Page 64 of The Dom

She shook her head. “We’re on spring break. And I wouldn’t skip school anyway. It’s too important.”

“Do you like school?” I asked as she slid into the back of the car, putting herself between Nate and me. I was grateful. Being too close to him tended to muddle my thinking. Better that we kept our distance when a child was present.

“Most of the time,” Catherine said. “I don’t like history or art.”

“Why not?”

“I’m no good at art,” she said matter-of-factly. “I can follow directions, but it never comes out looking as good as it is in my head.”

“I can sympathize,” I said. “When I was your age, my art teacher had the class use this sculpting clay to make a basket. Should’ve been simple, right? Mine was so lopsided and uneven that anything I tried to put in it rolled or spilled right out.”

Catherine giggled again, but my attention was caught by the heated gaze Nate was sending my way. It held a lot of his usual desire, but there was something else to the warmth this time. Something…deeper. I didn’t have words for it, or maybe I did but didn’t want to say it. It felt like one of those things that, as soon as they were acknowledged, they fell apart.

“What’s your favorite subject?” The question was as much to remind Nate and me both that we weren’t alone as it was genuine curiosity.

“Music,” she answered promptly. She looked up at Nate, hero worship shining in her eyes. “I’ll bet that was your favorite subject too.”

“You’d be surprised,” Nate said wryly. “Let’s just say I didn’t apply myself to school as much as I should have, so my favorite subjects tended to be the ones where I didn’t have to work much to get good grades.”

“And what might those classes have been?” I teased. “Gym?”

He grinned at me. “Oh, I killed it in gym class…but I also killed it in math. I don’t know how many times my math grade pulled my GPA up enough to keep me from being benched during football.”

“I’ll bet history was easier back then too,” Catherine said.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the indignant look on Nate’s face.

“Why do you think that?” he asked.

“There was less stuff to learn,” she explained. “You didn’t have to learn all about 9/11 or the war or the first African-American president.”

She had him there. Even I’d learned about 9/11 in high school because I’d been too young to remember much of anything about it.

“Then there’s the Oklahoma City bombing and Watergate and the Cuban Missile Crisis—”

“Wait a minute,” Nate cut in as my laughter finally escaped. “How old do you think I am?”

She shrugged. “Like fifty?”

I clapped a hand over my mouth as Nate glared at me, but I could do nothing to stop the laughter from coming up. I could only muffle it.

“I’m thirty-five,” he said. “And I’m younger than your dad.”

She shrugged again. “Dad’s ancient.”

Nate’s mouth opened, then closed again, and it sent more laughs bubbling up inside me.

“You just wait.” He pointed his finger at me. “Someday, a kid’s going to think you’re a lot older than you are, and I’m going to be the one laughing.”

“How old are you?” Catherine asked, her head swiveling to me.

I could see Nate preparing to tell her that most women didn’t like that question, so I shook my head at him. I didn’t mind. “I’m twenty-three.”

She looked at Nate and then back to me. I could almost see the wheels turning. “He’s a lot older than you.”

Nate slumped back in his seat. “I get the kid a signed poster and a signed t-shirt from one of the biggest bands in the country, and how does she repay me? She calls me old.”

Now Catherine and I were both laughing, and I could feel the muscles in my stomach already protesting. As we calmed down, she turned her attention to me.

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