Zach whistled a Christmas carol through his teeth as he packed his backpack to head home. The first day of December—officially the start of the most wonderful time of the year. Even the kids seemed to have caught a whiff of excitement. Or they were still sleepy from having eaten too much turkey. Either way, they’d kept their heads down and done their work once he made the promise of a homework-free Christmas break if they could keep it together three more weeks. Even the holiday program rehearsal had gone well. The costumes fit—thanks to Amy and her mom—and the handful of students struggling with memorizing the words to the Kwanza and Hanukkah songs appeared to at least be trying instead of rolling their eyes and making gagging noises when they thought no one was looking.

Throw in the fact that Amy’d sought him out for lunch both days so far this week, and she hadn’t even minded when some other teachers had come into the lounge. If you took the students at their word, pretty much everyone on campus now knew the two of them were an item. He grinned. So much better than trying to pretend he didn’t have those feelings.

“Heading home?” Amy poked her head into his classroom.

He nodded. “That’s the plan. You?”

“Yep. Wanna walk with me as far as the Metro?”

“Nah.”

Her face fell. Zach laughed.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. I’ll walk you home. You’re just a few houses past the stop, and an extra minute or two with you is always worth seizing.”

“Flatterer.” Amy linked her fingers with his.

“Hey, now that it’s December, the Christmas light displays are starting to open. There’s supposed to be a fantastic one out in Clifton. Jackson heard about it last year, but we never made it out that way. Feel like a trek this weekend?”

“Sure. I like Christmas lights.”

Zach pushed open the main door and held it while Amy stepped out and turned left. They’d walk past Mr. Sam’s and then on to her apartment. He really should start getting serious about looking at real estate down here. With Ben leaving at the end of the month and Jackson bailing in March...he might as well move sooner if he got the chance. The guys could keep an eye on the place while it was empty, or maybe Jason and Karin would end up coming home sooner. Either way, no point staying until the last minute. “Friday or Saturday? Your choice.”

“Hmm. Would you mind Friday? I feel like I’ve been skipping out on too many game nights at home lately. You want to join us again?”

Was every Saturday going to be spent with her parents when they got married? Wait—when? At what point had he started thinking that way? It felt...right. But still, wasn’t that something you were supposed to consciously decide?

“Zach?”

He pulled his thoughts back to the present. “Sorry. Drifted off there for a minute. What did you say?”

Amy nodded at his pocket. “Your phone was ringing. Stopped now though.”

He dipped into his pocket for his phone and glanced at the number, his eyes widening.

“Something important?” Amy peered at his phone. “Looks like they left a voicemail.”

Zach nodded. “You mind?”

“Nope. Go ahead.”

He squeezed her hand and dialed the message number, waiting through the recording telling him that he had one new message. Could the electronic lady talk any slower?

Mr. Wilson? This is Dr. Jones, the principal at the Fairfax Magnet School. The hiring committee has unanimously agreed to offer you the mid-year replacement math position. Please give us a call at your earliest convenience to discuss next steps.

He got the job. He shook his head. He’d meant to email and withdraw his application. Obviously that had slipped off his to-do list. Now...he had to turn them down.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.” Zach pocketed his phone. “I just forgot to do something a couple of weeks ago and now it’s going to be a little hassle to straighten out.”

Amy pulled her lower lip between her teeth and stared at him. “So here’s the thing, voicemail replay always seems to be a little louder than regular phone calls.”

His stomach plummeted into his shoes. Great. If past performance was any indication, here’s where she’d get mad, stomp off, and then in a day or two, realize she overreacted and apologize. He counted to three in his head. She was still just looking at him. Hmm. He took a deep breath. “At the beginning of October, I found out about the possibility of a mid-year replacement at the magnet school. I applied—sort of fleecing God, like Gideon. Except, of course, God doesn’t necessarily have to play by our rules, and He made it very clear to me over the last several weeks that I belong here. More even, that I want to be here. I meant to email and withdraw my application. I forgot.”

Her eyes were daggers. “And you got the job.”

It wasn’t a question. He nodded slowly.

“So?”

“So I have the unfortunate task of saying thanks, but no thanks, to look forward to.”

Amy scoffed. “Right.”

Zach stopped walking and crossed his arms. “I guess I’ll be seeing you at school tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “Isn’t this where you assume the worst and storm off? ‘Cause so far, that’s been how you’ve handled our disagreements. And...it’s getting old. Is it always going to be like this? I mean, Friday you basically said it was, with your whole speech about not being disappointed if you just expect the worst. But, Amy, I’m not sure I can handle that.”

She paled. Her voice broke as she spoke. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I love you. I do. But if you aren’t willing to hope all things and believe all things and try to work through things with me, then I don’t know how we can be together.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “So maybe I’ll leave you here, hop on the Metro, and we can talk tomorrow after you’ve had some time to think.”

“Answer a question for me first?”

“Okay.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the job?”

It was a good question. A reasonable one. But she was unlikely to like the answer. “Because I didn’t want to fight with you about it. You’d just finished making it clear that you didn’t think I cared about our students. If I’d said something about even wanting to explore the opportunity, would you have understood?”

She opened her mouth and snapped it shut. “Okay. That’s...fair. You’re really not taking the job?”

He shook his head. “I’m really not.”

“You sure you don’t want to walk me home?”

Zach raked a hand through his hair and tossed his cell on his desk. That could’ve gone better. Though he wasn’t sure, exactly, how telling someone that you didn’t want the job they’d just offered you—the job that was supposed to start in less than five weeks—was supposed to go. At least they’d had other candidates. And as Dr. Jones had made clear, their second choice was just as wonderful as him. There wouldn’t be any future chances at that school. Not, at least, while anyone in the current administration or math department was there.

Where was the panic that thought should cause? Zach smiled. Peace. Of course, now that he had peace about his job, was he going to be in turmoil with his personal life? Couldn’t things ever line up all at once? Though...he had to give Amy credit. She hadn’t stormed off. She hadn’t even fumed. And when he’d walked her the rest of the way home, she’d kissed him goodnight with spine-tingling effectiveness. He sighed.

“Knock knock.” Ben lounged in the doorway to Zach’s room. “You joining us for dinner?”

Right. Roommate dinner. “Yeah, sorry. Forgot.”

“Glad it’s not your night to cook. What’s up?”

Zach followed Ben to the kitchen table. “Just...trying to figure Amy out.”

Jackson laughed. “Dude. Don’t you know better than to try and figure women out? That’s a losing proposition.”

“I guess.” Zach pulled out his chair and sat, eyeing the plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of him. “This smells better than the pasta we usually manage...you got Paige to cook, didn’t you?”

“Guilty. But come on, if you’re marrying a chef and she offers to fix you a pot of spaghetti, you don’t say no, do you?” Jackson reached for a small bowl in the center of the table. “She even sent real grated parmesan, saying we couldn’t pollute her noodles with powder from a green can.”

Zach twirled noodles around his fork, the rich, tomatoey aroma wafting up as he did. “Seems reasonable. Does Rebecca cook, Ben?”

“Well enough. Not like Paige, but she can hold her own. I think between the two of us, we’ll be okay.” Ben slurped the tail of a noodle the rest of the way in. “So what’s up with Amy?”

“I forgot to email and withdraw from the magnet school job. Maybe forgot is too strong of a word. I...was curious, I guess, if I’d get it. I knew I didn’t want it, but still, there was the lingering curiosity, you know?” Ben and Jackson nodded. “They called and offered me the job while I was walking Amy home. She overheard.”

“And you hadn’t talked to her about it at all?” Jackson shook his head. “Dude.”

“I know. But I decided to apply right after she got all mad at me because I don’t live downtown. Or was it because I signed up with Teach the City? One of the two, I forget which, in this case, was the culprit. Either way, it just seems like every time we disagree—even if we don’t actually disagree but she thinks we do—she blows up and storms off with some kind of ‘I can’t be with a person like you’ ultimatum and I didn’t want to deal with it. So I never mentioned it.”

Ben sprinkled more cheese on his pasta. “I guess I can see that, though I’m not sure you’re supposed to keep secrets simply because you don’t feel like dealing with the fallout.”

Zach sighed. Ben would know, seeing as how secrets had nearly torpedoed his and Rebecca’s relationship before it had a chance. “Anyway, I waited for the explosion and it never came. She was upset, and I even understand that, but...it wasn’t what I expected. And so now I can tell she’s mad—or at least miffed—but she’s not saying anything about it and it’s even more confusing. It’s like she’s just accepting my explanation at face value. But given past performance...I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Wait. You aren’t able to take at face value the fact that she took you at face value?” Jackson shook his head. “That’s...convoluted.”

When it was put that way, sure. Zach tipped his chair back, balancing on the back two legs. “I’m over-analyzing.”

“Pretty much.”

“Yup.”

“Let’s not all agree at once now.” Zach wound another bite of noodles on his fork. “So what do I do? Just move along as if nothing’s wrong?”

Ben nodded. “What’ve you got to lose? Worry if you need to. In the mean time? Press on.”

Zach looked down at his plate, his appetite disappearing. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What’s in the boxes?” Amy slipped into Zach’s classroom and pointed to the stack in the far corner of his room.

Zach looked up from his grading and grinned. “Early Christmas present. My grant got approved and they overnighted the five workstations for my mini math lab.”

“Don’t say that too quickly in this neighborhood. You’ll get the wrong kind of interest.”

Zach laughed. “Pretty sure that’s a little further south, but I’ll keep it in mind. I was leaning toward calling it MEL.”

“Mel? Like Melanie? So...a girl’s name?” Amy shook her head. “What is it with men assigning female genders to things and naming them?”

“It’s because we love and respect women and can’t get them off our minds. But in this case, it stands for Math Exploration Lab. MEL.”

She pursed her lips. “At least that won’t be confused with a drug cooking location.”

Zach watched as she paced to the back of the room and tilted her head so she could read the specification. At least, he assumed that’s what she was reading. Maybe she was admiring the barcodes. “Want to help put them together?”

“Sure. When?” She tucked her hands in her pockets and walked back to the front of the room. She slid into a desk. “Zach?”

Was he supposed to answer the when question first or just let her talk? Probably let her talk. “Yeah?”

“Are we still on for Friday? And games with my parents?”

Fear lurked at the edge of her eyes. She was worried? Strangely, that helped. At least he wasn’t alone navigating this weird road. “I was hoping we were.”

Her eyes closed and she let out a breath. “Okay. Good. After Friday’s outburst, I talked to my parents and realized that this was an area of my life where I needed to work—to let God work. So, I’m trying.”

Zach stood, moved around his desk, and knelt beside her so their eyes were level. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about the job. I should have. I talked myself out of it once I realized this is where I belong. But you still deserved to know.”

“You weren’t wrong. I probably would’ve gotten mad.”

Zach shrugged. “You still deserved to know.”

Amy cocked her head to the side. “We’re okay?”

“Yeah.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “We’re good.”