Victoria flinched, immediately feeling awkward and foolish. “I didn’t mean sorry sorry. Like it’s a pity you have ADD or anything like that. I have plenty of students who need accommodations and they perform just as well as my other students.” As her face warmed, Victoria realized she was rambling like an idiot. “Jeez, if you don’t want to talk about it, you certainly don’t have to.”

John gave a good-natured chuckle as he led her downstairs. “I don’t mind talking about it. It’s not something I’m ashamed of.”

“Of course not,” she said, quickly. “Do you mind me asking, how long have you known you...had it?” From behind him, she cringed at her inability to find a better way to ask.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve had it since I was a kid, my mother did the best she could to come up with ways to help me concentrate. But I wasn’t formally diagnosed until I got to graduate school.”

As impressive as that was, Victoria did feel for a student who struggled without the right tools. She wondered if she had students in her own class who needed help but didn’t know how to ask for it. As they made their way back downstairs, she asked, “When you realized what it was, did it upset you? Or was it a relief?”

When they entered his office, John shut the door behind him. “A bit of both. I had a concrete answer for what was different about me and that made me feel better. On the other hand, I realized I’d have to work harder than most to complete the same tasks.”

Victoria didn’t want to say something patronizing like “well good for you!” but the teacher in her was accustomed to giving people encouraging overtures. She didn’t need to do that with John. He was a man, not one of the students. He was self-possessed and had a swagger that showed. Contrary to what she believed upon meeting him, he knew how to do his job. She’d seen that firsthand. “A person can go a whole lifetime without making those kinds of observations about themselves,” she said.

The corner of his lips quirked into a small grin. “Is that a fact?”

She leaned against the edge of his desk and watched him stuff his hands into his jeans. He was wearing another Henley shirt, this one gray and just as tight fitting as the last. The atmosphere in his small office shifted. An electric current ran between them as she tried to hold herself together. “Oh yes. You seem to know yourself really well.”

John shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s all trial and error, Dr. Reese.”