Page 2 of Rhodes
“I’m here!” A male voice calls out from the doorway.
I turn towards the door and freeze on the spot when I see Ethan Rhodes standing there. His arms filled with his gear and his brown hair looks unkempt like he’s been running his fingers through it.
He’s nervous.
Inwardly I reprimand myself for remembering that fact about him. It took a long time and a lot of tears to try and forget the way my best friend just stopped talking to me before we started high school.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, forgetting for a moment to hide the harshness of my tone.
He looks at me with an expression like I just grew a horn out of my head or something.
“You called and asked for one of us to talk to your class.” He looks at the children like they are going to confirm this fact for him, but then points over his shoulder out the door. “Unless there is another Miss Turner in this school?”
“I’m the only Miss Turner.” I flush, hating that he has me so flustered that I forgot for a moment that I’d requested him to be here. Well, nothim, but one of the volunteers from the fire department.
“Okay class, today we are very lucky to have one of the volunteer firefighters from the Knight’s Ridge Fire Department here to answer some of the questions you’ve been asking about fire safety.” I turn to Ethan, but I purposefully don’t meet his gaze. “Two of my students, Logan and Marissa, were at the apartment complex that caught fire last month.”
The two students raise their hands and Ethan give them each a sympathetic smile. “That had to be a pretty scary thing to have to see, right?”
They both nod.
“I was there that night too.”
“I saw you,” Marissa whispers quietly. “You saved Mrs. Waters and her dog, Jack.”
Ethan nods. “It was a team effort.”
I expected to have to steer the conversation, but Ethan has no trouble talking with the students and answering their questions. I step back and lean against the side wall with my arms crossed over my chest. I listen to him speak as intently as my students. It’s like I’m meeting a stranger for the first time. Until now, he was still just the fifteen-year-old that I knew back in high school, but now he’s someone I don’t know. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.
Chapter 2
HAZEL
Ethan was a hit with my students. He made them laugh, he let them try on his gear, and he was great at explaining fire safety on their level, so they understood what he was explaining to them.
Too often on Career Day, I get parents coming in and trying to explain their jobs on a level like they are talking to adults and the eyes of nearly every student in the room glazes over in boredom. But not with Ethan.
The bell rings and my students gather their things and file out of the room to head home for the weekend. Neither one of us says anything to the other until all the students have all left the classroom. It doesn’t escape my attention that Ethan takes his time gathering his things.
“I’m sorry if you’re mad that they sent me,” he finally says interrupting my thoughts.
I look up and meet his brown eyes. “I’m not mad.”
“Do you need me to get you a mirror?” He chuckles. “Because your face says otherwise.”
I turn away from him and swallow down the chuckle that wants to come out. “I’m not mad. I was surprised, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting you to walk in my class today.”
I move down an aisle of desks and start lifting the chairs up on the desk. Ethan follows what I’m doing down the next row over.
“How’d I do?” he asks.
“You weren’t completely terrible.”
He smiles at me and the dimples in his cheeks appear. I can’t help the flutter in my stomach when he flashes me that all too familiar grin. “Something tells me that’s the best review I’m going to get from you.”
“That’s a safe bet,” I say dryly, but can’t keep the smile from my face.
“Hazel, I think we—"
