Page 17 of Pick Me
But what I ended up saying was, “Oh, you know. It’s great. Pretty scenery.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded like she guessed some part of what I’d left unsaid. “Lot of personalities out there, aren’t there? You know, I went to school with Drew Sunday, and I taught third grade for thirty-five years before I retired, so I had every one of the Sunday kids in my class, too,” she said conspiratorially. “I’ve got all the tea, if you’re interested.”
“Oh, wow.” I tried to imagine Knox or even Webb as an eight-year-old, but I couldn’t. I was pretty sure they’d been born with thick beards and broad shoulders, just maybe a little shorter. “You know, I might just take you up on that offer, Helena,” I told her. “’Cause I’ve been sharing an office with—”
“Knox Sunday!” Helena interrupted, hands on her hips as she smiled at someone over my shoulder. “Well, well. The prodigal son’s come home at last, eh?”
“Hey, Ms. Fortnum,” a deep voice behind me said, and my whole damn body vibrated like a plucked bowstring. “Good to see you.”
Don’t turn around,I warned myself. It’ll only make the compulsion worse. Don’t be that idiot. Don’t turn around. Don’t…
“Webb and Emma finally dragged you out of the orchard and into town?” Helena teased.
“Not dragged.” He paused for a second, and I could almost hear his lips tilting up—a glacially slow transformation. “You know Em would never use brute force when she could convince you to come under your own power, right?” He paused. “So, I see you’ve met Goodman.”
“Oh, yes! He’s adorable.”
Because I was weak as hell, I turned my head to check Knox’s reaction to this comment and caught Knox’s eyes surveying me from heels to head like he was trying to assess whether I was adorable or not.
I knew I looked good. I’d spent thirty minutes selecting my outfit that afternoon, just in case I decided to do more with Grindr than contemplate its existence. My navy sweater was dressy without trying too hard, and Toby had once told me my jeans—the one and only designer pair I owned—screamed “fuck me” in denim.
Knox didn’t seem to be picking up on this message, though, because after casually looking me over, he sipped his apple cider and watched the crowd like he’d dismissed me entirely from his thoughts.
“I don’t know about adorable, but he’s something alright,” he agreed with heavy irony.
Knox, meanwhile, wore the Sunday brothers’ uniform of a button-down shirt over dark jeans and boots, except Knox’s shirt was well tailored to his tapered frame. I had no idea how a numbers guy had maintained a physique like that while living in the city. I imagined him belonging to one of those gyms that had people flip tractor tires instead of doing simple squats, and a pang of something deeper than longing made my stomach clench.
Confession time: I had jerked off to the mental image of Knox’s laughter the night before.
And, yes, that might actually have been the weirdest, least sexual thing I’d ever jerked off to.
And, yes, thank you, I found that concerning also.
Particularly since the object of my lumber-crush was about as into me as I was into the 1970s game show reruns that my stepmother watched for hours each day. Survey says, not at all.
Which was why I was probably almost definitely for sure going to find a random guy to hook up with tonight, before I was tempted to beat DJ Tony over the head with his own microphone for the good of Little Pippin Hollow.
“Thank you, Herzogs! That was… beautiful,” the man in question yelled, ignoring the feedback screech that made us all flinch. “Now! Marianne Palmer? Marianne? Where are you, Marianne? Ah! Marianne, Christina Miele has pledged $40 for the pleasure of your company as you dance to Meatloaf’s ‘I Would Do Anything For Love.’ What do you say? Are you going to tell her youwon’t do that?”Tony laughed at his own joke so hard that I rubbed my forehead and made a pained, whimpering noise.
“Tsk. Anthony Rivera,” Helena said with a sigh. “I swear that boy hasn’t had new material since high school. Now, what were we talking about?”
“Actually, do you mind if I borrow Goodman for a minute, Ms. Fortnum?” Knox interrupted, shocking the hell out of me. “I need to speak to him for a second.”
I frowned. Since when did Knox speak to me voluntarily?
I couldn’t imagine what offense I’d committed this time, but I was in no hurry to hear my crush tell me what an irredeemable person I was, and that must have shown on my face.
“Actually, I do mind. I was just about to tell Gage tales about having you as a student, Knox Sunday,” Ms. Fortnum teased. She added to me in a low voice, “Do you know, Gage, in nearly four decades of teaching, I never had another like him? Knox was an original. On his very first day of third grade—”
“Oh, wow! Okay, then! As fun asthatconversation promises to be,” Knox cut in, “I really need to—”
“Is this an emergency?” I demanded.
He hesitated. “No. Not exactly.”
“Then I’m sure you can wait. Be polite.”
Knox looked up at the Averill Union Beavers’ basketball championship banners hanging from the steel rafters. “Now would be a great time for an intervention, FYI,” he told the ceiling. “Avalanche? Fire alarm? Alien invasion?” He flicked a lightning-fast glance at me and added, “Stampede of Orwellian cows hell-bent on revenge for millennia of oppression? Any interruption, really. I’m not picky.”
