Chapter 15

I watched Gia walk out of my office sadly. She was lost and I had yet to figure out how to help her. I’d asked her to bring in some of her photography to show me, and she had. I thought maybe it would help spark conversation between us, but it had done the opposite. I didn’t know much about photography, but I knew that when I looked at her photos I felt overwhelmingly sad. She remained as tight lipped as ever, and I became even more worried about her.

I spent the next little while making notes on Gia and brainstorming possible ways to get her to open up and let me in. I added my notes to her file and packed them away just in time for my next appointment. Nathan walked in just on time, with a smile on his face. He greeted me cheerfully and plopped down on the couch.

“How’s school going this week?” I asked him. I knew most of the answer to that already, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I just came from biology. I got a B on my last test,” he announced proudly. I grinned back at him.

“That’s great, Nathan. I’m really glad to hear that. How about on that English essay?” He shrugged.

“We haven’t gotten them back yet.”

We talked a little more about how things in school were going and then he segued into other subjects. I didn’t really care what we talked about as long as we were talking. In the last few weeks since Nathan had gotten into trouble, he’d been doing really well. He hadn’t missed any school, he’d been getting better grades, and as far as I knew he hadn’t gotten into any trouble. Of course, he knew this as well.

“So, the Hawks are at home Sunday evening,” he started hopefully. I glanced down at the calendar in front of me, where I’d written down all the games.

“They are, but it’s a 6:00 game. Pretty late with school the next day,” I replied. His smile turned into a pout.

“But Miss Tunney, it’s the last chance I’ll have to see a game until after Christmas! I’ve been doing really good lately!” he protested.

“Doing really well,” I corrected. He rolled his eyes at me and I refrained from laughing. “Okay, if you did better than a C on that English essay we’ll go.” He jumped up off the couch with a yell of excitement. I couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction.

He thanked me repeatedly before his session was over and he headed back to classes. I placed a call to his teacher and asked her to let me know what his grade was when she’d finished grading the papers. I wasn’t about to have Nathan pull a fast one over on me. I hoped for his sake that he’d done well. He was a smart kid and just needed a little push and some guidance to be successful.

Patrick and I had dinner that Thursday night, with it being his only available night that week because of games. I told him about my arrangement with Nathan and he promised to just leave the tickets, because he said he had faith in Nathan as well. We spent the majority of the dinner talking about students at school, anonymously of course. It was even more endearing to me that he seemed to care about them too.

The following day I received a phone call from Nathan’s English teacher informing me of the grade he’d gotten. I’d barely hung up the phone before Nathan burst through my office door. He ran in waving a stapled bundle of papers together. He thrust it in my face with a laugh.

“I got a B-!” he exclaimed. I took the paper from his hands and glanced down at the score written across the top.

“Yes, you did. Nice work.”

“So we can go to the game on Sunday?” I handed him back his paper and smiled.

“I’ll pick you up here at 4:30.” He let out a shout of glee before yelling another thanks to me and leaving to make it to his next class on time.

I did just that on Sunday. Nathan was waiting for me and got into the car when I pulled up. He talked away the entire trip there, and it was hard to keep the smile off of my face. Nothing made me happier than seeing one of my kids happy. We got our tickets and passes at will call and then settled in for what turned out to be a blowout. Chicago beat Phoenix 7-1 and Patrick had a goal and an assist.

Happy to see Patrick play well, I led Nathan downstairs with a smile on my face. We took up our usual position in the hallway to wait for Patrick to come out. I hadn’t thought about it until I was down here, but now I felt a little awkward. I’d met some of these girls a while back when I’d gone out with them, but it had been an off night for me and I couldn’t even remember who was there or what their names were.

“Gabrielle, right?” a pretty girl asked, walking up to me a moment later. Oh, great, here we go.

“Yeah,” I replied, trying to figure out if this girl had been out that night or not.

“I’m Julia. I saw you out the other night with Patrick after the game, but I didn’t get to say hi,” she introduced herself. I forced a smile onto my face as I shook her hand. I didn’t miss the questioning look I got from Nathan.

“Yeah, it was a pretty chaotic night,” I returned.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s never easy to talk in clubs like that.” My stomach churned a little more at her statement as Nathan took in the interaction. Julia then turned to him. “Hi, I’m Julia.”

“Nathan,” he replied, shaking her hand as well. She looked like she was trying to make sense of my relationship to Nathan. He was obviously too old to be my son, but too young to be a brother.

“Nathan is a student at the school I work at. He’s a big Hawks fan and comes to some of the games with me,” I explained. She nodded and smiled.

“Why don’t you two come into the room? I’ll introduce you around and there’s plenty of food and drinks if you want some.”

We followed Julia into the family room. Nathan immediately made a beeline for the food that was set out on a buffet table, while I hung next to Julia. I looked around and saw that the room was really nice, with TVs set up around the room tuned into the channel that had the game on. Couches were set up so that you could easily see any TV and still talk to the others in the room.

There were many different options as far as food was concerned on the buffet table. I noticed that Nathan skipped past anything that looked remotely healthy and went straight for the pizza. He walked back over a moment later and handed me a bottle of water he had grabbed out of the cooler.

Julia did as she said she would and introduced or reacquainted me with the rest of the girls. As we talked a bit while we waited for the guys to come in after the game I realized that they weren’t quite as bad as I’d feared the night we’d gone out. They were all sweet and welcoming. They also didn’t have a problem including Nathan in the conversation and I could tell he was loving it.

“Patrick!” I heard Nathan exclaim. I turned around to see him walk into the room with a smile on his face. His eyes locked with mine for a moment and his smile grew before he turned his attention to Nathan.

I stayed back and continued to talk to Julia and let Nathan and Patrick talk a bit about the game. Even while I talked with her I had a hard time keeping my eyes off of the interaction between the two of them. Just watching Patrick really listen to Nathan and not have a problem standing there talking to him made my heart flutter. I’m not sure if he knew the impact he was having on Nathan, but I did, and I didn’t know that I’d ever be able to thank Patrick for it.

“It’s pretty late. I should be getting Nathan home since there’s school tomorrow,” I finally cut in.

“Well thanks for coming. I’m glad you got to see a good game,” Patrick said more to Nathan than to me. The three of us walked out of the arena together.

“I’ll see you guys later,” Patrick told us as we continued on towards my car. We called back our goodbyes and finished the walk in silence.

“Are you and Patrick dating?” Nathan asked as we got in the car.

“What? Why would you ask that?” I returned, not really sure what to say. I had the rule of keeping students out of my personal life for a reason.

“I heard the other girls talking about you being out with him after a game, you had fresh flowers on your desk last week, and I saw the way he kept looking at you,” he explained. I was so busted.

“You know, I don’t really think it’s appropriate to discuss my private life with a student,” I told him. He just smiled at me and laughed before settling back into his seat.

“Whatever you say, Miss Tunney.” I continued to drive Nathan home when my cell phone lit up. I glanced down at the text and couldn’t keep the smile off of my face.

You looked beautiful tonight. It took every ounce of strength in me not to kiss you in front of Nathan.

“Is that from Patrick?” Nathan asked. I quickly closed out of the text and put my phone down.

“Tell me what you have coming up this week in school,” I said, changing the subject. Nathan laughed again, and despite feeling my cheeks turning bright red, I laughed right along with him.