“Um, yes.” Heard of it? Who hadn’t? I wasn’t even a gamer, but I’d taken care of my sister’s stepsons enough times to recognize all their technology fixations. “My nephews and half of America were obsessed with that game a few years ago.”
“Well, Sam wanted to name it Block Stackers.”
“Brick Builders was a way better choice.”
“Glad you think so, because this conversation could have just taken an awkward turn if not.”
“You won the bet,” I marveled.
“More important, I became a strict orange juice drinker.” He raised his bottle and fake-clinked it against my latte. “Sure, some people give me a hard time about the sugar content, but I say one thing at a time. Besides, I’m pretty sure oranges were in the Garden of Eden, and it’s a rare person who wants to battle that argument.”
“I would think not.” I shook my head at the modest way he spoke about himself. It was clear Joshua wasn’t just some guy restoring broken laptops in his parents’ basement. He was a visionary with a successful track record. “I’m pretty sure you did more than win a coffee bet when that game went live. For me to know about it, it had to have made a pretty big splash.”
A too-humble shrug followed by another sip of his juice. “It did help jump-start my career as a tech consultant, as well as gave us a catchy company name—Wide Awake Tech Consultants.”
“Clever.” I laughed again. “But it also must have put a stop to your plans to teach in a classroom, right?”
“Yes, right.”
There was an effortlessness in conversing with Joshua, an undeniable ease that created a mixed-bag feeling of desire and denial. I shoved the latter feeling aside and returned to a subject that had spun circles in my brain for months. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Is there a more personal topic than beverage preferences?”
I angled my head, pulling in my bottom lip to allow me an extra second to phrase a question I had absolutely no business in asking. “Was that difficult to tell your father? I mean, changing the trajectory of your career path after following in his footsteps all through college . . . I’d think it must have been challenging.”
His eyes softened as they roved my face. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How much our parents can influence our choices as adults.” He tapped the glass with his thumbnail. “Honestly, at first they weren’t too keen on me starting a business straight out of college based on one success that felt a whole lot like roll-of-the-dice luck to them. Which, to their credit, was a valid concern. My industry is full of brilliant minds who struggle to make ends meet.” He leaned back in his chair, throwing a leg over his knee and glancing at the ceiling as if trying to recall the memory in its entirety. “But no matter how much I respected my father or his chosen career path, I couldn’t pretend it was the right path for me just because it had been the expected one.”
Shame tiptoed through my memories—reminding me of all the opportunities I’d avoided telling my family about my own right path. “Were you worried about his response?”
“I figured he’d be disappointed. At least inwardly.” His gaze paused on my folder. “But I remember feeling relieved more than anything else.”
I leaned in, willing him to go on. “Really?”
He flicked the bottle cap back and forth on the tabletop between his hands. His brow rumpled in contemplation. “There was always this indefinable tension between my father and me growing up. We’re similar in a lot of ways, my dad and I, but it wasn’t until I experienced my own failures and successes that I could really appreciate our differences.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “To use a construction metaphor, my dad is a master renovator. He does his best work inside a tried-and-true structure.”
“And what are you?”
“An architect.” He dropped a pile of sugar packets between us and started stacking them into a Jenga-like tower. A crosshatch pattern at least ten high. “If I design the building, I’m not constrained by someone else’s rules or limitations.” He pinched the third one from the bottom and yanked it out with a swift tug. Amazingly, the others remained standing. The brilliant flash of teeth he gave me sent a spiral of nerves to the base of my belly. “I prefer to assume both the responsibility and the risk.”
“That’s a lot of liability.”
“But a lot of freedom, too.” He flattened the tower of sugar packets. “If I make the rules, then I know which ones can be broken.”
“You know,” I said, giving him my most sarcastic corner-of-the-eye look, “I never would have guessed you for a rule breaker.”
He chuckled. “Well, I am pretty timid about it.”
“Timid is definitely not the word I’d use to describe you.” The second I said it, I wished I could take it back. My cheeks flushed a thousand shades of foolish. “I just mean—”
He shook his head. “No disclaimers necessary. I just told you three fundamental facts about myself, so I’m pretty sure that means we’re beyond the disclaimer stage now.”
I scrunched up my face. “You told me three fundamental facts?”
He ticked off a finger as he spoke. “My coffee bet. My father-son metaphor.” His eyes narrowed in that almost-a-wink way of his. “And that I’ve been looking for an opportunity to spend time with you outside of school since the first day we met.”
His earnest tone caused something to yawn awake inside me, like a welcome stretch after a long winter’s nap. Only this wasn’t the time for such an awakening. This was the time I needed to remain firmly attached to memories of singing made-up lullabies to my favorite doll before bedtime.
Yet whenever I was alone with this man, the same maternal drive that had overflowed my emotional tank for more than a year sprang a leak. It was as if my only agenda was the one sitting right in front of me, and not the one sitting three thousand miles away. In an orphanage. Waiting for me to become a mother.
I placed a hand on my folder and slowly slid it across the table toward me, warring against the newfound ache in my chest. One I couldn’t afford to give attention to. “I think we should probably get back to these teaching plans before the day gets away from us.”
“All right, we can do that.” His words were spoken easily, as if he’d been anticipating this very reaction from me and had prepared his counter play long in advance. But there was more to the way he anchored his elbows on the tabletop and angled his head to review the handwritten outlines inside my folder. More to the way he brushed aside the muffin crumb next to my hand. More to the moon-shaped indentation that flexed in his right cheek as I stuttered through the first three activities listed in my planner for next week.
My finger underlined the words inside Monday’s calendar box, but my voice faltered, stuck on the evidence my subconscious had just unearthed.
Joshua Avery wasn’t the easily deterred type. Nor was he the appeasing-for-appeasing-sake type. No, Joshua was the type who designed blueprints from scratch, abandoned caffeine to test his willpower, and enjoyed a challenge even when said challenge had removed herself from the dating pool.
He was patience personified.