Page 18 of XOXO, Valentina

“Will his parents be home?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you get a ride home, or do you need me to get you?”

“I can get a ride with Matt.”

“Home by eleven thirty.”

“Sorry about Hawthorne’s,” he said.

My heart squeezed. “It’s okay. Have fun and be safe. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” Shane hurried off to catch his friends.

When he was gone, so was most of the crowd, but Mr. Morales was still standing close enough for me to smell his spicy scent. Orange and cloves. I wondered what kind of cologne he used. Or was it his shampoo?

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

I stiffened. “I have not.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and pinned me with his brown eyes. “I used to see you in the teacher’s lounge almost every day, but I haven’t seen you once this week.”

My heart hammered, and my chest tightened under the intensity of his gaze. He’d noticed me in the teacher’s lounge? “I’ve been eating lunch in my office.”

He raised one dark brow. “More crackers?”

An ancient flirting mechanism in my brain, which hadn’t seen the light of day in a decade, groaned to life. I tilted my head to the side and leaned in. “I switch it up sometimes and have a protein bar.”

His eyes danced, and I noticed the gold flecks in his irises. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

My pulse raced at the low vibration in his voice. A tremor shook my knees. I was out of my league with this man. I’d started this flirting train, but it was moving too fast. I wanted off.

Dating wasn’t officially against the rules at PES. I knew several teachers who’d been in relationships, but this was different. I was his superior. It wasn’t smart to get involved with Mr. Morales.

“I shouldn’t.” I forced air into my tight chest. “People might get the wrong idea. They might think we’re on a date.”

His eyes held mine. I thought he might protest it wouldn’t be a date, that I’d gotten things wrong. He wasn’t flirting, just being friendly, like he’d done with my scraped knee.

“What if we went somewhere no one knew us?” he asked.

Heat filled my chest and spread up to my cheeks. He hadn’t denied he wanted it to be a date. I hadn’t gotten it wrong. He was definitely flirting, definitely interested in taking this beyond the occasional run-in in the teacher’s lounge. A lump formed in my throat. It had been too long since I’d sat across a table from a handsome man and shared a meal. Would it hurt to eat dinner with Mr. Morales? To stare into his dark eyes across the table and have a dinner conversation which didn’t revolve around tutoring, Snapchat, or video games?

It sounded like heaven, but my better senses prevailed. “This town is so small, we are sure to see someone we know.”

Mr. Morales’s mouth curved, and he leaned closer. “Have you tried Goodfella’s? They have the best Italian food around.”

I frowned. “Never heard of it.”

“That’s because it’s in Hog Bottom. No one will know us.”

I wrinkled my nose. Hog Bottom was a tiny town about twenty minutes outside Mossy Oak. It had a population of about four hundred and was known across North Carolina for its fly-fishing museum.

“Do they have any restaurants in Hog Bottom?”

His eyes sparkled under the florescent lights of the gym. “Is that a yes?”

I glanced around at the dwindling crowd and weighed my options. I hadn’t been on a real date in ages, but this wasn’t really a date. It was just a meal. And even if it was in Hog Bottom, it had to be better than the frozen pizza waiting for me at home.

---