“Hang on.” He turned to the silver-haired woman. “What’s this about?”
“Kids these days,” she harrumphed. “They give up soooo easily. And it’s because their parents let them.”
“What are we talking about?” Ethan asked pleasantly. Theo was twisting in his grasp, but Ethan didn’t loosen his fingers.
“We’re talking about the fact that you allowed Theo to drop Spanish.”
“Theo dropped Spanish?”
Theo had given up the struggle. His wrist lay limply in Ethan’s hand now. Ethan eyed him. Theo looked at the floor, at the ceiling—anywhere but at his father.
“Are you his Spanish teacher?”
“His former Spanish teacher. Elsie Andalucía.”
“Ethan Hansen.” He shook her hand, Theo’s wrist still firmly gripped in his left.
“He dropped Spanish?”
“You signed the form.” She crossed her arms.
“Actually, I didn’t.”
They both looked at Theo, whose face had turned red. Elsie crossed her arms. “I guess that explains why you never responded to my note suggesting that you get him a tutor.”
“Theo,” growled Ethan.
With his shoulders up and his hair falling over his face, Theo gave the distinct impression of a pill bug rolling itself up to hide.
“I’m very sorry about this,” Ethan told Elsie. “Let’s start over, shall we? Can we get him back into that class?”
She smiled, and the wrinkled skin on her cheeks softened into folds. “Absolutely. I can make that happen. But he’s going to need a tutor to make up what he missed and get back on track.”
“And how do I find a tutor?”
“Best way is to go upstairs and talk to the academic-support specialist, Ed Branch.”
“Excellent.” Ethan released Theo.
“Can I go back to class? I’m late.” All Theo’s earlier bluster was absent.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Ethan said sternly.
Theo escaped, his shoulders hunched.
Ethan turned back to Elsie Andalucía. “Thank you so much for bringing this up with me.”
“You’re very welcome. I’ll get him back on that class list—and you let me know how finding a tutor goes.”
They shook hands, and she trotted off.
In the scheme of things, Theo’s forging Ethan’s signature on a class-drop form wasn’t a major crime, but it scared Ethan. He was losing Theo. It was what he’d always feared, from the moment his wife died and left him with the care and feeding of an innocent seven-year-old. He’d hoped the fear would abate with time, as he became more accustomed to being Theo’s sole caretaker, but it had gotten worse, his anxiety rising as Theo grew into a full-fledged teenager. During Ethan’s own high-school years, it had taken all the efforts of both his parents to keep his teenage high jinks from having permanent consequences. There were no checks and balances in single parenting. If he screwed up, if he let Theo slip away—
“Hey!” A petite high-school girl had stuck her hand into the jar of miniature helmet key chains and come away with a handful. “One per customer!”
She tossed a scornful glance at him over her shoulder.
He gave up, looked at his watch. Seventeen more minutes, officially, until his shift was over. But it wasn’t like he was contributing anything. He leaned over toward the wholesome blond mom at the condom booth. “May I ask you a favor?”
She gave him a flirty smile. “Sure,” she cooed.
“I have to run an errand and head back to work. Can you keep an eye on this booth, too? It’s not high-demand.”
She looked disappointed, but she nodded. What had she expected, that he’d ask her if she wanted to help him make use of the jar of condoms? He knew perfectly well she was married. Most of the women in Beacon were. Which didn’t stop them from flirting; it only stopped him from flirting back.
The non-flirting on his part wasn’t sexual deadness, not by any stretch. He could appreciate the glories of Beacon’s stay-at-home moms just fine from a visual perspective—expensively colored and straightened hair, subtly applied makeup, bodies finely tuned through obsessive, boredom-induced exercise. But he was careful. Careful, above all, not to flirt with married women, but also careful not to dally even with the few single women in town. Beacon was small, talk was loose—especially about financially well-off available men—and Theo had to go on living here no matter what his father did.
But man, he was human and male, and he missed what he’d had with Trish, missed their lively, near-daily lovemaking, the connection of being with someone at a level that went beyond Tab A, Slot B. His hand was ready, willing, and able but a damn poor conversationalist.
After Trish died, there had been no one for a very long time, only paralyzing grief and the unending demands of single fatherhood. When he emerged from the most intense period of that, he began dating again, but though he’d engaged in one or two sessions of frustration-busting, almost antiseptic sex, there’d been nothing that felt meaningful or lasted long enough to justify bringing a woman home to meet Theo. Because there was no way he was going to let Theo get to know, get to love, another woman who might leave. One lesson in grief was enough for a child.
Especially a troubled teenager. The last thing Theo needed in his life right now was complications. Uncertainty. His father becoming even marginally less emotionally available.
What Theo needed was—
God, he wished he knew.
He fled the cafeteria, a man on a mission. He’d go upstairs, find Ed Branch, and get his juvenile-delinquent, signature-forging son a Spanish tutor.
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Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 29
