Page 56 of As Long As You Kiss Me

Chapter 14

“You look like your dog died.” Greg filled his mug with coffee in the teacher’s lounge. The side of his mug said “World’s Biggest Nerd” on it.

“It’s been a rough week,” Jackson admitted, stepping up to the coffeemaker to get his own cup.

“What happened?” Greg poured some creamer in and then stirred it.

Jackson wasn’t really buddy-buddy with the dude.

“You know, life stuff.” Hopefully, the vague answer would be enough for Greg.

No such luck.

“Trouble with your love life?” Greg guessed.

How did he know he was even seeing anyone? “Something like that.”

“You’re with Sully, right?” He leaned too close to Jackson, and the smell of onions permeated the air as he spoke.

Jackson took a step back to escape the smell. “How did you know about that?” He certainly hadn’t shared those kinds of details with Greg.

“Come on, Carr. Everyone knows about that.” Greg pushed up his wire-framed glasses up his nose. They were clearly too big for him because they were always slipping down.

He should have known. They’d been pretty thorough about letting the biggest gossips of Maple Creek know they were an item. It figured that the news would have spread to Greg by now.

“Look, if you’re having trouble with the ladies, you just need to figure out how to talk to them.”

“Greg, I think I’ve got it.” Jackson walked away from him and settled at one of the tables. At least no one else was in the room to hear their ridiculous conversation.

“No, seriously. It’s an art and takes a lot of practice,” Greg insisted. “Not just anyone can do it.” He puffed out his chest like he was not just a science teacher, but an instructor in the practice of love as well.

“Really?” he said in a flat voice. Maybe if he kept his side of the conversation to one-word answers, Greg would take the hint and drop it. He never should have mentioned that anything was wrong.

Greg looked at him over his glasses that had already slipped down his nose again. “Learn from the master, Jackson. I’ll teach you everything you need to know about women.”

Just then Sara Crawford walked in, the senior English teacher. It was well known around the school that she’d just gotten out of a bad relationship. A lot of the single male teachers had been talking about how she was available now. Not Jackson though. The only woman he could focus on was Sully. She’d completely captured all his attention just by breathing.

Greg looked over at him and said, “Watch this.” He stood up and yanked on his belt that wasn’t doing a very good job holding his pants up under his protruding belly. Walking over to Sara, he leaned against the countertop next to the sink where she was rinsing out her coffee cup.

“Hey, Sara.”

She looked over at him. “Oh, hey, Greg.”

“That’s a very beautiful shirt you have on there. It hugs you in all the right places, if you know what I mean.”

“Um, I don’t think…” Sara turned her back to him as she filled her cup with coffee.

“Are you available after school tonight?” He leaned a little too close to her and she took a step back.

“Actually, I have a lot of papers to grade tonight.” She finished pouring her coffee. “You know how it is. There’s always something going on.”

“Funny that you should say that,” Greg said with excitement in his eyes. “I have a stack of tests to grade myself. Maybe we could make it a joint effort.”

She turned her face away from him like she’d noticed his bad breath too. It was hard to miss, and Greg always liked to invade people’s personal space. Especially with women.

“Sorry, I prefer to work alone.” She took her mug and escaped the room.

“Maybe another time,” Greg called out after her.

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