She took the paper in my hand and nodded. “I will. Today,” she replied.

“Good.” I needed to leave, but here I stood, staring at her.

“Thank you, again. Really. I may say this a million more times.” Her eyes were bright with new unshed tears.

“You don’t have to do that. But I’d like for you to call me after your meeting with him. I will be curious about how things go. Keep me updated.”

She beamed at me. “Yes. I can do that.”

With one last look at her, I headed for the door. I had to get out of here before I reached out and pulled that shiny hair back over to me so I could smell her cinnamon scent and get tangled in all those silky locks.

“Be careful,” she called out to me.

I opened her door, then glanced back at her and winked. “Always.”

Reese

My double date had to be postponed. We had set it for Thursday, but Thursday was the first evening that I could meet with Dr. Munroe. I thought about calling Mase and telling him that I had called the professor and set up my first meeting, but he had said to call him after my meeting. I didn’t want to bug him.

So instead, I stared at the photo of his boots a lot on my phone.

I had a crush on Mase Manning. It wasn’t my first crush. I’d had a couple in high school, but I soon found out that those guys were flirting with me only when no one was around. When they saw me in the halls, they ignored me. I was invisible to them unless they got me alone. Those crushes died quickly, and I stopped paying attention to cute guys. My senior year, the captain of the cheerleading squad caught her boyfriend cornering me outside and got furious. He never spoke to me again, which was a relief, but then, shortly afterward, the entire school was talking about me being a lesbian.

I didn’t figure that was a bad thing. I wasn’t into girls. Especially the mean vipers I went to school with, but I sure wasn’t into any of the guys there, either. So I let them call me names, and I ignored them. Eventually, they moved on to someone else who responded to their cruelty.

Needless to say, it had been a while since I had actually had a real, honest-to-God crush on a guy. My stepfather had made sure that I kept men away at a football field’s length. I cringed thinking of the man who had taken my innocence and tainted me for life.

Shoving all thoughts concerning Mase aside, I went to take a shower. Memories of how my stepfather always sent me to scrub my body clean under the hottest water I could stand popped into my head, but at least I no longer threw up when I thought of him. I was getting distance from my terrible past. I was improving.

Wednesday evening, my phone rang just as I pulled the lasagna I’d made out of the oven. I had made an entire pan of it, hoping that Jimmy might want to come over and eat. But he’d called me at around three to let me know he was going out that night since I’d bailed on our double-date night. He was on me about giving him another night that would work, but I couldn’t seem to muster the interest. Right now, I was very focused on learning to read.

So I kept coming up with excuses for why I couldn’t go.

I dropped my oven mitt and went to pick up my phone. My heart started racing when I saw the cowboy boots on my screen. It was Mase.

“Hello,” I said on the third ring.

“Hey. You haven’t called me.” His deep voice came over the phone, and my toes curled into the carpet.

“Oh, well, I don’t go to my first meeting until tomorrow,” I explained, really thankful that he couldn’t see the silly grin on my face right then.

“Good. You have one scheduled. Did you like him when you spoke to him on the phone?”

I walked over and sat down in the chair he had sat in before he left and pulled my feet up under me. “Yes. He was very nice. He seemed eager to meet with me. He asked me several questions, and after hearing my answers, he said he was positive that I do, in fact, have dyslexia.” I had wanted to dance around the room when he’d told me that.

“I’ll be available tomorrow evening. Call me when it’s over. I want to hear everything.”

The fact that he cared so much made my little crush pulse and grow even more. Having a crush on someone like Mase Manning was ridiculous. He probably had a world of women with crushes on him. He was helping me, and it would make him uncomfortable to know how I felt.

“OK. I’ll call,” I assured him.

“Good. I’ve got to go. I’m having dinner at my parents’. I’ll talk to you tomorrow night.”

“OK, ’bye,” I replied.

Dropping my phone into my lap, I felt like clapping and squealing. But instead, I got up and went to enjoy some lasagna.

Astor Munroe was not what I had been expecting. When I thought of a professor, I imagined a man with silver in his hair and possibly glasses. Maybe even a little potbelly under his button-up starched shirt.

What I hadn’t expected was a man of about thirty-five, with a tall, lanky body, wearing a pair of blue jeans, Nike tennis shoes, and a short-sleeved polo shirt. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, but then, I was comparing him with Mase, and that wasn’t exactly fair. I wouldn’t want to be compared with Harlow. They were the beautiful people. So I shouldn’t do that to Dr. Munroe.

His soft brown eyes were kind. He didn’t make me nervous at all. The moment I walked into his office, he stood up and, with an easy smile, invited me to have a seat. After every question and request, he assured me that it was all to help me learn. It was obvious that he was excited about the challenge I presented to him. He shared the story of his father’s struggle, and I was in awe of how, at twenty-one years old, Dr. Munroe had taught his father to conquer something he had been dealing with his whole life.