Page 27 of The Marriage Mistake

“See here, it wants us to find x. But if x is confusing, why don’t we just put a question mark for now.”

Darby’s frown was still there, but she said nothing. I passed her another sheet of scrap paper and got her to write out the equation again, but with a question mark instead of the letter.

“You know the order of operations, right?”

“Duh. PEMDAS.”

“Excellent,” I said with a sharp nod. “What’s the P for?”

“Parentheses.” Without me having to say anything more, Darby went to the parentheses in her equation and solved what was inside it, then moved on. We worked through the equation, and she solved it with only a small hiccup while doing the final division.

She leaned back, then looked at me and gave me the kind of smile that stopped my heart. My throat suddenly got tight as I returned her smile.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she said.

“No,” I agreed. “Want to do the next one? This time, let’s keep the letter instead of swapping it for a question mark. And here, it’ll be easier to see what’s going on if you line up your equal signs on every line. That way you know what’s happening on either side of the equation.”

Darby nodded, a determined look on her face. She was sharp, and she caught on quickly. The second and third equations gave her no trouble at all. The fourth had some exponents, which she forgot to do at first, but it was an easy fix.

Before long, her homework was done. Darby let out a giant, dramatic sigh and stuffed the worksheet and textbook into her bag. “Thanks!” she said, flashing me another smile, then turned to her dad, who had been lingering in the kitchen the whole time we were working. “Can I go watch TV?”

“Have you practiced your piano?”

“Dad! It’s Friday!” She curled her shoulders and tilted her chin up, looking pitiful. After five days, I hadn’t seen Darby willingly play the piano without her father prodding her to do it. It was strange, since he seemed so in tune with everything else about his daughter. So willing to make her happy.

Why was he so insistent she play an instrument she clearly didn’t enjoy?

Jack sighed, relenting. “You have twenty minutes before bedtime,” he said with a nod.

Darby was out of the room within the next two seconds, heading toward the living room. I stood up and pushed my chair into the table as Jack put the last of the dishes away.

He turned to face me. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I took one look at that homework, and my eyes started blurring.”

I huffed. “It’s not that bad. You just have to be methodical about it.”

“Not everyone finds that as easy as you do,” he noted, a hint of humor in his voice. Was he making fun of me?

I flushed, embarrassed, my chest feeling hot and tight. My gaze slid away from his as a bitter taste coated the back of my throat.

Jack noticed. “Hey,” he said gently, moving closer. “What’s up? What just happened?”

I blinked up at him, wanting to run. Instead, I shrugged a shoulder and shook my head. “I know I’m strange. I like numbers, and I’m bad at…everything else. It comes in handy for this kind of thing”—I waved at the table where we’d done Darby’s homework—“but I know that I suck at regular human interaction.”

Jack was quiet for such a long moment that I was forced to look up at him. I found him frowning down at me. He moved closer, so close that I caught a hint of his scent and felt the heat of his body. “It wasn’t a criticism, Ember,” he told me in that same quiet, gentle voice. “It was a compliment.”

I flinched, not believing him.

How could anyone compliment the thing that had made me such an outcast? I’d always been terrible at making friends and forming relationships, so I’d thrown myself into school and achievement. I’d made a career out of it. A life out of it.

But I knew that most people saw me as a frigid, arrogant nerd who was unable to interact like a normal human. No one complimented that. No one liked my personality. They endured it when they needed to work with me.

Like Jack was enduring it now. Just until we got our wedding certificate filed and I went back to Chicago.

He reached for me, like he wanted to touch my arm, and I jerked back. Jack lifted his palms as if to tell me he was no threat.

“S-sorry,” I blurted, awkwardness making me fumble over the word. “I just—I think I need to go for a walk. I was at my computer all day.”

Jack watched me for a beat, opening his mouth like he wanted to say something, and then reconsidering. He took a step back, and I felt like I could breathe again. “I’ll get you a flashlight,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon, so you should stick to the road. I’ll grab a high-vis vest for you too. There aren’t many cars on the road, but it’s better to be safe.”