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Trace was reading aloudByron’s poem “She Walks In Beauty.” Like most poetry, it was meant to be read aloud, the words, rhyme and rhythm savored. And Trace’s sonorous, articulate voice was doing it justice.
Caroline seemed to notice. Her gaze wasn’t on the page but on him with dreamy wonder, her attention riveted. So was Heather’s, Naomi’s, Sarah’s, and every other girl in first period. I couldn’t blame them.
Trace wore the combination of bad boy, intelligence, and swagger that would have most teenage girls swooning. I couldn’t help but smile as he finished the poem's final lines, followed by audible feminine sighs from multiple corners of the room.
“Indeed,” I murmured, drawing their attention. “Byron was a lover. He knew how to use words to woo women. Can you tell?”
“Yeah,” agreed Sarah in the first row next to Caroline.
“Byron lived in an age where romance flourished. And poetry was one of the best art forms to express romance.”
“Romance is dead nowadays,” added Sarah on a huff.
“Is that all it took?” Emmitt frowned down at his textbook. “Because if you ask me, that was a bunch of sappy nonsense. All he said was ‘you’re pretty’ in a bunch more words than necessary. Seems like overkill to me.”
Emmitt might’ve been in a grouchy mood because I told him he owed Katherine a new, pristine copy ofJane Eyre. I’d even given him a link on Amazon for a beautiful hardbound book with gold embossing if he was feeling extra generous. He’d frowned but had screenshotted the Amazon page anyway.
“Of course,you’dthink that,” said Heather. “But I bet girls in his era didn’t think so.”
“I don’t think so either,” agreed Naomi, her petite friend next to her.
“What happened to women’s rights? Feminist equality and all that?” asked Trace.
“What do you mean?” asked Caroline with a little laugh.
“I thought women wanted to be recognized for their brains and their strength nowadays. Not something as superficial as their looks.”
“It’s not just what he’s saying,” Caroline bristled. “It’s how he’s saying it.” She looked back at Emmitt sitting behind Trace. “It’s not just that he told her she was pretty. It’s that he took the time to put his thoughts into a poem. A little work of art. Just for her.”
“So now women need to be worshipped with words.” Trace grinned. “I thought the twenty-first-century woman was above all that. That you wanted straight honesty and respect. Not flattery.” He was being antagonistic on purpose, but I’d discovered over the past couple of weeks that this was his and Caroline’s love language. Argumentation.
“This isn’t flattery,” snapped Caroline. “This is admiration and eloquence.”
“So if I were to write a poem about a girl, telling her witheloquenceall that I admired about her besides her looks, she’d go to Homecoming with me?”
Emmitt snickered, but Caroline didn’t. There were some other chuckles in the room. Caroline’s fair face flushed pink. Trace simply held her gaze, waiting for an answer.
Oh, boy.Time to step in.
“I’m glad you brought that up, Trace.” All eyes swiveled to me as I flicked on the Smart Board at the front of the room with the new assignment listed for the day. “Today, you’ll be writing your own three-quatrain poem, following the rhyme scheme of Byron’s ‘She Walks In Beauty.’”
Emmitt grumbled then banged his head on his desk. Someone laughed.
“However, you don’t have to write about romance. Especially since Sarah thinks romance is dead. Your subject matter can be—”
Knock, knock, knock.
We all turned toward the door. Through the narrow rectangular window, all we could see were…flowers.
Then the door opened and someone stepped in with a giant bouquet. I sighed because the Homecoming theatrics had been in full swing for weeks.
I didn’t mind the wild, sweeping gestures some guys were implementing to get the girl they wanted to go to Homecoming. Though honestly, to quote Emmitt, I thought it was overkill. Just ask the girl and don’t make it so high pressure for her. It was kind of hard for a teenage girl to say no—even when she wanted to—when a guy got the band to serenade her in the cafeteria and then asked her to the dance with a bouquet of balloons.
“I’m not sure who you’re here for, but I’m in the middle of class,” I said irritably.
Then the flowers were moved to the side, and Bennett’s beautiful face was smiling back at me. It was so unexpected to see him at my workplace that I hadn’t even noticed the all-too-familiar lower half of the flowers-bearer at first.
A feverish blush rushed to my cheeks when my gaze landed on the jeans I’d seen him in after our last rehearsal. In the rain. And in his truck.
