Let It Be Me by Becky Wade (top young adult novels .TXT) 📕

She’d included phone numbers and addresses for Bonnie O’Reilly and Tracy Segura, then closed with

Let me know if there’s anything else I can do! I’m a pack rat, so I might be able to find more stuff from my years at Magnolia Avenue Hospital in one of my closets. LOL!

Since a phone call at such an early hour wouldn’t be considered polite, Leah waited until her lunch break to dial the numbers Joyce had supplied for Tracy and Bonnie. Both calls ended in error messages announcing that the number was no longer in service. She tried them a second time, just to make sure she’d input the digits correctly. She had. Error messages again.

Inside her desk drawer, she located the cute package of notecards one of her students had given her. Bonnie and Tracy no longer used their old phone numbers, but they might still live at their old addresses. She’d write two notes introducing herself as a former patient, expressing her desire for a brief chat, and supplying her phone number.

She stilled, thinking. It might be best to address the letters to Bonnie and Tracy “or current resident.” Otherwise, should new people live at the addresses and receive something addressed to an old tenant, they’d almost certainly trash her letters.

On her way home, she’d drop them by the post office in time to go out with today’s mail.

Since Sebastian had returned to Atlanta early Monday morning, he’d gone through his days feeling each of the one hundred-plus miles separating him from Leah.

Talking to her on the phone wasn’t nearly as good as being with her in person, but it helped. She’d informed him that non-couples shouldn’t talk on the phone for more than thirty minutes per day. So he’d been using up all thirty of his daily minutes.

He’d also requested a week’s vacation from work. When the woman in HR had asked him when he wanted time off, he’d answered, “As soon as possible.” He needed uninterrupted days with Leah in Misty River.

On Wednesday evening, he was stretched out on the sofa in his apartment wearing track pants and an old Harvard T-shirt. He and Leah had been on the phone for twenty minutes so far. While they’d talked, he’d been imagining her in her stylish, uncluttered little house.

“Will you come see me this weekend?” He’d asked the same question for three nights in a row. They’d scheduled him to be on call Saturday and Sunday, which meant he couldn’t leave Atlanta. He was trying to be patient and not bossy, but he didn’t think it was working. He felt bossy about this subject, because he didn’t want to go two weeks without seeing her.

“No, I will not come see you this weekend.”

He palmed the soccer ball that lay on the carpet next to him and began tossing it over his head one-handed and catching it one-handed. “But you have four days off,” he pointed out. The school district was giving their staff and students a vacation Friday and Monday for fall break.

“Yes, but you’re not my boyfriend. And I’m not inclined to take weekend trips to visit male friends.”

“Right, but until now you haven’t had a male friend that you kiss. . . . Have you?”

She sniffed. “No.”

“I want to see you. Come see me.”

“You’re going to be on call! You probably won’t have time to spend with anyone.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to spend with you,” he vowed. “Try me.”

“Every time I contemplate leaving Dylan for the weekend, I envision a montage of party scenes from high school movies. Kids drinking beer out of red cups and making out on every piece of furniture.”

“You can leave him with the older couple you told me about.”

“Tess and Rudy?”

“Sure.”

“Excellent idea!” He could tell from her voice she was pretending to be astonished by his brilliance. “The answer’s no.”

Ben’s classroom was empty, except for him, when Leah stepped inside it the following day. “Hello.”

He twisted from where he’d been writing on his board. “Hello.” He regarded her pleasantly, but not as openly as usual. She might be mistaken, but she thought she saw guardedness in his eyes.

“I’m going to lunch and wanted to see if you were interested in joining me.”

“I’m meeting a parent in the foyer in a few minutes, but I’ll walk toward the break room with you.”

It was a good sign that he’d offered to walk with her. Wasn’t it? She waited while he capped his marker.

Usually, they chatted daily and shared lunch with Connor and their other teacher friends a few times a week. Since her dates with Sebastian last weekend, he hadn’t stopped by her room or texted. She’d opted to give him space at first. But, at this point, she was beginning to worry that giving him space might have been the wrong approach. It was possible that he’d translated the distance she’d extended to him as indifference on her part.

She frequently found herself at a loss when it came to navigating relationship dynamics. What would someone with a high EI do in this predicament? It seemed that they’d reach out to Ben.

They walked down the mostly deserted hallway lined on both sides with lockers. “Sebastian told me that you encouraged him to ask me out,” she said.

He slipped his hands into the pockets of the flat front beige pants he wore with a green-and-white-checked button-down. “Yeah. I did.”

“That was nice of you.”

“He’s a good friend.”

“Right, and the last thing I’d want to do is get in the middle of your friendship with him.”

They turned a corner in silence. “You won’t.”

“Or ruin my friendship with you.”

“You won’t.”

“Ben.” She stopped several yards from the break room.

He stopped, too, meeting her eyes.

“Is it going to upset you if I go on more dates with him? Because, if so, I won’t go.”

“Do you want to go on more dates with him?”

“I’m conflicted about that,” she admitted. “But I think I do.”

She saw maturity in the lines beside his eyes, lines which usually