Sweet Novella about second chances. Fifteen years apart. Hope, Idaho, is a small town, everyone knows everything, if you sneeze loudly enough, you’ll be blessed.
Bash is the head football coach of the Hope Tigers and also teaches high school Maths.
“Hot teacher.” I smile. “I’m sure your female students love you.”
“Some of them are so over the top, and they don’t care who knows it. I swear, I worry about their home lives.”
“Meh. Most of them are just horny teenage girls with a hot teacher fantasy”.
Sebastian Hall is the poster child for tall, dark and handsome. When she left, he was a boy, now, Sebastian is all man.
Co-parenting with his ex-wife, Trina who is recently engaged, he picks up his daughter Chloe for her ballet class. Mrs. Simone, the ballet teacher fell and injured her hip and she must now have surgery. One of her students is substituting, at which time he comes face to face for the first time since high school, since post-graduation when she left their hometown for Juilliard to pursue her dream of dancing, breaking his heart in the process. Haven Decker was his first girlfriend—his first everything—until it was time for her to go to Juilliard.
Leaving him behind.
“Sebastian,” she says, gaping at me from across the small room.
I close my eyes for the briefest second, yet my mind fills with images of a time gone past. Haven wrapped in my arms, telling me she loved me more than anything, wanting to start our adult life together as soon as we graduated.
Then the acceptance letter came.
The one that took her three-quarters of the country away, never to return to the small Idahoan town.
Until today.
Haven Decker is back, and more gorgeous than ever before.
Keeping her laser focus on the class, on the little girls who are here to learn to be ballerinas—every little girl’s dream. It was her dream, one that was a reality. She’s made sacrifices for her career, reflectively, there are some things she wishes she would have fought harder for.
Sebastian.
She regrets not fighting for them. They were young and in love, and despite the odds of the distance between us, she should have fought harder. Her greatest regret - walking away from him. They had their future planned, and then she got the letter that changed the fabric of their lives.
For thirty minutes, I feel eyes burning the back of my head, but I refuse to turn around. I’m not ready to face him, to face our past. “Ladies, you did an amazing job. Thank you for being such great students,” I praise them.”
“Thank you, Miss Haven,” they singsong, as she lets them know that their hard work makes her happy.
Trina and Sebastian met nearly seven years ago in the ER. They dated, and she ended up pregnant. They got married and tried to make their marriage work for the sake of Chloe, but they divorced two years ago, realising they were better as friends and co-parents, both wanting the best for their daughter. She’s actually engaged to a nice guy.
It was admirable reading that despite being divorced, Trina and Sebastian maintained a high level of respect and friendship for each other...setting an exemplary standard for Chloe.