Page 5 of Whiskey Shivers

He stopped his cleaning again and straightened, turning.

“I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine first.”

I cocked my head and took off my reading glasses.

The very temperature, or barometric pressure in the room, shifted to something more serious, his gaze from across the room holding a weight that hadn’t been there a moment before. But it was the weight of curiosity – nothing uncomfortable. Not yet… although I felt as though it was a tipping point. That we were suddenly on the very precipice of something here. I didn’t know what it was, but there was a tenuous thread of, I don’t know,hope?

He unfastened his canister vacuum from in front of his chest and shrugged out of it, setting it on the floor next to his rolling bin. I perked up when he came toward me, pulling up a chair across from my desk and settling into it, leaning forward, his muscular forearms atop his knees, the sleeves of his school district issued pine-green coveralls rolled back over them. There was something very blue-collar but stillveryalluring about that. Almost as hot or hotter than when a man rolled his shirt sleeves back in a white-collar position.

My thoughts drifted to Mark. I rolled my lips and flirted with danger out of my annoyance and hurt when it came to the man I was supposed to be set to marry.

“Ask your question,” I said, leaning back in my seat and almost surrendering in the moment to whatever may come out of Mike ‘Hex’ Johnson’s mouth next.

What came wasn’t what I had expected, not at all.

“Are you happy?” he asked me.

I blinked in surprise and my gaze flicked to his intense brown eyes that were light enough they weren’t quite black but were darker still to give that effect that they were molten and deep.

My breath stilled in my lungs, and my voice sort of issued forth without my thinking about it, blurting out, “Beg your pardon?”

He gave me a crooked grin and huffed out a slight laugh, leaning back in his seat.

“It’s not a complicated question, Miss Legare,” he said. His voice was warm and slightly teasing, dragging an answering smile to my own lips as I shook my head to clear it from whatever spell he was trying to put on me.

“I mean, in what context?” I asked to buy time. His expression changed, like clouds scudding over the sun, dimming things, turning him cold almost.

“Here at school?” I asked, and quickly followed up with, “Of course I’m happy. I love my job.”

He cocked his head and I felt a bit put on the spot. He said, “I confess, I pulled up alongside y’all at the stoplight up the road yesterday. You didn’t look happy then and I just got the impression I should check on you, is all.”

“Oh,” I said, and the silence that word escaped into was so profound I felt as though my utterance should have echoed. He watched me, waiting me out, and I felt my shoulders drop as though the proverbial jig, as they would say, was up.

“I… I wasn’t happy,” I confessed. “Mark and I were having a bit of an argument.” I cleared my throat as his chin lifted almost imperceptibly and I smiled wanly. “He can sometimes get a little wrapped up in work and things, that’s all. Things are fine now.”

“Is that why he’s late today, too?” Hex asked gently.

I said, “I don’t know. Probably. I can’t get through to him on his cell phone. He turns it off for meetings and sometimes forgets to turn it back on.” I blushed and was low-key angry at myself and damn sure resentful of Mark for having to make the excuse. I mean, he was a grown-ass adult. With how addicted the lot of us were to our phones nowadays, I didn’t understand what was so hard about remembering I was waiting and turning the damn thing back on.

“Tell you what.” Hex planted his hands on his knees and stood up. “I’ll just let ol’ Curtis know I’m takin’ you on down to the shop to get your car and I’ll be back in fifteen. We’ll go now. I’m sure you’d be a lot more comfortable grading papers at home and it’d sure take a load off of you, getting your car sooner rather than later.”

“Oh, I can’t ask you to do that,” I said and laughed a little.

“It’s no problem. I want to, so I will,” he said and jerked his head toward my classroom door. “C’mon.”

I looked at the clock and then at my dormant phone on the edge of my desk and scraped my bottom lip between my teeth.

“Can you give me a few minutes to gather up my things?”

He was right. Mark wasn’t answering his phone. I had no idea when he would be here, and I really did want to get my car before the shop closed, otherwise I would just be doing this all over again tomorrow… potentially with an added overnight storage fee, considering my car was completed. They had it clearly posted that any vehicles that had their work completed were subject to a daily storage fee until picked up. I wasbarelygoing to scrape getting it out and I didn’t have the extra to just let it sit.

“Sure thing,” he said. “I’ll just go find Curtis and let him know. Back in a few.”

“Okay,” I said.

I gathered up my things. I just knew this would start a fight with Mark later, but damnit… he wasn’t exactly making any of this easy. And if he couldn’t turn on his phone? Well, to hell with him.

Hex stopped outside my room and rapped his knuckles twice against the doorframe. I looked up from where I was shoving the last of my students’ papers into my bag with my laptop and smiled gratefully.

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