Page 39 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition

“I have a pair in my desk. And my glove compartment,” she says through gritted teeth. “I was just…distracted. Are you going to help me or not?”

“I’m going in,” I say. “Don’t move.”

She starts shaking with laughter, so I pause my attempt at gently pressing my fingertip to the corner of her eye. “Yes, thatwasthe first time I’ve ever said that to a woman. You gonna hold still or not?”

She sucks in her cheeks and widens her eyes, stilling herself. But when she actually meets my gaze and I stare into those beautiful blue eyes,everythinggoes still. Her lips part and her eyelashes flutter, and I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted so badly to kiss a woman when I know I can’t. I hold her face and stroke her cheeks with my thumbs.

“You have to stop touching me like this,” she whispers.

“How would you like me to touch you?”

Her eyes are pink and watery, and the quivering lip tells me it’s not just the wind and the dust that has her all worked-up.

I use the tip of my pinky finger to get that tiny bit of debris out from her tear duct and hold it up for her to see, but she just blinks repeatedly again.

“That’s it,” she says. “All better.”

“You should still take your contacts out.”

“I will.” She starts to walk past me and then turns to give my bicep a little punch. “Thank you.Really.I can see fine now.”

I don’t know if you can, Miss Stiles. Or you wouldn’t be walking away from me.

CHAPTER 14

EMILIA

“Okay, there are eighteen seats in this row, so we can all fit in it,” I say to Juanita and Alex, like we’re huddled up discussing our next play in the final quarter. “It should go five kids and then a parent, with me at the end of the row here.”

“Yes, okay, yes,” Juanita says, nodding vehemently. “Good plan.” She ushers her group of five to the far end of the row.

Alex steps aside in the aisle to make sure everyone can move past him, and I can tell he’s staring down at me, his hands on his hips, making his broad shoulders look even wider.

But I refuse to make eye contact with him.

Because I refuse to remove my contacts and my eyesight has been blurry for the past hour and a half.

And because I’m afraid that if I look at him I’ll just start licking his face in front of my students and Miguel’s mom and a bunch of tourists.

“Emilia,” he says from right next to me, voice deep and low and reverberating all around my belly.

“Yes?”

“Go take your contacts out. You won’t be able to see the planetarium show otherwise, and it’s gorgeous. You should see it.”

I clench my jaw and check my watch. Except I can’t really see what time it is because my fucking eyesight is blurry. “Fine. You go sit in the middle of the row and save the end seat for me.” I remove my jean jacket and place it on the end seat. “That’s my seat.”

“Yes. It is.”

I tell my buddy Chloe to stick with our group and rush out to the restroom so I can remove these stupid contacts.

When I hurry back to the planetarium from the ladies’ room, I am completely gobsmacked by how gorgeous this place is, now that I can see a bit more clearly. And I’m so mad that I can’t dance around it with Alex Vega when it’s empty, like inLa La Land.But I can’t think about that now.

When I get to our row and the end seat with my jean jacket on it, even in the dim light with my less than perfect vision, I can tell that the person in the seat next to it is not a child and has not been one for quite some time.

“Why aren’t you sitting in the middle of the row?”

“Shhh.” He holds his sexy index finger up to his sexy mouth and gestures for me to sit down. “Show’s about to start.”