Page 2 of Twice Shy

“Mr. Morgan?”

Joel looked up from grading books to see Liz Benton poking her head around his classroom door. She had one of her kindergarteners in tow, a shy looking boy in red shorts and a rainbow tie-dye t-shirt. “Hey,” he said, smiling at the kid. “Who’s this?”

“This is Rory Palmer,” Liz said. “His carer’s running late and I have a parent consultation in five. Would you mind keeping an eye on him until he’s picked up?”

“Sure. I’m sticking around for the Welcome Cookout anyway.”

Liz raised her eyebrows. “Who volunteered you for that?”

“Me, actually.” He rolled his eyes at her expression. “What? I have the time.” And plenty of it. Time had been one of the key stipulations of his new low-stress life. Time and space: life on the evenest of keels. It’s what he’d needed after his old life imploded, exactly what the doctor had ordered in fact. And if it was a little lonely at times, then so be it. Better than the alternative.

He stood up from his desk. “Hey, Rory, come on in. It’s lucky you’re here, because I need some help tidying my classroom. You any good at tidying?”

“He’s great at it!” Liz said, smiling encouragingly. “Off you go, Rory. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Joel got the kid scrambling around gathering pencils and erasers and putting them into the right pots, but he didn’t miss how often the boy’s anxious gaze flicked out the window to the parking lot. With his dark hair and wide eyes, he was a cute kid. But unusually serious as he carefully sorted the pencils into the correct colors.

When a car finally pulled into the lot, a beat-up old blue Honda, Rory jumped to his feet and the first smile Joel had seen broke out on his face. A young man climbed out of the car and—

Okay. It washim.

Joel had noticed the guy around school since the beginning of the semester. He was hard to miss among all the moms. For one thing, he was at least ten years younger than most of them. For another, he was out, proud, and leaving it in no doubt. In skinny jeans that showed off lean hips and legs, and a tight t-shirt that, today, read ‘Normal’ in rainbow letters, he looked like any one of the beautiful young men Joel had admired from a distance throughout his six-year marriage to Helen. Except that this guy’s brown hair, instead of being carefully styled, was a curly, unruly mess that suggested he’d missed a hairdresser’s appointment six months ago and never rebooked. Somehow it contradicted the rest of him—as if he was dressing up in somebody else’s clothes.

“That’s your daddy, huh?” Joel said, smiling as Rory pressed his nose to the window and started waving.

“No.” The kid didn’t turn around. “My daddy and mommy are in heaven. That’s Ollie.”

Shit. Joel grimaced.Thanks for the heads up, Liz. “I’m sad to hear about your daddy and mommy, Rory.”

“I’m sad too, sometimes,” Rory said. “But I’m not sadnow.”

“Well, that’s good.” Joel smiled, his heart pinging. In the three years he’d been teaching, kids had never stopped surprising him. “You wanna grab your backpack and we’ll go find Ollie?”

By the time they reached the parking lot, Ollie had wrangled another kid out of the car—a sturdy looking toddler—and had the trunk open.

“Ollie!” Rory yelled as soon as they were outside, racing across the empty parking lot towards him.

Ollie grinned, crouching to catch the kid in his arms. “Hey buddy, sorry I’m late.”

It was a touching moment and Joel was moved by the sight of this young man and the boy he was apparently parenting. He felt a dangerous, unsettling pang of envy and swiftly set it aside. No point in going there; that boat had sailed. Or, rather, foundered on the rocks and sunk without trace.

But the uncomfortable emotion distracted him enough that he almost missed the moment the toddler bolted toward the street. Racing to intercept him, Joel scooped the kid up before he could get too far. “Where do you think you’re off to, young man?”

Ollie straightened from hugging Rory, eyes wide. “Luis!”

He was a wriggler, this kid, but no match for Joel and he carried him over to Ollie with a smile. “You’ve got a runner,” he said as he handed him over.

“I don’t normally let him—” Ollie hoisted the kid onto his hip. “I wouldn’t normally let him out of his car seat like that, it’s just that he’s been stuck in a shopping cart all afternoon and he gets cranky when he can’t run about, and I had my eye on him until—”

“Hey!” Joel cut him off with a wave of his hand. “No harm done.”

Ollie blew out a breath. “No. Sorry. Thanks.” He ran a hand through his curly hair and gave a nervous laugh. “Not a great first impression, me being late for pick-up and then almost losing Luis.”

“You don’t have to impress me,” Joel said, and for some reason his words made him flush. To cover it, he added, “I’m Joel Morgan. I teach sixth grade. Miss Benton asked me to keep an eye on Rory until you got here.” He smiled down at Rory. “He did a great job helping me tidy up the classroom.”

“Yeah?” Ollie ruffled Rory’s dark hair. “Good boy. And you’re gonna help me carry the groceries into the school too, right, Rory?”

“Did you get ketchup?”

---