I cannot believe he is trying to flirt with me right now. I want to smash a doughnut in his face. “Will you please wait outside? I’m nervous enough, and this is something I wanted to do alone. I’ll buy you a doughnut. What kind do you want?”
It’s too late. Mr. Cologne gets his box of doughnuts and turns to leave, so it’s my turn to step forward.
I quickly retrieve my best customer service smile and inject a little extra friendliness into my voice, but I’m still a touch self-conscious about accidentally bringing a boy with me. “Hi, um, is the hiring—” My voice inexplicably cuts out, so I clear my throat and start over. “Is the hiring manager available?”
The tired-looking girl in front of me nods like she expected me to ask and takes a step back. “Mona.”
The blonde lady I guessed was the manager walks over, but she’s paying more attention to Anderson than to me. “First home game tomorrow, huh?”
With an easy smile, Anderson says, “Sure is. We’re ready.”
“I hope so. All those hours Brian’s spent practicing, he better be ready.”
“Brian? Oh, you’re Grady’s mom?”
“Sure am,” she says, her lips tipping up just a bit. Finally, her gaze drifts to me, her expression pleasant. “This your girlfriend?”
Well, this is an unexpected wrinkle. Anderson settles an arm around my shoulder, giving me an affectionate squeeze. “Sure is. She’s great. Smart, friendly—if I had a business, I’d definitely hire her.”
With an indulgent smile, Mona reaches for my application. “I bet you would.”
This is not the way I saw this going. I would have preferred not to get a job because I’m dating a football player, but I guess I can’t really afford to be picky. “I’m Riley.”
Almost distractedly as she glances at my application, she says, “Nice to meet you, Riley. What kind of availability…?”
She just sort of trailed off, so I wait a second to see if she finishes. I don’t want to interrupt, but she doesn’t, so I hesitantly begin to answer. “Other than when I’m in school, my availability is completely open. I do volunteer four hours a week, but it’s very flexible, I can squeeze that in around my work schedule. I’m on the school paper, but that shouldn’t be an issue, either. And then I am in a school club, which I listed on there,” I say, indicating the application, “but we only meet once a month, the rest of the time we communicate via group message.”
Frowning as she looks up from the application, she says, “Riley Bishop. I know that name.”
Oh no.
Jumping in to save the day unnecessarily, Anderson says, “Oh, we all go to school together. Maybe Brian has mentioned her in passing.”
Don’t help.
I bite back a grimace and try to morph it into an uneasy smile. “I come here all the time with my mom, maybe you recognize my last name from the credit card slips,” I say lightly.
As she looks at me, I watch her gaze visibly cool. “No, that’s not it. I know who you are. My son has mentioned you. So have a lot of other people, actually.”
That doesn’t appear to be a good thing, but I try not to jump to unpleasant conclusions. “Oh… really?”
Her cool eyes turn even frostier as she gives me the fakest, most unkind smile I’ve ever seen. “Yes. If I recall correctly, weren’t you responsible for breaking up the marriage of your history teacher last year?”
My heart slides into my stomach.
Last year, one of my favorite teachers got caught in a compromising position by a student—he was hooking up with someone who was not his wife during his lunch break, and someone snapped a picture of them kissing in his car.
The picture was terrible, you couldn’t remotely see who the girl was, all you could tell for certain was that she was a brunette. The problem is, the coat she was wearing looked a lot like mine.
As soon as Valerie Johnson realized she could link me to it in even the flimsiest way possible, she started spreading the rumor that I was the one hooking up with Mr. Fitzpatrick.
That one was a lot worse than the stories I heard of all my secret hook-ups with the guys in our grade. That rumor took on a life of its own. I started hearing tawdry stories about myself—I especially liked the one where I was hooking up with Mr. Fitzpatrick at his house when his wife came home, and he made me sneak out the bedroom window without even having time to put my shirt back on. Zachary Long who lives near Mr. Fitzpatrick confirmed it, telling everyone he saw me and he couldn’t believe I had such nice tits.
“No,” I murmur flatly, my face heating with shame I did nothing to earn. “That wasn’t me.”