Page 67 of Class Act

“For the love, do not play flirty spy with these men.” He bit his lips together, and I knew it was to keep from smiling.

“I happen to be very, very,” I leaned in closer to him, “very good at flirty spy.” Such a lie. I’d never flirted in the past and was probably bumbling it up now.

He looked over to say something, and the words seemed to freeze in place as he took in my face mere inches from his. That same intense look he so often got came back into his eyes, and I felt like a book whose pages had suddenly fallen open. His arm, still on the back of my chair, shifted so that his palm skated across my shoulders as he moved back into his own space. I pulled back and cleared my throat, snapping my attention back to my menu.

“Anyone interested in appetizers?” Gianna’s husband, Randy, called out to the table.

Heads popped up, and the look was so much like a documentary on meerkats that I’d recently shown my class that I had to clear my throat to cover my sudden laugh. Ford glanced at me, but when my eyes stayed trained on the menu, he returned to the group at large as he suggested a few starters that he knew were good.

“I was right . . . you did order for the table,” I giggled under my breath.

“It’s not my fault I know what’s worth our while here,” he replied, amused.

Randy waved over a server that I hadn’t even seen lurking near a hedge and began repeating the list Ford had just given him.

“Poor guy gets to stand in a hedge waiting for us to need something?” I whispered to Ford as the waiter listened closely.

“I think he’s paid well enough that he’d stand in the fountain if we asked him to,” Ford replied quietly.

“Hmm.” I watched the server for moment before leaning toward Ford again. “Do you think he makes more than I do as a schoolteacher?” I asked jokingly.

“Definitely.”

“You could have lied.”

“What would the point of that be?” he asked.

“Do you honestly think he makes more than me?”

“Possibly.”

“Then the point of lying would have been to spare my feelings,” I retorted. “I do have them, you know.”

“Would anyone like drinks?” the server asked.

I was happy to turn slightly away from Ford and give him my order. Assuming Ford was paying, I made it expensive.

After the server left, I was more than happy to let Ford go back to his wheeling and dealing with the businesspeople while Gianna and I got back to a rousing discussion on a cooking show we both watched.

“I’m hoping to travel to see a taping soon,” Gianna gushed. “Probably in the new year, seeing as this season gets so busy.”

“I teach second grade, and from Halloween through Christmas, it’s basically anyone’s guess how things are going to go. The kids get all wired, the teachers get burnt out, and nobody has any time to spare.”

Gianna giggled and placed her hand on my arm, a universal sign that things were about to get gossipy. “Ford said you met through his daughter. Are you her teacher?”

I shook my head with a smile. “I was for a short time last year, but we hit it off. So this year she invited me to her dad’s birthday party because she said it was only for adults, and I was the only adult friend she had.”

Gianna put her hands over her heart. “So of course you went.”

“Of course I did. What kind of monster would say no to that?” I replied, crossing my fingers against my lap. Gianna did not need to know all the hullabaloo that had surrounded that event.

“And now you and Ford are dating?” she asked.

To stall, I picked up my water glass and took a sip. When I set it down, my pleasant face was back. “It’s . . . undefined.” I couldn’t answer a direct question with a lie.

Gianna’s dark eyes shot over my shoulder to Ford and then back to me. “So he’s available?”

Oh, crap on a cracker. “Not really that either,” I replied, unsure of what Ford would want me to share with business associates.

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