Snow Days (The Hope Falls Series) Read online

  He tried to encourage her. “I’m sure you’ll have a good time.”

  She shrugged as she again looked down at her papers. “We’ll see.”

  Matt felt his gaze linger on her longer than was appropriate, but he just couldn’t help himself. The way several soft, wavy tendrils of hair fell around her face, landing just at her jawline, caused his eye to follow the path of her jaw down her bare neck and across her smooth collarbone. The smooth lines in her olive-toned skin made him want to run his fingertips down the path his eyes had just traveled.

  The bell rang out and snapped him out of his lust-induced fantasy. Gathering her things, she stood.

  “What do you have next?” he asked, not only out of sheer curiosity but also because he just wanted to hear her speak.

  “Yearbook. It’s in the photo lab,” she explained as she smiled and moved around the desk.

  He stood, just as he had the night before, and although she didn’t bump into him this time, they were a mere inch apart.

  “Sorry. Old habit,” he explained, backing up slightly to let her pass. “My grandpa practically beat it into us that you stand when a lady enters or exits a room.”

  A huge smile crossed her lips. “I think I like your grandpa.”

  She moved around him, and as she did, the room started filling with students. He watched her greet some of them in a friendly, easy manner as she made her way out.

  The only thought in his head was, I think I like you.

  Chapter Seven

  Amy sat across the table from Ron, her latest online dating “experiment,” as the sun set over the rushing water that was visible past the deck at the River Grill in Tahoe City. She smiled slightly to herself. This wasn't going half bad! Sure, there was no earth-shaking connection going on or anything. But Amy definitely did not feel the need to go running out of the establishment as fast as her legs would carry her, and that was a distinct improvement over several of her past efforts.

  Hey, she congratulated herself, maybe I'm getting better at the screening process!

  It was, in fact, some of her past horrible dating experiences—and his—that they were currently in the process of bonding over.

  “Oh, one of my worst,” Ron laughed, “was when I arrived to pick this woman up, and she was so incredibly, visibly pregnant! I was flabbergasted. Apparently, she'd been artificially inseminated, and the weirdest part was that she seriously didn't get why it was a big deal at all. She kept acting like I was weird for thinking it was noteworthy. In fact, by the end, she actually had me feeling a little weird for thinking it was strange!”

  Amy laughed along with him and bumped him up one point on the Personality scale. As it stood now, he was scoring a five on Smell (he didn't smell bad by any means, but he had no discernible good smell either), a five on Chemistry (same reasoning—she didn't find him repulsive in any way, but he wasn't exactly ringing her bells), and now with this latest promotion, he was scoring a solid six in Personality.

  She liked that he saw the humor in absurd situations rather than becoming incensed by them. She also liked that they had something in common, even something as mundane and ultimately pointless as their bad online dating scenarios. At least it was something.

  As sad as it was, sixteen out of thirty was the highest score she had yet to assign.

  That's because you've never scored Matt! a small voice whispered insistently in the back of her mind. She didn't want to listen. She knew that, if she gave in to what the voice was saying, she would be headed down a bad path.

  The truth was, she wouldn't even need to 'score' him, per se. She would just have to admit to herself that she already knew the scores:

  Personality: 10

  Smell: 10

  And—oh for the love of all that was good and holy!—Chemistry: 10

  In fact, just thinking about scoring Matt on her one to ten scale made her feel sad that she had limited the numeric possibilities to only ten in each category. Scores like Chemistry: 3,538,239,456 sounded a little bit more accurate to her mind.

  But, she scolded herself, that was exactly why she needed to push Matt out of her mind and focus on what was in front of her! As thrilling as Matt might be to think about, Ron had one huge advantage over him when it came to the logistics of dating: he was available.

  If she was going to give this project the focus and attention it deserved, she could not be distracted by an outlier. She had to focus on the reliable data. And the reliable data said that Ron was a pretty good match.

  And, hey…he made her laugh. So, there was that.

  Wanting to build further on their bond of sharing 'bad date' stories, Amy launched into one of hers. “Once, I opened the door to find my date standing in front of me wearing a kilt.”

  “No way!”

  “Oh, yes,” Amy nodded, smiling. “He immediately informed me that he wasn't wearing anything underneath. I should have cut it off right there, but that was before I understood that I shouldn't waste my time with dates that clearly weren't going anywhere. So I just politely continued on with him. Well, before the end of the date, he asked me if we could just 'swing by his place real quick' so that I could 'maybe clean out his cat's litter box' because his mom hadn't had time to come do it that week! Well, politeness or no politeness, I do draw the line at feline feces!”

  They laughed, and Amy reflected that it did feel good to make a man laugh and to enjoy that laughter together, even if he was only a barely-better-than-decent sixteen out of thirty. It felt nice.

  Unbidden, the thought popped into her head of how great it would feel to tell a funny story on a date and make Matt laugh. Oh, lord. Suddenly, her body was hot in places she’d assumed it was rude to get hot if that level of heat was inspired by thoughts of another man.

  She was in trouble!

  Luckily, Ron seemed not to notice, already launching into a new tale of online dating misfortune of his own. “One woman I met came on the date—which was at a fairly nice restaurant, mind you—dressed head to toe in Raiders gear. She kept pressuring me to commit to being just as big a Raider fan as she was. When I finally admitted that I was kind of partial to the 49ers, she got really huffy and said that was fine but that after we got married I would only be allowed to wear Niners gear when I was out of the house, never in it, and that I'd have to keep it in my gym locker or something.”

  Amy laughed heartily, immediately coming back with, “Oh, that's horrible! I met a guy once for coffee who told me pretty much immediately that his life's work was the musical he was working on about talking raccoons, and he then proceeded to loudly launch into several of the numbers. What's worse is, apparently he was still work-shopping it. He stopped several times to scribble notes, and then he would start that song over again, making just the tiniest adjustment to a lyric or a note and looking really pleased with himself. Quite a bit more pleased, I might add, than the staff and the other patrons.”

  Just then, the waitress stepped up to the table with their plates of food and proceeded to set them down. She asked Amy if she wanted pepper on her mashed potatoes, and Amy nodded. The waitress ground the pepper and then began to take her leave, Amy thanking her as she turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

  When Amy returned her attention to the table and her plate of food mere seconds later, she got a huge shock. In just the short amount of time it had taken her to thank the waitress, Ron had reached over to her plate and begun cutting her steak into small, bite-size pieces.

  Oh, lord.

  Why...why...hadn't she ordered more wine?!

  At first, too shocked to say anything, she just tried to formulate a possible justification. Finally, she stammered out, “Um...so...do you have kids, or...?”

  Ron looked up at her, puzzled, and shook his head. “No, of course not. If I did, that would have been really horrible of me not to mention them by now. I mean, wouldn't that have been weird?”

  He chuckled at his own scenario, all the while continuing to lean awkwardly across the
table and cut Amy's steak for her.

  Wow.

  Amy felt a little unsteady. I know, she reasoned. I'll just go to the restroom for a moment and get my head on straight. Yes! That was a good idea.

  She stood, saying, “Um, Ron, I'm going to take a trip to the ladies' room. I'll be right back.”

  He smiled up at her. “Does wittle Amy have to go potty-wotty?” he sing-songed.

  Her eyes widened and she turned quickly on her heel, marching to the restroom as fast as she could.

  Well, damn. Scratch what she had said to herself earlier about the date not inspiring her to want to run out of the restaurant like she was a track star about to set a record—or being chased by rabid hippos. This was the worst one yet!

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Ron was definitely getting demoted to a two in Personality! And she didn't care if it was mean, she was wiping out his Chemistry score altogether. Goose egg, Ron, she fumed mentally. How about that, you infantilizing, fetish-y weirdo?

  She was sitting in the stall, fully clothed, contemplating how she was going to face heading back to that table and coming up empty, when she heard a knock on the stall door.

  Oh, dear lord. Had he followed her in here?

  “Um...yes?” she said tentatively.

  “Ma'am? Amy?”

  Oh, thank God! It was the waitress! Amy stood up and threw open the stall door hopefully.

  “Yes?”

  The waitress smiled. “I hope you don't think this is too forward of me,” she began, “but I heard what your date said to you before you came back here, and I saw the look on your face. Then, when I saw him put a pacifier on your plate, I thought...enough is enough.”

  “He didn’t!?” Amy breathed in horror.

  “Oh, he did,” the waitress confirmed. “So I went over to the table and told him you needed your purse, and I got this for you.”

  Amy grabbed her purse gratefully. “What did he say?” she said, dreading hearing the answer but feeling the need to know just the same.

  A broad smile spread across the waitress's face, and she responded with a giggle. “He asked me if 'wittle Amy was sicky-wicky.' I told him 'maybe-waybe' and hightailed it back here. Now, come on. I'm sneaking you out through the kitchen!”

  Amy threw her arms around the woman in gratitude and then followed her as surreptitiously as she could manage in her relieved and adrenaline-fueled state. As she slipped out the employee entrance at the back of the kitchen, Amy pressed a wad of cash into the woman's palm. She doubted that the server would be getting much of a tip from Ron tonight.

  “Here,” Amy said earnestly. “This is all the cash I have in my purse. I really appreciate what you did!”

  The woman looked down at the bills and her eyes widened. “This is forty bucks!” she exclaimed.

  “And worth every penny,” Amy confirmed.

  The two quickly embraced again , and Amy set off for her car, thinking that, indeed, it was probably the best forty bucks she'd spent all year.

  Chapter Eight

  Amy rushed into the teacher's lounge, notebook in hand, with only one minute to spare before the beginning of the staff meeting. This was completely unlike her. The sensation of running late to a staff meeting was so foreign. She was ultra-organized and on top of things, and she was always ten minutes early to any meeting or other obligation. She didn't think she had ever been late to anything in her life.

  Of course, she reflected wryly, that was before she had started taking gigantic blocks of time out of her day to think about Matt. Daydreaming about Matt. Replaying conversations in her head she’d had with Matt.

  Amy had never experienced this level of distraction. She had always been focused and very good with her time management. Was this how it was for other women? How did anyone have enough time to get anything done?

  As Amy came through the door, she vaguely realized that, of course, the room was full of people—but that was an intellectual observation at best, because the second she entered the room, her attention zeroed in on only one person. Matt.

  It hadn’t been a conscious decision. She hadn’t sought him out. It was like her subconscious had a magnet installed which was programmed to seek out one particular person, and that person was Matt Kellan. When they were in the same room together—when they were in the same hemisphere together—her body could sense it. Goose bumps popped up on her arms, the small hairs rose on the back of her neck, and her heart beat faster. Her breath caught. A bevy of little physical changes overtook her body until she felt like she wasn't even in control of it anymore but instead was just along for the ride.

  To someone like Amy, who was so unquestionably in control of all things at all times in her life, this mutiny by her own body and mind should have scared her—terrified her, really. But in fact, all she felt was tingling with anticipation.

  Before the door even closed behind her, Matt turned in his seat, nodding his head at the seat beside him. He moved a stack of books off the empty chair next to him and winked at her, gesturing for her to sit down. As she slid into the chair, he leaned in, his smile causing that adorable dimple to come out in full force.

  “Saved ya a seat,” he whispered playfully just as Principal Walters was standing and walking to the front of the room.

  “Okay, people,” the principal said, bringing the meeting to order with a tone of voice that already sounded defeated. “We have a lot to get through today, so let's get down to business.”

  As he began to drone on and on about the various necessary mundane issues that went into running a school, Amy felt her attention begin to wander. Although she wouldn't have imagined it possible with Matt sitting right next to her—or even being in the general vicinity—she actually began to feel boredom sinking in. She marveled at the ability of the weekly staff meeting to break down the walls of excitement she felt even at the nearness of the most thrilling man she'd ever met. That was truly mind-numbing power right there.

  Her Matt-receptors sprang back to high alert, however, when she noticed him writing a note. She was fairly certain that Walters hadn't said anything notation-worthy, so her curiosity was definitely piqued. She tried to subtly incline her head to see what he was jotting down but couldn't get a clear view. Hmm...

  She was amazed at herself. She wasn't usually a very nosy person. She believed that people had a right to privacy, and she would never dream of actually violating Matt's space...but, dang, she wanted to know what that note said. She was so unused to feeling this intense level of interest in every action and thought of another person.

  Matt stopped writing, and without making eye contact with her—without even taking his eyes from the front of the room where they were fixed on Principal Walters—he slid the notepad in front of her.

  Amy was engulfed by a sudden onrush of warmth. He had written her a note. Her. He had started out by saving her a seat, and now he had written a note and passed it to her. She felt like the coolest girl in class—or at least what she imagined such a girl must have felt like. This was the best. Staff. Meeting. Ever.

  Amy glanced down at the notebook as surreptitiously as she could and read Matt's neat printing. It said, “I saw a joke online once that I think applies here. It said, 'I hope that, when I die, I go during a staff meeting. The transition from life to death would be so subtle.'”

  Amy was taken so off guard by the joke that she laughed out loud before she could stop herself. Before she knew it, every eye in the place was focused on her and her cheeks were burning. Principal Walters was giving her a puzzled look.

  “Did you have something to add, Ms. Maguire?” he asked hesitantly.

  Amy shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. She was afraid she would laugh again and then the jig would be up.

  Luckily, the principal did not pursue it. He merely cleared his throat and continued on with the meeting. Within thirty seconds, everyone else's attention had drifted away from Amy as well.

  Except for Matt's. She glanced over at h
im to see that he was grinning at her. He angled his eyes at his notebook to indicate that she should look down at what he had written, and she did.

  He had crossed out the first note and, underneath it in large and friendly letters, scrawled, “You're such a troublemaker!”

  Amy flushed with pleasure. For once, she wasn't the one observing the inside joke taking place between people who were in some undefined 'inner circle' she would never pierce. No. Now she was the inner circle, and it consisted of two people—her and Matt

  She looked back up at him, wanting to see his playful grin again, and was not disappointed. He winked at her before moving his gaze back to the front of the room.

  Oh boy.

  First, a saved seat.

  Then, a special note.

  Last, a wink.

  Why couldn't staff meetings be every single day of the week?

  --- ~ ---

  Matt marveled at the power of staff meetings—even in a school where the faculty consisted of a cast of characters as colorful as this one—to crush the spirit with the sheer weight of the boredom they induced.

  Still. He had to admit it was better with Amy by his side. It had been fun catching her off guard and making her laugh. He’d also enjoyed watching as the light pink shade of blush he’d grown so fond of crept up her cheeks. In fact, he didn't think he'd enjoyed anything that much in quite a while.

  Still, he forced himself to bring his attention back to the meeting. He was, after all, new here. There could definitely be information being disseminated or discussed that he would need to know about. As much as it pained him and as difficult as it was bound to be, he needed to tear his mind away from the lovely Miss Maguire and tune in to what was being talked about.

  “I just don't think it's right. I don't like it,” Wyatt Burke, the math teacher and one of the single grumpiest human beings Matt had ever met, was saying. Well, grumbling was more like it. Matt marveled that the man was even still in the classroom—he had to be eighty if he was a day.