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When he reached the end of the article, he pushed my phone away, leaned back in his seat, and cleared his throat. “Well.”
I winced. “Yeah.”
“How did they find out?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Trevor? Was it because of that? I don’t…the summer program isn’t that much. Any teacher could afford to cover it unless they were a bad money manager.”
“I don’t know. I can’t see Trevor going to the press. What would be his reason?” I hated to think it was Trevor. That kid had such potential, and Austin was trying to feed that potential. If Trevor had thrown that away, it was going to be even harder on Austin than dealing with the fallout of these articles. Whatever that was going to be.
Austin shrugged. “Some people like to see their name in the paper.”
“His name’s not there.” I regretted the words as they were coming out of my mouth. Now wasn’t the time to defend anyone. Austin needed my empathy and support. And it wasn’t as if I knew for certain Trevor wasn’t behind the whole thing. I just didn’t want him to be.
Austin’s look bordered on a glare.
“Sorry.” I rubbed his leg. “Maybe it’ll all blow over before we get back? Maybe the fact that we’re out of town will help?”
He shook his head. “I should go get my phone. I imagine I’ve got messages looking for a comment.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I bit my lip. “I debated not telling you. I think you should enjoy your vacation. Should I not have told you?”
“No.” He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “No. I needed to know. I would’ve been seriously torqued if you hadn’t told me and I found out later that you knew while we were here.”
I managed a slight smile. At least I understood that much. “What if you took a day? Just today? We can let it simmer, maybe talk to the others and see what they think.”
He sighed. “That’s not a bad idea. Tristan probably has an idea of the right way to handle it. Maybe Scott, too, for that matter. Both of them have had to deal with more publicity than the rest of us.”
“I think that’s smart.” I waited, trying to figure out what to say. “Are you all right?”
He scoffed. “No. I’m really not. I’ve got about ten thousand ‘what ifs’ running through my head. How do I keep teaching math when this cat’s out of the bag?”
I opened my mouth to deny that it’d be a problem and then had to bite back the words. Sunny optimism had its place, but right now was not it. Because he was right, it was going to make things sticky. Especially if the newsdidn’tdie down quickly.
Austin pushed his chair back and stood. He squeezed my hand before letting go. “I’m going to go take a shower. Why don’t you get in touch with Whitney and let her know we’ve got dinner handled? We can head into town in an hour or so?”
“Sure. I’ll be ready when you are.” I grabbed his hand to keep him from running off. “Hey. I love you.”
His smile was tight and didn’t really reach his eyes. “Love you, too.”
I wanted to tell him it was going to be all right in the long run, but I could tell he wasn’t in a place to hear it.
So I let him go.
22
AUSTIN
Iclosed the door to my bedroom and threw myself onto my bed. This was a disaster. I worked so hard to keep my personal life—all aspects of it—separate from school. I just wanted to teach math. To have a chance to share the beauty of math with kids and see the occasional student—kids like Trevor—come to life.
Was I going to be able to do that still?
It depended on how quickly the news blew over.
When we’d first made all the money, there’d been a little coverage. Mostly Tristan had been the point man on that, and he’d managed to keep the vultures away from the rest of us. Still, I’d gotten a few people coming around, asking for handouts, but in the overall scheme of things? I’d been the one who’d had the least publicity.
Looked like that was over now.
I blew out a breath and dragged myself off my bed. I’d showered outside after playing in the ocean, but I wanted a real shower, not one designed to keep sand out of the house. If nothing else, it was good thinking time.
And that was what I did. I stood under the strong, hot spray of water until my fingers started to shrivel and the water was more warm than hot. Then I got out, dried off, and got dressed. It was time to face the day.
