"Oh wow, I haven't been in one of these death traps in 20 years," Rani Menon gave her girls' teacher a cheeky smile as she plopped down beside him on the long yellow school bus they were taking for their class field trip.
"I'm in one of these death traps regularly," Hayden Stahl smiled back. He had folded his 5'11" frame into one of the front seats and tried to move as far over as possible to give Rani space. His dark blond hair peeked out of his toque, and he blinked his emerald eyes as the frigid February air threatened to dry them out again.
"Don't worry about the lack of seatbelts," he joked. "Parents and teachers always sit near the front to catch the kids when they go hurtling forward."
"I knew there was a reason," Rani smirked as the bus lurched ahead. Hayden stood up to do one final head count and wrote down on his clipboard the number of kids on the bus, plus two for himself and Rani. She was the lone parent willing to accompany him and his third-graders to a farm in minus-10 Celsius.
It was a good half-hour drive to a family farm that raised animals, and Hayden didn't want to admit he was glad. He found Rani to be a fun and funny parent who was involved in her twin daughters' education--and he looked forward to their chats during pick-up and drop-off at school.
"How's your blushing bride?" Rani asked. "Still in the stage where you're going at it like bunnies?" Hayden gasped out a laugh and turned around to see if any of the kids had heard. "Do you really think they're going to be paying attention to our boring grown-up conversations?" Rani grinned. "They can't even hear us with all that shrieking back there."
"It would be highly unprofessional for me to discuss my personal life with you or any other parent," Hayden grew hot under his winter jacket, trying to bite his lip to prevent another smile. He wished he wasn't such an introvert, especially when faced with someone as outgoing as Rani.
"I'm going to take the pinkness of your cheeks as a big yes," Rani smiled. "I mean, it's only been what, six months? That's exactly what you should be doing."
Hayden looked away, still chuckling. Rani's unassuming beauty was intimidating to him, but her easy and open way of talking was disarming. She was just 5'3" but had a big personality which was only rivaled by her caramel skin, chocolate eyes, and silky black-brown hair that fell to the middle of her back.
"So how's everything at home?" Hayden asked, desperate to change the subject before he went full-on red.
"It would be highly unprofessional for me to discuss my personal life with you or any other teacher, Mr. Stahl," Rani responded with mock curtness as Hayden grinned, "but since you asked, I have yet again been reminded by my doctor that I'm getting old."
"Aren't you a couple of years younger than me?"
"Oooh, right, open mouth, insert foot," Rani cringed. "But what I meant was, I think I'm inheriting my dad's high blood pressure issues." Hayden was surprised.
"Really? But you're only 32. And I don't think you smoke, and you seem pretty fit."
"Mr. Stahl, I'm happily married!" Rani teased him. "Nah, but seriously, sometimes these things just happen, especially if you're genetically predisposed like South Asians are with heart issues. My BP was elevated even when I was pregnant with the girls. Maybe I'll start donating blood again in an attempt to artificially lower it."
"Hey, I donate regularly too," Hayden said. "You used to and you stopped?"
"Yeah," Rani's lips still curved slightly upward in a smile but there was a twinge of discomfort in her voice. "It wasn't a health thing or anything. I volunteered with Canadian Blood Services in high school and then started giving every two months with my mom when I turned 16. I think I got up to about 30 donations on my card."
"That's really something when you were that young," Hayden offered, wondering what had happened.
"My mom and I donated together at the same clinic and the nurses came to know us," she explained. "Then when I was pregnant with the girls, she was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer and she was gone in a few months." Rani's voice was still aloof but she continued to avoid Hayden's gaze.
"Even after I stopped breastfeeding the kids, I couldn't go back and have to tell the nurses it was just me from now on. They were so sweet and they loved seeing my mom and I together." She shrugged. "I know it's a stupid reason to not do it but--"
"No, no, it's understandable," Hayden said softly. Rani wrinkled her nose.
"Is it, really, though?" she asked. "To not do something so important because I didn't want to have an awkward conversation with casual acquaintances?"
"I avoid doing most things for that very reason," Hayden replied. He was glad he was able to elicit a laugh out of Rani at that point, but also a bit disappointed that the bus had pulled off the highway and was nearing the rural area that housed the farm.
"Look," he added, "sometimes there are blood drives at the school or next door at the high school. I'll let you know when. I'll even drop by if I'm on lunch." Rani nodded, glancing over at him and then straight ahead again.
"Looks like we're close," she said, peering past him and out the window at a large barn in the middle of a field. "Same as last time? I take the front, you take the back, and the kids are all sandwiched between us?"
"Same as last time," Hayden winked.
The farm wasn't just animals, Rani was pleasantly surprised to find. There was a lot to it, including pumpkin and apple picking in the Autumn, and hay rides and tapping maple trees for sap, which they got to do that day.
Hayden couldn't help but smile from his own horse-drawn wagon watching Rani laughing with a cartload of kids in hers. Both adults sat on the back edge of the cart and kept the kids on the inside for safety, but Rani's arm shot out protectively toward the kids sitting beside her every time they hit a bump.
As they climbed back on to the bus several hours later, Hayden couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much fun despite having done the same farm trip with his class every year over almost a decade of teaching. He caught Rani doing her own head count and smiled.
"You know they're not paying you for this?" he said, confident every kid was there as he'd just counted them on the way to the bus.
"Imagine what we'd have to pay if we left a kid under a haystack," she replied, boarding the bus herself and raising her eyebrows at Hayden on the way up. When they finally reached the school again, he made sure to catch up to her as she was gathering her daughters to drive them home.
"Thanks for coming out today," he told her. "I know you took time off work for this."
"Please, Mr. Stahl," Rani waved him off. "This was fun for me. I'd rather be hanging out with you and these guys all day than back at my stodgy office." Her eyes lingered just a second longer than she intended on his bright green ones before she felt the tug of a child's hand on her mitten.
"Bye, Mr. Stahl, we'll see you tomorrow," Rani's daughter Lavanya waved.
"Bye, Lavanya," he said, breaking his gaze from Rani and looking down at her and her sister, Payal. "Sorry to say tomorrow's not going to be as fun as today. Don't forget there's a spelling test."
Hours later in the early evening, Rani was uploading pictures of the day from her phone to e-mail Hayden when Dhanush walked into their bedroom.
