Chapter 8: Not-so-anonymous stranger problems

"You sure you don't need a ride?" he asked, pointing up to the sky. "Looks like the rain is about to hit."

Somehow he'd become even more tempting.

"Ollie should be here soon." I riffled around through my bag, pushing the novel aside to find my phone. Anything to occupy myself while he headed across the parking lot. Even after spending the last few minutes trying to push him away, watching him walk away felt like defeat.

I took a seat on the front stoop and gave the home screen on my phone the stare down. Oliver was already fifteen minutes late when Mrs. Cook strolled out with a handful of books and papers, almost dropping half the stack when the door swung closed against her arm. I jumped up to help, pushing the door open and allowing her to balance the load.

"Thanks," she sighed. "What a week..."

"No kidding," I mumbled. I had no clue what she was talking about, but I could relate to the what seemed like a universal sentiment that week. "I can help you to your car, if you want. I'm waiting on my roommate, but it seems he's running a little late."

"If you don't mind, that'd be wonderful." Mrs. Cook handed off some of the books until we each had a manageable share of the pile. She was spry for someone pushing sixty - had to be when she spent her days chasing around first graders. When I'd started student teaching, I'd been assigned to her classroom and she'd been my biggest proponent when I applied to work at our school district.

"How has your first year as a full-timer been so far?" she asked.

"Kind of crazy." I had to take the stairs sideways to see where I was stepping.

"You'll get used to that."

I took another two steps, but my brain was already a mile ahead of me. "I'm sure."

It wasn't the teaching aspect of the year that was getting to me, it was a certain uncle of a certain pupil of hers. Eric had talked to her. I told myself not to give into the curiosity. That it'd only get me in trouble. But there was no point in reasoning with myself. As soon as I opened my mouth again, the words just slipped free. "Did Eric find you?"

I wasn't about to tell her that I'd been standing right there and knew he'd found her.

Mrs. Cook's sighed, shaking her head as she deposited her books on the trunk of her Buick while she opened the back door. "I don't know how he's keeping it together."

I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping she'd continue without my having to admit that I had no idea what she was talking about.

"And Charlie..." She sighed and her shoulders dropped as she leaned against the closed front door of her car. "Losing both his parents in that accident. It's a wonder that poor child survived."

Charlie? Grove? I remembered him from one of my art classes last year. He was quite the inquisitive student who loved art.

I realized she must have been talking about the accident that had been all over the papers. But last I'd checked, they hadn't released any names. I needed to pay more attention to the chatter around the school, but my mind had been preoccupied. Of all the things that could've been hiding under Eric's fiery smile, that wasn't what I'd expected. And I'd given him the inquisition.

Mrs. Cook squeezes my elbow. "Eric's a good man for coming back here and taking care of Charlie, but I can't imagine this is the scenario all those years in the Navy prepared him for."

"Right?" I told myself to come up with something better than that, but all I wanted to do was retreat to a corner where I could put all the pieces together.

With the last of the books and papers neatly stacked in the back seat, I waved goodbye and headed back to wait on the steps for Oliver while my brain ran in circles like a hyperactive kid with a truckload of new toys.

When I had subbed for the art teacher during her extended leave at the end of the previous school year, I'd taught Charlie's Kindergarten class every other Monday. He seemed to like school, loved to draw, but he talked to me more than the other students. Near the end of the year, I'd asked all of my students to draw a hero to hang up in the art room. When Charlie finished, he'd crept up to my desk to with his finished drawing and asked if he could tell me a story about his hero. Always inclined to indulge the imagination of a six-year-old, I agreed, and he pulled up a chair and told me a story about the monsters and zombies that tried to get into his house at night and how his hero kept them all away.

"He sounds extraordinary, does your hero have a name?"

"Decker," he said, jumping out of his seat, and handing me the picture.

"Well, we'll hang Decker in a special place so he can keep the zombies out of the classroom."

"Okay." Charlie started to walk back to his seat but turned back at the corner of my desk. "When he's done protecting the classroom, can I take him home to hang in my room?"

And that sweet kid was my fantasy stranger's nephew.

I rubbed my hands over my face, hoping to scrub away the contrasting images. The car accident had been all over the internet and front page of the paper. Their speeding van had swerved left of center and the front end got decimated by an oncoming truck. His mother was gone before the first responders arrived, and his father was airlifted but succumbed to his injuries within hours. Charlie must've been the kid in the back of the van - who somehow escaped with minor injuries because he was far enough back to escape the brunt of the impact.

When I heard Oliver's approaching truck, I hooked my bag over my shoulder and met him at the curb.

"You look miserable," he said.

"You're late." I tossed my bag into the floorboard. I didn't even know what else to say. "I have not-so-anonymous stranger problems."

Ollie made a sound in his throat and shook his head.

Jerking the seatbelt around me, I snapped it in place then sank into my seat, but the truck didn't move. I rolled my head against the back of the seat. "What'd Cade tell you after we left the bar?"

"Just that he and Eric were good friends and he'd basically stake his life on your safety."

My mouth fell open, and I was thankful to be already seated - and strapped to the seat. "You knew his name all along? You... And you still gave me the third degree?"

Ollie put up his hand, then pointed at me. "Regardless of what Cade told me, you climbed in a cab with a stranger. I knew I pissed you off, but - "

"It wasn't about that," I mumbled. "I enjoyed flirting with him."

"And making out with him."

I stared straight ahead, chewing on the inside of my cheek and well aware that my cheeks had already affirmed Ollie's suspicion.