Page 18 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Lumberjack

I've been none of those things for five days.

The car got fixed. Some belt thing I can't pronounce. Parker's Auto did it in three hours, charged me less than I expected, and a woman named Savannah Parker loaned me a pair of sneakers for the drive home because she said my ballet flats were a crime against feet. Small town kindness from people who didn't ask why my eyes were swollen.

Drove straight to Reno. Didn't go to Tessa's. Couldn't face the margaritas and the couch and the questions. Went home, plugged in my phone, stared at the screen.

No texts from him.

Not one, in five days. The man who texted me every single day for three months, even if it was just a one word response to my paragraphs, has gone completely silent. My phone is a brick with a blank notification screen, and every time I check it I feel pathetic.

So I stopped checking.

Mostly.

"Miss Bloom?" Marcus tugs my sleeve. "There's a man."

"What?"

Marcus points at the classroom door. The top half is glass, and through it I can see the front office administrator, Mrs. Chen, walking someone down the hallway. A tall someone. Broad shouldered. Sawdust on his jeans.

My heart stops.

Wal fills the doorway. Six one, work boots, gray henley, beard going silver at the corners. His dark eyes scan the classroom. The tiny chairs. The finger paintings. The alphabet rug. Then they find me, crouched next to Marcus with a broken crayon in my hand, and his entire face changes.

"Can I help you?" Teacher voice. Steady, controlled, professional. The voice I use when I'm absolutely falling apart inside.

"Hattie." He says my name like it costs him something. Then he looks down at Marcus, who is studying him with the analytical intensity of a future cult leader.

"Are you Miss Bloom's friend?" Marcus asks.

"Yeah." Wal's voice is rough. Quiet. "Something like that."

"My class is in session for another ten minutes," I say, standing. My knees are unreliable. Everything is unreliable. "You can wait in the hall."

"I'll wait."

He steps back. Mrs. Chen is standing behind him with her mouth open, clearly trying to figure out why a mountain man just walked into her elementary school. Wal leans against the hallway wall, folds his arms, and settles in. Patient. Immovable. A man who drove three hours and is perfectly willing to wait ten more minutes.

The longest ten minutes of my life. Sophie's crayon crisis resolves. The cloud debate reaches a shaky ceasefire. Parents start arriving, and I hand over backpacks on autopilot while my pulse hammers so loud I'm sure the kids can hear it.

Marcus is last. His mom apologizes for being late, rushes in. Marcus pauses at the door, looks back at me, then looks at Wal in the hallway.

"He's big," Marcus observes.

"Go with your mom, Marcus."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

From the hallway, Wal says, "Yes."

Marcus nods like this confirms a theory he's been working on. His mom gives me a look. They leave.

Then it's just us. Me in a classroom that smells like glue sticks, him in my doorway, and five days of silence sitting between us.

"You can't just show up at my school."

"Already did."

"And you can't tell my kindergarteners you're my boyfriend."