Luc agreed to drive to the preschool this time, and for that, I wanted to hug him (although he probably wanted to do more with me). I also was very grateful that he even decided to go with me in the first place, considering that he thought that children were small, rabid creatures that bit. So I tried to be nice and tolerant about everything—but that was never my forte, was it?

I barely held in a snicker as I watched him try to explain to a little dark-haired boy (who actually resembled Luc himself very closely) that the sky was, in fact, blue, not green. It was really cute to see Luc crouching down next to Ben, the boy, (when Luc really could have just sat in the mini chair next to the kid) and smiling awkwardly and rather apologetically at him. The truth of the matter was that Luc's child interactions hadn't improved in the last few weeks, so Ben was staring up at him with big, innocent blue eyes.

At least Luc was trying, right?

I shook my head and turned back to my own batch of little people, whom I was supervising while they were painting with non-toxic paints. I wondered exactly how the paints were non-toxic—they tasted nasty (at least to my five-year-old taste buds when I thought that the color pink automatically guaranteed the taste of pink ice cream cake ice cream). The two little girls to my left were quiet enough. The other two boys, who were to my right, seemed to have trouble understanding what exactly they were supposed to do with the paints, so every once in a while I had to make sure that they didn't stuff their paintbrushes down their throats.

I had to prevent evil things that had happened in my childhood from happening to others, of course.

"Yo, A," Luc called over the swarm of little heads intent on whatever tasks were at their mini hands, "do you know any way to simply explain the color blue?"

I gasped. "Luc, did you try to explain the scattering of the sky's molecules? Of course he doesn't understand what the h"—I caught myself at the right moment, coughing slightly as Luc sighed in exasperation—"that's why he doesn't understand you at all!"

Sulkily, Luc retorted, "You forgot about the part where the air molecules have more of a tendency of scattering blue light than red light. That's why the sky is mostly blue and the red and orange hues are usually in the horizon and out of the line of sight."

"Don't even try," I said, pointing a finger at him. I glanced at the kids under my charge. The little boys seemed stable enough (they hadn't tried to lick their paintbrushes in the last five minutes), and the girls were content. Good. I stood up from their table and joined Luc, who looked cornered. "God, you're only watching three kids."

"The adults are out of the room," Luc pointed out. "If anything happened to these kids, we would be totally and completely fu—"

I slapped Luc's shoulder. "Shut up!" I hissed. "You would be such a bad dad."

He looked up at me, eyes twinkling. "Bet you're having fun imagining that."

I would be lying if I said he wasn't wrong. Luc would be a very amusing dad, regardless of his non-existent childcare skills. Not to mention that his children would be gorgeous—where the hell was my head going?

I'd only kissed the guy a couple times, and this was happening to me. This was not good. Not to mention that I was thinking of explicit things in the midst of innocent minds. That especially was not good. So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, released the air quickly, and looked back to Luc.

Yes, I wanted to hit him. But again, I wasn't supposed to promote using violence to solve problems, so I kept my hands docilely by my sides, playing with the hem of my school skirt. Luc shot me an amused look. "You in control yet?"

"What are you talking about, asshole?" I realized what I said just after I said it, gulping. Hopefully, no one was paying too much attention to me (although little Ben was looking at me curiously when I jumped after my little slipup). I also was not supposed to be a bad influence in general—I went to a private school, for goodness' sake!

Luc let out a laugh, dimples showing. I couldn't help looking at them. God, they were so cute, just like the rest of him. "I think someone has to watch her language." He caught my wrist and pulled me down so I was perched on a little chair next to him.

"Well, do excuse my French," I replied snappily. Luc's smile grew wider, and he threw his arm around my shoulder. I shivered instantly from the contact. He was so warm. And I really liked it.

"Well," he said pointedly, turning his head so that he was making eye contact with me (and so that his face was inches away from mine—that was too close, at least for this environment)

"At least I can actually talk to the kids without confusing them," I said, half-heartedly shrugging his arm off of me to prevent anything from happening. I glanced back at the kids at the table I was supposed to supervise. So far so good—the girls' paintings were coming nicely along (their suns at the corners of their pages were very beautiful) and the boys hadn't tried to commit suicide by paintbrush yet.

Luc didn't seem to be offended as he rubbed his eyes. "Well, I'm pretty drained right now, if you don't mind, so please do excuse me."

I understood him. He had another rugby match coming up in about four days, and he'd managed to pull time out of his very packed schedule to volunteer with me. He even drove me to school in the morning. Luc was such a gentleman when he wanted to be one, and the little things he did—they really made me wonder.

I shook my head and smiled faintly at him, pretending to help Ben color his picture (the sky, in particular, a shade of azure).

Was it wrong that I still had no idea what was it that I had with Luc? We'd definitely progressed past the stage of platonic friendship—that line had been passed the moment I climbed up the stairs on that night or early morning of the sleepover. But other than light teasing (or flirting, as Lila would call it), nothing much had changed.

Okay, maybe except for the fact that Luc somehow found the time to give me rides to and from school whenever I felt too lazy to take my own car.

And also except for the fact that he tended to hang out around my lunch table, to Lila and Olivia's bafflement, very often these days.

And—all right, maybe a lot did change. But I wasn't complaining. I just really wished that Luc would tell me what the hell was going on in his head. I sneaked a glance at Luc, just to see if he was easy to read at this moment. He was watching my group of kids for me, his fingers drumming idly on his knees. Gosh, he looked so ridiculous in his sitting position, but really, I hadn't the heart to poke more fun at him.

"I think I'll just—" I started to say, standing up from my seat. The actual preschool supervisors entered the room, giving Luc and me some smiles.

"We've got them. Thank you, Luc and Audrey, for watching over them," one lady said. I looked at her nametag. Ms. Kristin. "I think you two can report to front desk, and you can check out there."

I gave the supervisors a smile in return. "No, thank you for having us over."

"Thank you," Luc said as he left the room and I trailed after him. The smile that he gave them (a real smile, not his smirk reserved for sporting events) beat mine by miles though—it was because of those dimples. I couldn't help noticing how the ladies watched him for a little too long.

But why was I feeling all irrational and, frankly, jealous, of some thirty-year-old women who were in committed relationships of their own? We were teenagers, for goodness' sake. I let out a breath as I followed Luc, who seemed to know the preschool better than I did even though he'd been here exactly two times, including today.

At the front desk, Ms. Hisey handed us the check-in binder without saying anything although she had a kindly sparkle in her eye. We both noted our checkout times (really, Luc wrote them for both of us since he thought my handwriting was terrible, just like my French pronunciation), and with that, we left the center.

"See, you didn't get bitten today," I said to Luc matter-of-factly, bumping his arm with my elbow.

He laughed, running his hand through his hair. In that moment, watching his light eyes in the spring afternoon sun, I forgot everything (most particularly where his car was parked). I bit my lip. He was too much. Seriously. Why hadn't I seen him before this? "I did survive two hours with little children," he said thoughtfully. "I should get more credit for that."

I couldn't help it. I smiled along with him. "I guess I'll let Lila congratulate you."

"Oh no." Luc turned to me in fake horror as he walked toward a row of cars a couple yards away from the preschool building. "She's not supposed to know that I interact with children at all."

"Like how she's not supposed to know that you take creative writing," I said, raising my eyebrows at him. "But seriously—since when are you creative?"

The top of Luc's ears were red. "I've always been creative, Audrey," he said defensively, his gold eyes darting back and forth between my eyes and the car. Oh, I remembered where he had parked now. I remembered bitching to him about how we had missed a closer parking spot (only to realize later that it was a handicap parking space, but Luc didn't have to know about that) in favor for this one.

"Right," I said dryly. "I'd love to read one of your pieces someday. I am the co-editor-in-chief of The Aquiline, after all."

Luc shook his head furiously, his ears completely red now. "No thanks. There were no other electives, all right? I signed up too late, and that was the last class left."

"No, I know you're lying, asshole," I said, smiling knowingly at him. I stepped up to the passenger side of his car and pulled it open (he'd unlocked the car a couple feet away), hopping in. My backpack was still there, so I pulled my legs over it when I sat down, closing the door. Luc joined me in the driver's seat a couple seconds later. "Creative Writing was one of the fastest courses to go this semester," I continued.

Luc was steadfastly avoiding eye contact. "You lie."

Who was he talking about? I smirked as I pulled my phone out of my school pocket. There were a couple texts from Lila about why I hadn't been responding to her and about where I was at the current moment (to which my answer was "no, I was not in Classic Rock Appreciation Club again"). Really, Lila didn't need to know quite yet about everything that had gone down between me and her brother.

"Olivia wanted to sign up," I said. "The spots were filled up by the second day."

Luc finally turned to look at me (slightly) when he pulled out of the parking lot and entered an exit onto the highway. "Fine—I kind of wanted to know how to use poetic devices properly." Ugh, only Luc could give such an academic reason for joining a class like Creative Writing 101.

"You know you have nothing to be ashamed of, you know?" I said a little more softly once a couple moments passed in silence between us. "It's pretty cool that you can handle so many things at once."

Luc met my eyes squarely now. His ears weren't red anymore, and he was calm enough to reach between us and turn on the radio so that it was playing in the background softly. "You're pretty awesome too, Audrey."

I smiled bleakly. "You're just saying that." His eyes were getting to be too much now, so I directed my eyes to the dashboard and tucked a runaway strand of hair behind my ear.

"No, really. You're a junior, Audrey, and you're the editor-in-chief of a school magazine. That's pretty impressive. And you're involved in a lot of community service clubs. I'm sure the colleges'll love you." I couldn't see him, but I could already feel myself melting into a little puddle right there in his fancy car.

"Thanks, I guess." I looked up again. We were getting pretty close to my house. Luc didn't seem to be in a hurry to get there, as I could tell when I sneaked a look sideways at him, even though he probably had extra rugby practice with the guys or something. Or maybe he was just scrimmaging with a couple of guys from our school's basketball team. I really couldn't remember.

"You've got all that although your sense of patience is non-existent except when it comes to little kids. You hate kids once they hit the age of seven—"

"That's when they start to get bratty!" I protested.

Luc continued as if I didn't say anything. "You're really good at reaching conclusions, especially if they're wrong. And you like to compare yourself with everyone around you, especially me." He pinned his focus on me even though he was still driving (to be fair, he was getting very close to the security gate in my community).

As he pulled to a stop at the booth and I flashed my ID at the security guard, who let us through, I smiled sweetly at him, picking up my backpack. "Because you're perfect, darling."

The corners of his lips twitched. "Really, love?" he said, his eyes twisting sardonically.

I liked hearing that word too much. Love. I shook it off. "But you're a presumptuous jackass, so that cancels out everything."

That only seemed to make him smile more widely. "I'm glad to hear your sentiments about me." He drove up my house's driveway and parked right in front of my house.

"The feeling's mutual." Both he and I opened our doors and walked up to my front porch (although I was lugging my backpack with me, so our situations were a little different).

We paused before I reached for the doorknob. "Hey, Audrey?" Luc said quietly.

I let my hand keep resting on the doorknob. "Yeah?"

He leaned in, brushed his lips against mine ever so slightly, and gave me a crooked little smile with those dimples. "You're still you, you know." And with that, he jogged back to his car. Not too much longer, I heard his car purr as he revved it and pulled out.

Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to look at him when the butterflies were still battering the sides of my stomach like this.

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Hey everyone! So this book is starting to near the end now (if it helps, there are going to be exactly thirty chapters, no more, no less), and things are going to get more finalized :)

So have Luc's childcare skills improved at all? And is Luc on point about Audrey's flaws? How about vice versa? Comment how you guys feel below!

As usual, thank you so much for reading, commenting, and voting, and I love you all!

Anne