Page 23 of Off The Ice

CASSIE:Sorry, lol. Who is this?

UNKNOWN:Oh, sorry. It’s Liam. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t screw up your number.

My heart jolted. Liam was texting me?

CASSIE:How did you get my number?

I shot back, curious.

LIAM:Maggie.

I hesitated, mulling over what exactly to say to my friend’s brother-turned-roommate. Before I could figure it out, another text came through.

LIAM:I just wanted to let you know I made a spare key, and it’s under the doormat for you.

I felt a rush of warmth at how unexpected it was. I hadn’t pegged Liam as the type to make a spare key for anyone, least of all a temporary roommate he didn’t even want.

CASSIE:You didn’t have to do that.

I grinned down at the phone, a fluttery feeling spreading in my chest because of the fact he had.

CASSIE:Don’t worry. I won’t be there long enough to warrant a whole spare key made in my honor.

I saw his response bubbles pop up and disappear. Finally, his text came.

LIAM:I’m not worried.

He was a man of few words, that was for sure. Me? I was more of a verbal sparrer, which usually translated to text. Still, there was something endearing about his simplicity. Maybe that’s why I found myself not wanting the conversation to end, even when he wasn’t giving me much to work with.

CASSIE:Well, aren’t you worried that now I can be in and out of your apartment whenever I want? How do you know I’m not going to make a copy of the key and use it even when I move out just because your guest bed is soooo much more comfortable than anywhere else I’ve ever slept?

His response was faster this time.

LIAM:I think I’ll catch the culprit quickly when I hear the Friends theme song playing in the dead of the night.

I let out an embarrassing cackle, amused by the solemn, withdrawn guy I’d first met now cracking a joke with me over text.

I wanted to respond, but I figured he probably had texted me as a courtesy and surely had much better things to do with his time than sit there responding to silly little words I’d typed on a screen.

But that didn’t stop me from smiling down at my phone like an idiot as I reread the messages, which apparently did not go unnoticed by my coworkers.

“What’s got you beaming so early in the morning?” Jana’s voice startled me back into reality.

I blushed, racing to put my phone away as if I were caught doing something I shouldn’t.

“Just happy to be here,” I said with a grin as the art teacher peered at me knowingly over her mug.

Dropping my stuff down onto one of the tables, I pulled out my lesson plan book to go over details for the next week. Some teachers dreaded the lesson planning, but for me, it was a reprieve. Lost in thought over crafts to prep and new songs to introduce, I didn’t hear Marissa until she was standing directly in front of me.

“No rainbows today?” The fourth-grade teacher peered down at me with a tilt of her head.

“What?” I blinked up at her curiously.

“You’re usually all—” She searched for the word, making an exaggerated hand motion toward my clothes. “Rainbowy,” she concluded, her tone indicating that it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

“But today.” She gave me the once over. “You’re looking distinctly normal.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks at the insinuation that the way I usually dressed wasn’t considered normal. I scratched at my collar, suddenly feeling out of place.

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