Chapter 9 #2
I gritted my teeth. “My little sister called me crying and begged me to come.”
“How’d she do that?” The woman stiffened.
“On her cell phone?” I rolled my eyes.
“Students aren’t allowed cell phones at school anymore. That’s a state law.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How about you go get my sister, and we can discuss state law after I know that she’s okay?”
Jasper’s hand came down on my wrist and he squeezed.
Not until it was painful or anything, but hard enough to provide me with a warning.
A warning that I needed, because I was losing my shit.
And the school wouldn’t let me in here if I didn’t calm myself.
I barely contained the urge to start making a scene, but the receptionist gave in and picked up her phone. She dialed a number and then said, “Mrs. Lancaster, this is the front office. Can you send Anders Hodges up to the office?”
They exchanged a few more words before she hung up and said, “You can wait over there.”
I didn’t bother to look where ‘over there’ was. Instead, I stayed exactly where I was, a few feet from the door, and waited impatiently, shifting from foot to foot as I did.
“Would you calm down?” he whispered. “You look fuckin’ nuts right now.”
I was “fuckin’” nuts.’
I didn’t respond and instead stayed where I was, continuing my leaning from foot to foot.
When she finally pushed through the doors, her eyes were red and swollen, and her lip was quivering.
“Anders, what’s wrong?”
She hit me like a battering ram, and the only thing that kept me upright was Jasper’s hands on my hips.
“Oooph,” I grunted as all the air left my lungs.
“Tell me it’s not true!” she begged.
“What’s not true?”
She pulled back, her watery eyes filled with tears. “You told me Santa was real!”
Oh…fuck.
It took fifteen minutes of calming her ass down to get the story.
Her teacher, in her infinite wisdom, decided to assign a “fun end of school project” for all the students to do.
Tell us of the time when you found out Santa wasn’t real.
God. Fucking. Dammit.
I’d told Searcy this would come back to bite us in the ass!
She’d begged me not to tell Anders, though. She said that she needed to continue being a kid, because we never got to do that.
And she was right.
But still, the world was a cruel place, and it was humiliating to find out that you were the only twelve-year-old in your class who didn’t know.
Shit, shit, goddamn.
My gaze moved to the door where a woman stood, looking annoyed but resolute.
“I presume you’re the teacher responsible for this?” I asked.
The teacher crossed her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t aware that she didn’t know.”
And that made it okay?
“Anders still believes—believed—in Santa, Mrs. Lancaster. She may be twelve, and she may be past the age where kids usually find out, but that doesn’t mean that you go ahead and steal away all their illusions!
You don’t know her home life. You don’t know that it took literally everything we had to keep at least one single thing good about Christmas in our family.
My mom was awful, Mrs. Lancaster. The only thing we had to give Anders sometimes were little things like this.
So yes, she may be too old to be believing in Santa, but that doesn’t change the fact that she does, and you just ruined that for her. ”
The teacher’s lips pinched together.
That only made me more mad that she didn’t immediately apologize.
I gritted my teeth and looked down at Anders. “Do you want to go home?”
She hesitated.
“Okay, well you can go back to class then,” I said. “You’ll be okay?”
“Y-yes.” She nodded resolutely.
“Okay. You’re riding the bus home?”
She nodded.
“Call me again if you need me,” I ordered.
“About that.” The office lady crossed her arms. “You know the punishment for having your phone out, Ms. Hodges.”
Was she talking to me or Anders? Because I had no fucking clue.
“Yes, ma’am,” Anders apologized, holding her phone out.
When Mrs. Lancaster went to snatch it away, I beat her to it and put it in my bra. “I’ll handle this.”
“That’s not how policy…”
“Your policy can suck my dick,” I snapped. “Anders, back to class.”
Anders didn’t hesitate, busting her ass to get out of the small jail cell with all possible haste.
“That’s inappropriate.” Mrs. Lancaster looked at me with disapproval in her teacher eyes.
“Maybe, but I stopped giving a single fuck what you people thought when I was here myself,” I said. “Have a good one.”
I left, leaving Jasper to do whatever it was he was going to do.
Since we were close enough to Searcy’s place now, I decided a nice, brisk walk was in my future.
Searcy’s place was about two miles away from the school. My new house was just a few miles past that.
I would walk home.
It wasn’t too cold, and I hadn’t hit my ten thousand steps…
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jasper called out behind me.
I turned around and walked backward as I said, “Home.”
“Get in the fuckin’ truck, Calli,” he growled.
I flipped him off. “No thanks.”
I made it out of the gate, thankful that the guard only waved at me, and started toward home.
I’d stop at Searcy’s place for something to eat first, because I was starving. Then I’d continue my walk…
A strong arm went around my waist, and I was tossed over a solid shoulder.
I cursed and said, “Put me down, asshole!”
“Sure,” he said as he kept walking to his truck, which stood wide open, waiting for him to return.
Instead of putting me in the back—allowing me to let myself right back out—he sat me down in the seat between him and his lady.
“What the fuck?” I growled.
He reached over and put my seat belt on for me, then reached between my legs to put the truck in gear.
I would not admit how sexy that was.
“Why do you have to be so goddamn stubborn all the time?” he hissed. “The world is not out to get you.”
“Yeah, whatever you say.” I snorted. “Because the world’s been real kind to me so far.”
“Your sister won the lottery,” he pointed out. “That’s pretty kind.”
I didn’t bother to point out, for a second time might I add, that my sister was the one who won the lottery, not me.
I felt like a broken record sometimes.
But also, “That’s kind of a secret, Jasper Madden.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Barbie offered up over her shoulder, a small smile on her face.
I snorted. “No offense, but I don’t know you. I don’t trust anyone.”
She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes this time.
I had a feeling that she didn’t find very many people who didn’t like her.
“Do you want me to drop you off first, Harlow?” Jasper asked.
“Oh, whatever is easiest for you,” she offered.
“In that case, you can drop me off first,” I snapped.
Because I hadn’t asked to be in this vehicle in the first place.
Jasper ignored me and drove to Webber’s shop.
He pulled up right in front and both Jasper and Harlow bailed out.
Before I could slide to the driver’s side, the door closed in my face.
I started to go the other way and that one closed as well.
I rolled my eyes and pushed out through the driver’s side, but I made sure to grab Jasper’s keys and throw them into the back of the truck first.
Asshole.
When I rounded the hood of Jasper’s truck it was to see Webber standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.
Webber was the club president of the Truth Tellers MC.
He was the biggest, baddest of them all, and he gave me the “oh shits.”
I swear the man had a way about him that damn near ordered me to spill all my secrets.
He was intimidating and rough, and saw things I didn’t want him to see.
I had a feeling it was because he had a daughter my age, and he knew just how to handle her to keep her in line.
“What’s going on?” Webber asked.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just need a ride home since Jasper wouldn’t take me there himself.”
Webber’s eyes shifted to Jasper then back to me. “What’s wrong with your truck? I thought he fixed it last night?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Webber sighed. “Was it that disgruntled employee again?”
“Why would I know the answer to that? I don’t have access to their cameras. Plus, I’ve been gone all day working,” I said. “I’m going to head home.”
“You live five miles away from here,” Webber pointed out.
I made it about midway down the driveway when the tow truck started to back out of its spot.
Front and center was Harlow, sitting in the only seat in the front.
I knew this because I was just there myself yesterday. The only seating left was the jump seat in the back that faced sideways.
Yeah, I definitely wasn’t going to be leaving with them.
I kept walking, ignoring the huge ass truck that was crawling along behind me.
When I moved to the side just far enough, Jasper squeezed beside me and opened his door.
I stepped out of the way just fast enough that he wasn’t able to catch me by the waist and haul me inside.
“What are you even doing right now?” Jasper asked in exasperation.
“I could ask you the same, since I sure the hell didn’t ask for any help.” I snorted and started to walk down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of traffic. “Have a nice day, Jasper. Also, don’t go get my truck. I’ll be dealing with it on my own tomorrow.”
Jasper muttered a couple of choice words under his breath, but I ignored him and kept walking.
Five miles instead of four.
I could do it.
“Let’s get her truck to the shop and see what she did to it this time.”
I gritted my teeth, but kept walking despite hearing him talk about me like I couldn’t hear.
Like it was my fucking fault that this happened.
I was just existing on this fucking planet.
I also didn’t acknowledge his friend who said, “What’s her problem, anyway?”
And I wouldn’t.
Because I didn’t like her, and when I didn’t like people, they didn’t get my time and or attention.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and placed a call to an alternate towing service that was within a mile of the facility in which it was parked and prayed they got there before Jasper did.
Because no way in hell was I dealing with him.
I would not be someone else’s burden.