Page 74 of Apparently, I’m Trouble

I nodded, then shook my head. “Yes, but maybe–” I winced. “I might have feelings for her.”

“Feelings?” Her whisper was harsh. “Do you think about her?”

I shut my eyes and let out a breath. “All the time.”

“Do you like having her around?”

“Yes.”

“Do you try to make her laugh?”

I swallowed. “Mostly, I just try not to touch her. But yeah. Her smile is… incredible.”

She groaned. “Have you been making excuses to see her?”

“I’m trying to do the opposite, but I don’t like it. I don’t want to stay away from her.”

It felt good to finally say it out loud, but then Rochelle said my name like she was about to yell at me.

“Theo, you’re in love with her,” she whispered.

“I’m not.” The two short words felt wrong on my tongue, and Rochelle could tell.

She pushed at my shoulder. “You big dope, you’re in love with her.”

I held up my hands. “Okay, fine. Look. I have feelings for her, I know that. But it doesn’t matter. Mia is Kira’s teacher. I can’t do anything about how I feel.”

“No,” Rochelle agreed. “You can’t.”

She made a frustrated noise, then said, “You do know you’re meant to be the level-headed one, right?”

“It’s not like I wanted this to happen.”

She dropped back against the sofa and grumbled, “Yeah. You and me both,” and I could tell she was talking about her ex-husband.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened after Roger?”

Her eyes squeezed shut as she slumped deeper into the cushions. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“We don’t have to. But you said there was some trouble after your divorce, and–”

She opened her eyes and stared at me. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

When Rochelle spoke to me like that, when she looked at me like that, I knew what it meant. I held up my hands. “Then we won’t.”

“Good.” Her voice softened as she asked, “What are you going to do about Mia?”

There wasn’t much I could do. “Kira’s finally okay. I can’t do anything to screw that up.”

“Yep. The last thing that girl needs is to see you with her teacher,” Rochelle said, and I nodded because I had to.

Being in love with Mia didn’t matter if it meant hurting Kira.

But then… I couldn’t ignore that every time I saw her, it was getting harder to hold myself back.

What if, one day, I couldn’t…

Fuck.