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His laugh was bitter.
I nudged him again. “Hey. This isn’t like you. What else did she say?”
“Isn’t that enough? I spent my whole life working toward this. And I realize that ‘high school math teacher’ isn’t something tons of kids dream about being, but I did. I do. And now it’s just gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Now what?”
“Now we work on making a new dream. Maybe one we can work on together.” The principal hadn’t told me my contract was unrenewed, but she had suggested that distancing myself from Austin—publicly—would probably be a better choice for career longevity. Like I was going to do that. Which meant I’d been leaving school with some heavy thinking and praying of my own to do. But talking to Austin made the answer a lot clearer.
“Together?” He tipped his head to the side and studied my face.
“Always.” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “I love you, Austin. I’ve loved you for a long time—much longer than we’ve been officially a couple. With you is the only place I want to be. So, if your learning center can use a kick-butt computer science teacher? I’m your girl.”
For the first time in our conversation, Austin’s smile was genuine. He slipped his arms around me and tugged me closer. “You’re the only one I want by my side. You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?”
My heart thundered in my chest and I struggled to keep my voice calm. “You haven’t asked me.”
“I’m asking you now. Will you? Marry me?”
A thousand emotions swirled through me at once. “Of course I will.”
His lips descended on mine and the annoyances of the day slipped away as I got lost in him.
An ear-splitting whistle, followed by several catcalls made me jolt.
“Yeah, Mr. Campbell! Woo!”
“Nice, Miss Jones! You go.”
My face heated and I stepped back. I cleared my throat. “Well.”
Austin laughed and held my hand despite my efforts to tug away. “Nope. You said yes.”
“I did.” I tugged again, but didn’t put much oomph behind it. “I do have to mention that there’s no ring.”
“I’ll fix that. Promise.” Austin drew an X over his heart. “In fact, what are you doing tonight? Want to go over to Tyson’s and scout the mall? We can grab dinner and make it a whole thing?”
I bit my lip. Tonight was Luke’s last night at youth. I’d been planning to go and…be moral support, I guess. He hadn’t asked. He probably didn’t need me. He certainly didn’t know that was in my plan, so it wasn’t like he’d miss me.
“Yeah. Let’s do that. You want to follow me home so I can change? Then we can go in your car.” I’d need to feed the cats, too. They were going to be annoyed with me for leaving so soon after getting home, but they’d deal. For all the things people tended to say about cats, mine liked their routine, which included after-school cuddling.
“Sounds like a plan.” Austin pulled me close for a quick kiss. “I’ll see you there in a few?”
I nodded, grinning.
Holy smokes! I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was engaged. Officially. To Austin.
In my car, I double-checked that my phone was connected to the Bluetooth and tapped Megan’s contact.
“Hey. What’s up?”
The fact that she answered assured me that the bookstore wasn’t super busy, but I went ahead and confirmed anyway. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah. We’re dead right now. Usually are, this time of day, although with schools starting to get out, I think we’ll pick up in another thirty or so. Hey, what kind of summer programs should I have? I want to find ways to get more people in with kids out of school.”
I fought a laugh. “I will try to concentrate on that in just a minute. First, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay. Hit me. But also, please think about summer programs that would appeal to teens. I know story hour can get the moms and tots in, which is fine—it’s good—but I need to grab the whole age spectrum.”
“Okay.” I blew out a breath. Maybe calling was a bad idea. Maybe Austin and I should just swing by after we got a ring and had dinner and we could show her. “Teens like prizes. You could do a raffle of some sort. Although, you don’t necessarily want to tie it to purchases, because teens can’t always spend like their parents. What if you worked with the library? You could offer a gift card for the bookstore as prizes for summer reading.”
