Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“They were holding hands!”
“I wanna see you guys kiss!”
“Does he have a big di—”
“Do not finish that question!” Ryder shouted above the roar of nosy kids. He shot me a bemused look. “So much for going easy on you.”
My face burned. I now completely understood the idiom ‘fish out of water.’
“Yes, you meddlesome monsters, he is my boyfriend, but that is the only question I’m going to answer about him. And no, you cannot see us kiss.” He winked at me. “But we sure like to.”
A chorus of awws went around the center until Ryder rolled his eyes. “Simmer down, you guys. Okay, I’ll try to get to everyone, but I’m telling you now, whoever needs homework help, Alex is your guy.” He pointed to me as he spoke. “My man is wicked smart.”
My damn face couldn’t get any hotter. Ryder seemed determined to have me combust into a pile of ash at this point.
A gentle hand tugged at my wrist. I glanced down to see a waif of a girl looking up at me with wide, jade green eyes. “Can you do math?”
I chuckled as I nodded. “I can.”
“Will you help me? I suck at math.” Her sweet face crumbled. “I’m in the remedial class for sixth grade.”
A boy at least a foot taller, threw an arm across her shoulders with a fierce scowl. “She struggles in math, but she is not dumb,” he said with all the ferocity of an older brother protecting his sibling. It also seemed to be a warning to me not to upset her.
“I’d never think you were dumb. I bet you just haven’t found the right method that works for you. I’d love to help with your math homework.”
The protective boy studied me for a moment, then nodded and stepped aside. I guess that counted as his seal of approval.
“My stuff is set up over there,” she said, pointing to a table.
I cast a glance at Ryder, who was already involved in a serious debate over which pizza restaurant was the best in Boston, so I followed the girl to her table.
Math, I could do. Math came easy to me. Hopefully, I could help this girl, whose name I still needed to learn.
The afternoon passed in a blink. One by one, kids came to me for assistance with their homework after my new friend, Alyssa, left with excitement and a newfound understanding of integer equations.
Ryder was the hit of the entire center. Each kid vied for his attention, gobbling up his smiles and praise like their favorite candy. Every so often, our gazes would meet, and he’d send me a wink or a private, pleased smile that made every ounce of nerves I’d felt worth coming here.
We were about an hour in when I realized I was having fun. A lot of fun. These kids were funny, sweet, and full of so much energy that I could barely keep up. But what took the afternoon from fun to spectacular was watching Ryder. He was in his element working with these kids. The career change to education made perfect sense. My boyfriend was a natural and belonged in an environment working with kids. He truly cared about every kid here, giving them his full, sincere attention. When a few hours in, he mouthed thank you, I couldn’t stop myself from blowing him a discreet kiss like some sappy romance movie character.
If his father saw him in action, there’d be no way to deny this was where Ryder shone. As his new boyfriend, I’d make sure to not only tell him that but also stand by his side when his father fought against it. Nothing, not even parental pressure, should keep him from achieving this dream.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RYDER
Over the next few weeks, Alex and I became the subject of endless workplace teasing and pranks. At first, we’d tried to keep our relationship on the down-low, but that plan crashed and burned after only four days when Trevor walked into the staff room to find me shoved up against the lockers with Alex’s tongue down my throat.
Okay, so maybe we hadn’t been trying that hard to keep things private, but what the hell was I supposed to do when he prowled into the staff room while I was on break, looking all sweaty and glittery from that damn gold body paint Parker insisted we wear on Saturday nights? The man should be categorized as a lethal weapon. I’d had no choice but to allow him to slam me against the lockers and kiss me brainless. It was only after Trevor walked in and shrieked like a damn banshee that I realized boners and Top Shelf uniforms didn’t mix.
Since that day, we’d suffered a series of juvenile pranks, routine invasive questions about our sex life, and constant ribbing. I loved every second of it. Each time Trevor begged to know our favorite positions or Dom ribbed me for doing a shitty job covering up a hickey—Alex was a biter, and I did not hate it—I got a secret thrill. Alex was mine, and my coworkers talking about it as though they had nothing interesting in their own lives only reinforced that fact.