song manner. “Aaaand Miss M. What’s going on?”
Amanda pulled her gaze down from Luke’s eyes and looked over his shoulder. Lindsay Moore had stopped suddenly in the doorway.
“Mouse,” Amanda said succinctly.
Luke pulled back but didn’t turn around to face the girls. The muscle at the back of his jaw flexed twice before he spoke. “Mouse.”
“I was just dropping off your voting sheet for The Cupid Caper. You’ll need to fill this out tomorrow and drop it off in the box in the cafeteria.” She leaned forward and laid the bright pink paper carefully on the desk closest to the door. “But maybe you’ve already made your guess.”
The young blonde ducked her head and turned quickly back toward the hallway, her friend in an equal hurry to get out of the chemistry lab.
“I’m going to return Kevin next door.” Luke walked away from Amanda and bent over the corner where the mouse had backed himself into. “Are you still heading home?”
“Yeah. I think I’m going to go get my things from my room.” She decided to play one more card, to keep being bold. Her breath caught in her throat a little as she forced the words out. “Are you still walking me to my car?”
He cupped the frightened mouse in his two hands. She remembered their gentle touch on her only moments before.
“I can. But I’m pretty sure that once those two girls start talking, we’re not going to have to convince anyone of anything else between now and Friday.”
“I need coffee.” Actually, Luke knew needed something stronger, but it was only three-thirty in the afternoon.
He couldn’t think straight anymore. It had been at least fifteen minutes, and he could swear he still felt the touch of Amanda’s hand on his chest. The phantom press of her five fingertips lingered.
“What about MugBugs? It’s just right over there.” Amanda pointed at the corner of the strip center across the street from the high school.
Ironically, a tall, steaming cup of coffee as black as the night was the only thing he could think of to cool him off.
He’d thought it this morning after talking to Lisa.
Now he knew it for sure.
This wasn’t a game he was playing with Amanda.
This was for real. But how was he supposed to let her know? He knew everything he felt and did from the moment she jumped into his arms was pure, driven instinct.
He knew hers was too. But Luke felt pretty certain her instinct had been driven by a rodent-induced near-fainting spell.
For once, he wished he wasn’t the analytical, lab rat—pardon the pun—chemistry guy. He wished he could have been a literary wonk like Amanda and pulled the perfect verse out of his brain. He’d have given anything to let Shakespeare or Wordsworth do the talking at a moment like this.
“Luke? You’re really quiet.”
At least she couldn’t read his thoughts. They careened off the synapses in his brain loud
and clear.
“Sorry. Just thinking. MugBugs sounds fine.” He looked at her, poised to unlock her compact sedan. He didn’t want her to find out what he was thinking before he had a chance to organize his thoughts and present them in the right way. But he didn’t want this to be the end, either. He didn’t want to go back home tonight and sit around and think about Amanda.
He wanted to be around Amanda. “You want to come with me?”
A thoughtful look clouded her eyes briefly. “Ok. Let me just lock my bag up in the trunk.”
Once she’d secured all her belongings, they set off toward the crosswalk. As they waited for the light to change, Luke’s fingers itched to reach out and close the distance between his hand and hers.
He straightened his pointer finger and teased against the side of hers.
She opened a space between it and her middle finger. Given the subtle go-ahead, Luke laced his fingers between hers, and as the little symbol in the crosswalk light changed from orange to white, he took a step and guided her across the street, trying to stay focused on the intersection of the streets and not the intersection of their hands.
“Is the line out the door?”
The coffee shop looked packed with students. After being caught by Lindsay earlier, Luke didn’t feel quite up for a repeat.
“Well, that’s no good.” Luke wasn’t sure if he felt greater disappointment about not getting coffee or not getting to hold Amanda’s hand much longer.
Amanda paused on the sidewalk once they were back across the street. “I don’t live that far from here and I have a coffee pot. It’s nothing fancy, but I can at least guarantee there won’t be any students lining up at my door.”
“Amanda, I really don’t want to inconvenience you.”
Truthfully, he knew the only reason things hadn’t moved to the next step in the chemistry lab was because of the arrival of the students on the scene. He couldn’t make a move like that without having his plan fully thought through. He couldn’t scare Amanda off.
“You’re not inconveniencing me. After all, you brought me a giant Cupig. Coffee kind of seems like the least I could do.”
He watched her red hair blow back in the strong February breeze and remembered his earlier thought to himself. He didn’t want to go home to think about Amanda. He wanted to be with her.
Against his better judgment, he replied affirmatively. “Ok, that sounds good.”
They walked back to their cars in the faculty parking lot and Amanda told Luke the directions to her townhouse, only a few minutes away. As he drove the handful of miles, he kept thinking about the last two days.
He’d never almost lost control like he’d now done twice with Amanda.
How had he gone two years without noticing her?
Luke walked up to the door and rang the bell. The only answer was scientific. Sometimes, people saw—or didn’t see—what they wanted to see. That’s why there were time-tested steps in the Scientific Method.
You posed a question, did your research, formulated a hypothesis, and then conducted an experiment to test that hypothesis.
This was no different than what he’d teach his students. He’d never noticed Amanda Marsh because he’d never posed the question. He’d never been looking. He’d been waiting for everything in this new phase of his life to line up before he jumped back into dating again.
Somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten the thrill of adrenaline.
At some point during the years, he’d disregarded the rush of discovery.
The door opened and Amanda’s smile greeted him.
For the first time in a long time, he formed a hypothesis. Luke hypothesized that he’d kiss Amanda Marsh before he walked back out this door.
It was time to conduct the most important experiment he’d ever done. It was time to test for mutual chemistry between him and one fiery English teacher who wouldn’t leave his mind.
“If you want to make yourself comfortable, I’ll go ahead and get the coffee started.” Amanda gestured toward the sofa in her living room. “The remote is on the table if you want to turn on the TV.”
Luke didn’t think the sound of afternoon programming would really add to his experiment. “Does your TV have any of those music channels?”
“I think so.” Amanda spoke over the rattle of coffee mugs and the rush of water flowing from the sink into the coffee pot. “They’re at the very end. Like nine-hundred-and-something.”
Luke began to flip around until he found the right channel. Soft contemporary music began to play. He adjusted the volume until it filled the air as gentle background noise.
“You’ve got a nice place, Amanda.” The room had been decorated in cool blues and silvers. “For some reason, I was expecting tufted sofas and antiques.”
She came into the living room bearing both a smile and a mug of coffee in each hand. “Just because I teach about literature that’s been around for centuries doesn’t mean I want to live with furniture that also has.”
“Fair enough. I guess it would have been a bit much to see your living room arranged like the Globe Theatre too.” He looked around at the pictures hanging on the walls in groups all around the living room. Each had been rimmed in a wide white mat, and framed with a simple black frame. “But wait, what’s that?”
Luke pointed at a group near the back window.
“Um, well…that’s the Globe Theatre.” Amanda smiled broadly. She knew she’d been caught. “That’s from two summers ago. I took a group of students for two weeks. We went all over England, soaking up the history and the culture.”
“You know, I’ve been a lot of places, but I’ve never been to London. I usually go someplace with nature involved—mountain climbing, safaris, diving. Or I jump from perfectly good bridges and buildings and planes. Things like that. Tell me about London.”
Amanda’s whole face took on a soft glow. It could have been the steam coming off the coffee mug she clutched tightly in her hands, but Luke knew it wasn’t.
“It’s just an amazing juxtaposition of the old and the new. On one hand, you have all the history—The Tower, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, The Victoria and Albert Museum, even Churchill’s War Rooms. But then, it’s a thoroughly modern city. The London Eye is this giant ferris wheel with pods you stand in. It dominates the skyline along the Thames now. But yet, it belongs there as much as the rest of it does. I guess that’s what I love about literature too. The best of it has stood the test of time and it becomes a shared experience.”
Luke thought back to the experience they’d shared earlier in the day. “I’d never really thought of it like that. You know the ‘O Captain, My Captain’ scene in the movie Dead Poets’ Society?”
“One of my favorites.”
“I figured as much. I always thought it was a little cheesy. But maybe you’re right. Maybe the lines and books we’ve known all our lives give us common bonds. Who’s your favorite writer?”
Amanda sat her mug down on the low black coffee table in front of her. “Well, I doubt this comes as a surprise to you, but probably Shakespeare.”
Luke shook his head. “No, not surprising at all. But why?”
“Well, for one, everyone knows at least some Shakespeare. Just about everyone you encounter has heard of Romeo and Juliet, at least.” She gestured with her hands as she spoke, pulling Luke into her explanation as thoroughly as if she were touching him and guiding him. “’But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief…’”
Luke jumped into the pause. “You want to go on and recite the whole thing, don’t you?”
Amanda smiled wistfully. “I could. But I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one really wants to listen to an English teacher prattle on about Shakespeare.” She looked right at Luke and the effect was like a compass zoned in on true north. “Not when they’re eighteen. And not w
hen they’re older.”
If his English teacher had recited the classics with half the intensity that flowed with Amanda’s words, he might have found himself with an entirely different appreciation for literature. Most of his life, he’d dismissed novels and poetry as just nonsense written by dreamers.
But sitting in front of him was a real, live dreamer. And nothing about her was nonsense.
Luke came around the side of the living room, as though he wanted to see the rest of Amanda’s pictures. Truthfully, though, he only had eyes for Amanda. It only took a handful of steps to close the gap between them.
“So tell me,” he said, standing so close to her that he could note the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
“Yes?” Her voice was quiet, like the rustle of an angel’s wings.
“Tell me what Juliet said back to Romeo.”
The rhythm of her chest sped up slightly. “She replied with some of the most famous words ever written. ‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?’”
“Ah yes, I’ve heard that one.” Luke reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind Amanda’s ear. “She was up in a tower, right?”
Amanda’s reply was bracketed by a sharp intake of breath. “Not a tower. Her balcony.”
“And Romeo was below, right?”
Amanda nodded, the movement of her head barely noticeable.
Luke trailed two fingers through Amanda’s hair, and swept them down the curve of her jaw, then let them come to rest at the center of her chin.
With his free arm, he circled her shoulders, then let his hand slide down the groove of her spine. With every knot of vertebrae he passed, Amanda’s rhythmic breathing became less regular and more jagged.
Luke’s breathing began to imitate Amanda’s. He could feel the surge of adrenaline in his veins, and the need to make what was coming happen.
But he held back, wanting to make the moment last. Wanting to make it something Amanda would remember. Wanting to make it not about a stunt at a high school dance, but an emotion they could build on.
He’d vowed that he’d make Amanda see he was about more than The Cupid Caper. He knew she’d agreed to pretend like they were head-over-heels to help Violet. But somewhere along the line, it turned into more than that for him.
The Cupid Caper Page 6
