“Thanks Brooke.”
“You’re welcome.” She slid her hand through my arm and we walked again. “I hope you’re not regretting moving here.”
“No. I love my work. My students are awesome. They’re hilarious and it’s so fun to watch them learn.”
“I’m glad. Now if we can just get your personal life all sorted, things would be perfect.”
“No truer words were ever said.”
22
Holly
After a few days, when Rick hadn’t shown up or called, I relaxed and decided he’d changed his mind. Perhaps when I hadn’t rushed into his arms and taken him back, he’d decided I wasn’t worth the effort after all. Interestingly, I felt more relief at that idea than pain.
Things had been a bit tense with Tucker for a little while after Rick’s visit, but slowly we’d fallen back into our routine. It helped that we could focus on school and the library project.
Halloween fell on a Friday this year, and Tucker and I, plus the sixth-grade teachers and a few parents hosted a dance/party for the kids after school. I always liked Halloween. I loved to see the creativity of parents and kids in costume making. I found the costume choices by the kids revealing. Often their choices were of characters they liked on TV, but some chose professions they liked. Others wanted to create the goriest creatures ever seen.
Tucker too seemed to be energized by Halloween. He dressed as a fireman and holy crap, he set my insides on fire when he came out of the bedroom that morning in his costume. He didn’t have the coat on yet, so he was in a t-shirt that showed off every line of his chest, and the big pants with suspenders. I wanted to shove those suspenders off his shoulders and drop to my knees to check out his hose. I laughed at myself for such silly thoughts, but Tucker brought that level of thinking out of me.
I decided to go as a vampiress. My dress wasn’t risqué. It had long lacy sleeves and the neckline wasn’t low, but it was a little snug round the curves. For a minute I considered changing although I wasn’t sure what I’d dress up as instead.
“You look great,” Tucker said.
“It’s not too sexy?”
His brow arched up. “Is that a real thing?”
I rolled my eyes. “For fifth graders?”
He shook his head. “All the sexy bits are covered.”
While I enjoyed Halloween at school, it was a more tiring day. Between the candy and the costumes, the kids were more active and talkative than usual. I always made an attempt to work Halloween into my lessons as a way to keep them focused. Fractions were done cutting pumpkin pies. Bobbing for apples was used as a lesson in density and floating.
At the end of the day, we set up the gym for the party, including more games and music for the kids who wanted to dance. In Salvation, all elementary activities were done after school, as opposed to evenings like the high schoolers did.
“I love Halloween, but it’s like the ADHD spirits get into them and make them nuts,” Tucker said as he met me in the gym.
“I agree.”
“So now what?” Tucker looked out over the gym. For the most part, the kids were in their groups ignoring the activities or dancing. The boys congregated on one side of the room, while the girls were on the other. “Oh hell no. Tell me these kids know how to have fun.”
I laughed. “They might need a little help.”
Tucker strode over to the area in which the music system played. There was also a microphone to help us bring order, or make announcements if needed.
He picked up the mic. “Is this a party or what?”
The kids all turned to him.
“I mean, come one, ladies and gentlemen, tell me you know how to have fun here in Salvation, Nebraska. We’ve got bobbing for apples over there.” He pointed to the corner where a parent was supervising the activity. “We’ve got eyeball pong, which is a little different from when I played cup pong it in college, but fun still. And you won’t feel bad tomorrow.”
He pointed to where another parent had ping pong balls with eyes painting on them and plastic cups.
I laughed and looked toward the other teachers to see if they caught his subtle reference to beer pong.
“Over there is pumpkin bowling, an