This was just the kind of person he was. A planner.
He liked to think of all possibilities, and when it came to Andy, he was so far off track.
“I was wondering if you were doing anything tonight,” he said.
“Tonight?”
“Yes. I would like to take you out on a date.” He had never asked a woman out. Ever. With the women he’d been with, there had been no previous conversation. They’d met in a bar and hooked up after that. Or a fair. Or out enjoying whatever he’d been doing at the time.
Staring at Andy, he had no idea if he was doing this right or not.
She opened her mouth, closed it.
“I have already talked to the principal, checked through the rules and the teachers’ handbook. There is absolutely nothing unethical about you going on a date with me.”
Her mouth opened wide. “Oh, so you have … thought about this.”
“I was your student seven years ago. Nothing happened. I made that perfectly clear.”
“I guess that explains why I was called into the principal’s office and he told me that I was an amazing teacher and how he thought highly of me.”
Rome cringed. “I … er … that was my bad.”
Andy chuckled. “I’m going to be honest with you, Rome.” She stopped, and he watched as she licked her lips, wanting to taste her himself but holding back. There was so much he wanted to do with this woman. “When you were in my school, I never … I never thought of you that way. I was there to do my job and to take care of the kids. I had no romantic feelings for you. I don’t have any for any of the kids.”
That was a blow but to be expected. “You’re good at what you do, but I’m not asking about back then. I’m not acting on what I see as old feelings.” She didn’t need to know the extent of his obsession when it came to her. Not that it was threatening or stalker-ish in any sense of the word. He just liked and cared about her. “I’m asking you as a man who sees a beautiful woman and wants to take her out on a date.”
His brothers would each vote this being the worst prelude to a date in the history of the Hard boys. It had to be.
She tucked some hair behind her ear and nodded. “I would, in fact, like that. Very much. Will you pick me up at, say, seven?”
“Yes. I will do that.” He clicked his fingers and winked at her.
Andy laughed. “I better get going. It was nice to see you again, Rome.”
“And you, Miss Evergreen.”
“If we’re going on a date, call me Andy, please.”
“Will do, Andy.”
He heard her laugh as she got to her feet. With her back turned, he couldn’t help but fist-pump the air.
If his brothers saw him now, they’d berate him for giving the Hard name a bad one. When it came to women, they were both experts, while he’d been floundering all his adult life.
He smiled to himself.
Andy had said yes.
He was finally going on a date with the woman he’d been wanting all his life.
Just as he was about to get up, he saw James, his oldest brother, enter the coffee shop.
After getting to his feet, he walked up to his brother. “I’ve got a date tonight. With Miss Evergreen, I mean Andy.”
“Glad to hear it. You just got Caleb a hundred bucks,” James said.
“What? How?”
“He said you’d ask your teacher out.”
“You’ve got bets against me?”
“Please, the whole town has got a bet against you, for you, with you, whichever way you want to look at it. You’re the last Hard boy, Rome. Make it count.”
****
This was a mistake.
Andy turned left and right as she looked at herself in the sixth dress she’d tried on. All of them screamed woman wanting to fuck, at least to her, they did.
This was going to be a very conservative date.
Lilly had told her about Rome’s crush. She’d expected Rome to ask her on a date at Lilly and Caleb’s wedding. He never did. In fact, it had taken him a couple of months to ask her.
She hadn’t lied to Rome. As a student, she never saw them as anything other than people she needed to help. Not in a sterile kind of way, but in a loving, nurturing one. She was helping the next generation of people to be the best they could be. She wasn’t looking to break or bend the rules.
Rome wasn’t the same boy he’d been back then.
The nerdy glasses were still there, but they were no longer chunky frames, but sleek ones that accentuated his face. Sometimes he even wore contacts, which again only enhanced how handsome he’d become.
Of all the Hard boys, Rome had been a late developer. Not one for sports throughout high school. He’d been tall, slender. The kind of kid that to look at him, you’d think a good wind would carry him away.