Least Likely to Fall in Love Read online

  She prided herself on her intelligence, but she could still pull some bonehead moves.

  “We were in the same class. That’s all. I didn’t know your dad well. There were almost two hundred kids in my graduating class. We were part of different groups. You know how that is.” Lindy did her best to deliver it all with a breezy, lighthearted tone that sounded one-hundred percent natural.

  When Maddie frowned as she considered the answer, Lindy wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off.

  “When you were bullied, what happened?”

  Lindy licked her lips. There had to be a way out of this tight spot. “We aren’t here to talk about my experience today. I’d rather hear about yours. Have you had any more trouble with Rob or Blake this week?”

  Maddie waved her hand. “No, no trouble. Rob waved at me in the cafeteria on Wednesday. That’s never happened before.” She wrinkled her nose. “That kid Eric’s been a bigger nuisance. He sits with me at lunch now. I think he’s flirting.”

  Lindy wanted to do a victory dance. Boy talk was easy. And diverting. “Are you flirting back? He’s kinda cute, right?”

  Maddie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m not trying to.”

  “How come?”

  Maddie snorted. “I don’t want to be one of those fake girls, you know? Even if he is the first boy to treat me like anything other than a cootie carrier.”

  Lindy laughed. “Well, flirting because you like somebody back isn’t fake at all, is it? Plus, it’s fun.”

  Maddie’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”

  Lindy rolled the pen on her desk. “So, Rob and Blake are treating you better. Do you see other instances of bullying around the halls?”

  Maddie straightened in her seat. “You aren’t going to ask me to name people, are you? Because I don’t—”

  Lindy shook her head. “Nope. Unless you want to. I just want us to talk about what the right response to bullying is. Not just for you, but everybody.”

  Maddie relaxed against the chair again. “I know, I know. If you see something, you’re supposed to say something. But I… Most people are afraid that the bullies will just turn on them.”

  Lindy nodded. “Sure, but you know who shouldn’t be afraid of bullies? Teachers. Do you think people who see something should be afraid to talk to teachers?”

  Maddie said, “Some people are.”

  Lindy hated that answer. “I wish there was some way to fix that. Bullying was bad enough when I was a kid, but today it’s like… It’s just dangerous. Life and death sometimes.”

  Maddie’s lips twitched but she didn’t say anything.

  “It’s one thing to be afraid to flirt with somebody because attracting any attention is scary. It’s a whole different thing to be afraid of death.” Lindy glanced out her grimy window and waited for Maddie.

  “I’m not afraid to flirt because of last week. It’s just… I don’t know how to do it very well.” Her eyeliner-free eyes were serious. She looked entirely too young to be worried about flirting and boys, but there was no way on earth Lindy would say that out loud.

  Lindy smiled. “I wasn’t talking about you, but the thing about flirting is that it just takes practice. You shouldn’t be afraid to give it a shot. You’re smart enough to ace the test of letting Eric know you like him.”

  Maddie scooted forward and picked up the pen off of the spotlessly clean surface of Lindy’s desk. “Principal Mason, you said we aren’t here to talk about you but we sorta are. Because you understand, right? So I’d like to know more about what happened to you and what you did to get over it.”

  Lindy glanced at the tiny clock on her computer. Twenty minutes. That’s all she had to navigate here, maybe less. She crossed her fingers that Ryan would arrive early.

  As she cleared her throat, Lindy battled the urge to tap her fingernails on the desk. “I moved to Lincoln just before eleventh grade.” She sighed. “This is a particularly bad time to start in a new school. Everyone had gone to school together since kindergarten, so I was an outsider and…” She shrugged a shoulder. “I was a little weird, too.”

  When Maddie didn’t say anything, Lindy said, “My parents had just divorced, and my mom had gotten a job at the hospital. She was a nurse, made pretty good money, but it was still hard to be the only parent, the only income. We lived over by the interstate.” Maddie understood exactly what that meant. She and her mom hadn’t starved, but they certainly hadn’t lived on the right side of town, either.

  “Instead of trying to be cool and different like you, I just did my best to fit in. But I was never right, you know? My hair didn’t do what it was supposed to do, my clothes were close but they never had the right brand name. And I was way too smart. Ruining the curve will put a big target on your back, especially when you’re the new kid in town.”

  Lindy checked the clock again and mentally cursed at just how little time had passed. “Lots of names, usually related to my height or weight. I don’t know if it was the divorce or the new place or what, but I made a much bigger target. Going into the bathroom might be fine or it might be a nightmare because of the way girls talk. I was nominated for homecoming queen as a joke.” She pressed both hands flat on the desk. “That was my senior year. Thank God I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Once someone put a note in my locker to let me know that he and his friends had spent some solid time in the bathroom talking about my breasts. The picture was…not artistic.”

  Maddie was silent and sat with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

  “And I didn’t tell anyone about it.” Lindy tangled her fingers together in a knot on top of the desk. “I did my best to show everyone none of it bothered me. But it did.”

  Lindy smiled. “And then I graduated. And I went to college with all kinds of people, none of whom had been friends since the cradle. I tried new things. I crossed overalls off of my list of possibilities. Eventually, I met a boy who made me want to try flirting. I made good grades and no one wanted to murder me for them. I graduated with honors. I worked as a teacher and got my Master’s degree and now I’m back at here at Lincoln but I’m running the place.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Like a boss.”

  Lindy waited tensely for Maddie’s quiet laugh. When it came, she heaved a mental sigh of relief. Whenever she used a catch phrase around the kids, she worried she would get it wrong.

  When she realized how close a resemblance that thought bore to her high school self, Lindy wanted to smack her own forehead. No matter how hard she tried to get away from that girl, she kept coming around when she least expected it.

  “Maddie, the thing is… This is just the beginning. Life isn’t like high school. At the same time, no one deserves to be afraid to come to school. I want everyone to feel safe here, so that they can get started on figuring out where they’re headed.”

  After another glance at the clock, Lindy took a deep breath. If Ryan wasn’t here yet, he would be soon. She’d make it out of this alive.

  When Maddie’s phone beeped, a sure sign of a text from her father telling her he was waiting, Lindy had to fight the urge to throw her hands up in the air. Maddie didn’t even glance at it.

  “Maddie, what are you thinking? Have you faced anything like that?” So help her, if she heard about anyone sexually harassing another person in her school, she was going to go full-on prison warden here, warrior princess style.

  Maddie blinked quickly and sniffed. “No, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

  Lindy huffed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Maddie pulled her phone out and checked her text. “Dad’s out front.”

  Lindy put both hands on her desk and stood. “Great. Next week, let’s brainstorm ways to help other students who are bullied.” Thinking about Rob and his wave in the cafeteria, she added, “And to educate the bullies without singling them out.” If they could figure that out, they ought to patent the system and make millions. Every school in the nation was dealing with bullying in varying
degrees. And probably many workplaces. And just about anyone with an internet connection.

  “Okay, let me grab my stuff and I’ll walk out with you.”

  Maddie waited patiently and Lindy tried to assess her mood as she grabbed her purse and followed her out of the office and down the hall to the steps in front of the school.

  Maddie waved at her dad but didn’t move to go down the stairs.

  Lindy stopped with her. “Everything okay, Maddie?”

  She turned her phone over and over in her hand. “Well, I was just wondering…” She glanced over at the truck and then tucked a curl behind her ear. “You know, when Rob waved at me, there was this sort of relief that the whole thing was over. I didn’t have to worry about seeing him again. You know?”

  “That’s great. I’m so glad that Rob’s big enough to make a step in the right direction.” Lindy made a mental note that she still needed to talk to Rob. Understanding why he’d been involved was critical to stopping his behavior.

  “Have you ever confronted your bullies, Principal Mason? Do you worry about running into them again? Like, wonder what you’d say if they showed up out of the blue?”

  Crap. The danger of working with a smart kid was that they were bound to pick up on things that were better off glossed over. “I used to. Now, I just… I have everything together and it would be hard to hurt me like that now, you know?”

  “Are you sure about that?” Then Maddie trotted down the steps and over to the truck. With a quick wave, she slid in and Ryan drove away.

  When Lindy was sure she could navigate the stairs without missing a step and breaking her neck, she did the same. Eventually, she realized her tight grip on the key ring was causing tingles in her fingers and loosened her grip.

  Put on the spot like that, Lindy wasn’t certain the right answer had come out. And she had a hunch that Maddie knew more than she was telling and that her question about whether she really had it all together was uncomfortably close to the heart of the matter.

  ***

  When Maddie plopped down in the passenger seat and slammed the door, Ryan tore his gaze away from Lindy. She was a statue at the top of the steps. Today, instead of the business-y suit or the too-cute jeans and Lincoln High T-shirt he’d seen her in on previous occasions, she was wearing some kind of silky dress. The skirt fluttered around her knees in a light breeze and her hair twirled behind her. If she’d licked her lips, he might have died on the spot. But he was going to move on. Maddie didn’t want him dating Principal Mason. Lindy certainly didn’t want his attention. That should be enough for him, too.

  “You know what bothers me, Dad?” Maddie reached over to twist the radio knob to land on her favorite pop station. The dangerous expression on her face dared him to say anything, so he bit back his complaint.

  “What?” Ryan did his best not to cringe. Clearly, this was going to be a doozy.

  “The best case scenario is that you didn’t do anything to stop the bullies. Even a hundred years ago, the classes here at Lincoln were small enough that it would be hard to miss someone picking on Principal Mason.”

  Ryan bit his lip. He had nothing to say.

  Maddie shook her head. “But that would be a relief, because the other choice is that you were one of the bullies.” When he didn’t answer, she shook her head and blinked like she was fighting tears.

  And just like that, his worst fear was stealing all the air out of the cab of the truck.

  Ryan drove carefully home as he tried to figure out what to say. Maddie was silent except for the occasional sniff. When he pulled into the garage, he turned off the ignition and dropped his hands in his lap.

  When she said in a broken voice “I thought you were like this great guy, Dad,” he nearly cursed out loud.

  Maddie wiped a hand across her eyes. “Did you even apologize?”

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, but…there’s only so much words will do.”

  Maddie grabbed her backpack and flung open the door. “You need to keep saying them. And whatever else you can think of, because…” The expression on her face was devastating. She slammed the door. “I’ll be in my room.”

  And those were the last full words she spoke to him until Saturday morning. They’d communicated with him asking caring, sensitive, remorseful questions and her responding with ill-tempered grunts. It was like Anna had returned to earth just to make him feel like shit.

  When he remembered Maddie’s destroyed expression, he decided he deserved to feel like shit and resolved to power through. He’d thought about marching into Lindy’s office and passing along his anger and frustration. If she hadn’t brought in that damn yearbook, they might never have gotten here.

  That morning, before he knocked on Maddie’s door, he congratulated himself on not being a total asshole. Lindy and her yearbook might have sped the process up a bit, but Maddie would have gotten there on her own. She was too damn smart for his own good.

  “You coming down to the football field to finish up?”

  When she didn’t answer, he stepped back. Her door creaked open, and his beautiful daughter glared at him for a minute before she said, “Of course I am. I’m not going to leave a job undone.” She was wearing old jeans, a crummy T-shirt, and had a short stubby ponytail. He was glad the beret was missing today.

  He made an “after you” gesture and said, “I packed us lunches in case there’s no pizza today.”

  She trotted down the stairs without answering, and Ryan fought the urge to shiver as he trailed her to the truck. The drive was quiet. They listened to pop music. Letting her control the radio was part of his penance.

  As soon as he rolled to a stop, she bounced out of the car, and he didn’t see her again until they took a break for lunch. After nearly three hours, he was starting to get a spasm in his neck from looking around for Lindy. As he chewed his uninspired lunch and ignored Maddie’s careful stare, he tried to tell himself he hadn’t been expecting Lindy.

  When Maddie and Eric walked back into the field house, he watched them carefully.

  Coach Ford snorted. “That kid didn’t even have detention this week. You may have a suitor on your hands, Myers.”

  Ryan scratched his forehead. The very last thing he needed was teenage love to contend with all on his own. But he’d been crazy to expect things to never change.

  With a sigh, he picked up a paint brush. This week all the men were scraping and painting the railings on the bleachers. He had less red paint on than he had last week, but this pair of jeans was now officially designated “painter’s jeans.” The bright red slash across the back pocket would make it easy to remember.

  They hadn’t done a lot of talking when Coach Ford was around, but when he went inside to check on the locker room progress, Matt Stewart dropped his paintbrush and sat down on the nearest bleacher.

  “This work is getting old. Too much for teenage bullshit.”

  Ryan straightened slowly and was happy to see that neither Rob nor his dad seemed to pay any attention to his comments. Blake shot anxious looks between Ryan and his father. And Ryan made a mental note not to go too far.

  Stewart must have noticed the tense silence. He turned and waved a hand nonchalantly at Ryan. “No offense.”

  He could let it go. It was a kind of apology. Not a good one. Not a heartfelt one or one that showed any remorse, but it could count if he just wanted to make it through the day.

  Rob’s dad said, “Just get back to work. We’re making good progress.”

  Blake’s father snorted. “Don’t see why I should be working. I brought my kid. He’s doing his ‘punishment.’” He made air quotes around the word and everyone turned to face Ryan.

  Both Rob and Blake were miserable, as if they’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here. Even Rob’s dad shook his head.

  “It’s that principal I blame. Maybe they shouldn’t have picked on your girl, but this is out of bounds.” He spit on the grass.

  Ryan set his paint brush down carefull
y. “Rob, Blake, why don’t you guys head over to the visitor side. We can get it scraped today before we leave.” The two boys shot each other glances. Ryan wished he had a stopwatch to time their retreat.

  Carl Daniels did his best to defuse the situation. “The principal’s working with us, keeping the boys on the field.”

  Matt Stewart propped his hands on hips. “Okay, but why do we have to be here? Blake’s the only reason that team’s winning this season, and we brought him here to play with Ford for a reason. Shoulda taken a closer look at the academic side. Notice she didn’t show up this week. Probably working on her needlepoint somewhere.”

  Rob’s dad just shook his head and went back to work on the railing.

  Ryan could do the same. Once an asshole, probably always an asshole. There wasn’t much hope to reason with him.

  But then he remembered Maddie’s face. She’d been destroyed at the thought that he hadn’t stopped a bully.

  He could do something here.

  He straightened to his full height, hitched his ruined jeans up, and crossed over to point down at Matt Stewart. “You’re all talk. You didn’t have a thing to say to her last week. You know how much you owe her. How much your boy owes her for keeping a stupid thing off of his permanent record. But like most cowards, when she’s not around, you want to shoot your mouth off.”

  Stewart’s mouth curled up into a sneer. “Just because your little girl can’t handle name-calling doesn’t mean you have to champion every lost cause. Here’s a clue. I’d bet good money that won’t be the last time she’s called a name you don’t like.”

  “Dad, just stop.” Blake was absolutely broken. Rob hovered behind him at the edge of the field. Ryan wished they’d stayed out of earshot. “I should never have said that. Rob didn’t even want to mess with her. He just got caught up, I guess. This is my fault.”

  Carl Daniels heaved a sigh. “Rob should have stopped you. Just like I should have told Stewart here to shut his damn trap or forced him to do it.” He held out his hand to Ryan. “I’m sorry. Boys are idiots but some of us grow out of it.”

  Matt Stewart rolled his eyes. “So I’m an idiot? What about this guy who’s giving up his Saturday to scrape and paint? Keeping an eye on your weird, fragile little girl? And what, she’s got nothing better to do with her time? Mason’ll show her how to needlepoint. My boy’s a leader. I’ve made sure of that. He deserves better than this.”