She wasn’t like anyone else from his world. She never played her cards close to the chest. Now that they were what she called “official,” she was 100% honest with him. And that made him want to be 100% honest back.

“I like watching you sometimes,” he signed. “It feels nice just to watch you. In my heart.”

A pretty blush rose to her face, giving her warm brown skin a slightly pink undertone.

“See, this is why it’s not even a choice between you and art club,” she said with an embarrassed-but-pleased smile.

A slight pang of guilt rose in his chest. “Do you miss art club?”

“Not as much as I would miss you on Tuesdays if I didn’t skip it,” she answered.

Dawn was rarely smooth like her brother. By her own admission, she always got A+’s in Being Awkward. But sometimes, she surprised him by saying the exact right thing.

He took her by the hand and led her back to his car. That was the first time, but not the last, that he kissed her in the backseat, unable to wait until they got back to his apartment.

Victor had forgotten how dangerous it was to watch her from afar.

He hadn’t been prepared for the sight of her signing and laughing with the little brown children…just as she used to sign and laugh with him. Another upsurge of unwanted memories rose inside of him. They made his chest feel bruised as if his cousin had round-housed him again.

He still didn’t know why she had taken this particular low-paying job, located in a high crime neighborhood in Lower South Providence. But Dawn appeared to genuinely enjoy her engagement with the children. It made him wonder what kind of mother she would…

Do not go down that road. The voice of reason cut his curious thought off before it could reach completion. It’s bad enough that you’re here.

That voice was right. He’d never meant to have sex with Dawn. That hadn’t been in his plan, which could be summed up in three parts: 1. Lock her down with marriage, 2. Leave her to rot in Rhode Island, and 3. Get all the way over his prisoner before he was required to marry someone else.

But she’d thrown him off his plan when she challenged him. And now here he was, watching her from afar again, even though he knew it was dangerous.

He couldn’t hear what the other teacher was saying to her, but Dawn went completely still. Like an animal who’d figured out that her predator lurked nearby.

Meanwhile, the children she’d been laughing and signing with started sing-songing about her having a boyfriend.