“I thought I did, too.” I sighed.
“That bad, huh?”
I flopped back on my bed. “He’s everything I remembered and more. But he’s still my dad’s friend—”
“And old enough to be your father. What is he, forty?”
“Not quite, and that doesn’t matter.”
“So, what is it about him?”
“I don’t know since he tries to avoid me.”
He laughed. “You could walk in with mistletoe.” I’d told Tucker about my encounter with Mo four years ago, partly for advice on what I should do, and partly because I had to tell someone.
“He’d run for the hills for sure.” I was still a silly schoolgirl, apparently.
“Maybe it’s time I come get you, and you finally give me a go.”
I knew he was joking. While he’d shown interest in me when we met during my freshman year of college, it was clear early on that we’d be friends and nothing more.
“When I see him, all my neurons start firing,” I said.
“Lust. It’s a bitch when it’s one-sided.”
“It’s more than that. He’s smart and a good leader. And yet, I get a sense that he’s lonely or sad or something.”
“I’m not sure it’s good to fall for a guy who needs saving,” Tucker said.
“It doesn’t stop women from falling for you.”
He laughed. “Thank God for women who want to save a man.” He paused. “Seriously, are you okay with working in a place where your feelings are being rebuffed?”
“They’re not rebuffed. He doesn’t know.”
“The guy went down on you. He knows.”
I shrugged. “That was a long time ago. Let’s talk about you and your sucky life.”
He sighed. “I just finished summer school. My students are smart, but I don’t have the right resources to teach them, and they don’t have the support to encourage them to learn. I’m paid shit, and I can hardly afford to live here. How’s that for sucky?”
“You should move here. Our schools lack resources,” I said, having learned it by sitting in on a meeting with Sinclair and a teacher and librarian about raising money for library books. “But families support education, and it’s way less expensive to live here.”
“It’s flat.”
I laughed. “There’s clean air that will wash away that gunk in your brain.”
“Are they hiring?”
I was surprised by his question. I wondered if he was serious. “I know a teacher. I can ask. If you’re serious.”
He was quiet for a minute. “I wasn’t, but all of a sudden, I think a change of pace might be nice. I saw a rat fighting with a pigeon over a piece of pizza the other day.”
“You won’t see that here. Even if you don’t move here, you should come to visit me and check it out.”
“You’re sure? I don’t want to get in the way of you seducing the mayor.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure.”