John Wilder Gets Schooled (Goose Run #2)

Chapter 1

WILDER

You remember that one kid from high school?

The one who played football, had a whole bunch of girls chasing after him, and was popular as shit?

The golden boy. Every school had one. Some of them were dicks, because that was what popularity could do to teenage boys.

Hell, most of them were probably dicks. But there was a rare subspecies of golden boy who tried not to be a dick, and the teachers liked him, and the other kids liked him—including the weird, edgy kids who didn’t like anyone else—and even the parents of the girls he dated liked him.

You ever wonder what happened to that guy?

Well, maybe he was walking up the front path to his baby mama’s parents’ place right now, his bare feet burning on the concrete because he’d busted his flip-flops when he got out to get gas before he got here, and he was itchy and trying not to show it because there was still glitter stuck in his ass crack from the night before.

And maybe that guy was me.

The front door swung open before I could reach it, and Mrs. Moore said, her mouth pursed as tightly as a cat’s asshole, “John.”

I hated being called that.

“Hi, Mrs. Moore,” I said in my best respectful golden boy voice, even though that had stopped working on her, and the whole goddamn town, back when I was seventeen. “How are you doing today?”

“You’re late,” she said.

Okay then.

The Moores had been cold with me for a few months now.

Scratch that.

The Moores had been cold with me ever since I knocked up their daughter in high school and then refused to marry her.

The thing about that, though, was that Cassidy didn’t want to get married any more than I did, but I took the fall because she still had to live with her folks.

Mine had already kicked me out when I’d told them we weren’t getting married, so I had nothing left to lose.

And I figured it was the least I could do for Cassidy, especially after the whole, you know, pregnancy thing.

But things had really taken a turn for the worse with the Moores when Cassidy decided to go to college.

In Maryland. Which meant that instead of me only taking Gracie for some weekends like we’d been doing up to now, I had her during the week and the Moores only got her when I said they could.

They hadn’t taken it well. Not Cassidy leaving for college, and not losing Gracie as well.

Because that was how they saw it. Like I was some random asshole who’d swooped in and abducted their granddaughter, but I was her dad. I had every right. Cassidy and I had talked, and this was what we wanted—it was what Gracie wanted too—but Cassidy’s parents were still big mad. Big fucking mad.

“Sorry about that,” I said, stepping up onto the porch.

Mrs. Moore gave me a sour look. “It’s Grace’s first day of kindergarten, and you’re late.”

“Won’t happen again,” I said.

I knew I was late, and I didn’t need Mrs. Moore to tell me I was an asshole.

I knew that too. I’d worked late last night—so late that I’d slept through the first two alarms I’d set and only woken on the third—but that was hardly something I could explain.

She already thought I was an unfit parent, and telling her I’d been stripping on the side to make ends meet for a while now wouldn’t exactly change her opinion any.

“Is, uh, is Mr. Moore around?” I asked.

“No.”

I tried not to show my relief. “Is Gracie ready?”

She didn’t invite me in. It’d been a while since she’d done that. I used to make the effort to come to dinner once a week, but I wasn’t welcome now Cassidy wasn’t here. Fucking fine by me. Mrs. Moore’s meatloaf was as dry and unpleasant as she was.

“Dad!” a voice yelled from inside the house. “Daddy!”

And before I knew it, Gracie was bursting out of the front door like a tiny hurricane, and all I could do was brace for the impact.

I caught her and lifted her in the same movement, swinging her around while Mrs. Moore glared. “Wow! Look at you! Is that a new dress?” It was pink and purple and shimmery. “You look like a fairy princess!”

She was almost as glittery as me at last night’s bachelorette party.

“Mommy sent it for my first day!” she told me, grinning broadly.

“Well, it’s beautiful,” I said. “Did you send her a picture?”

“Yep!”

“Good job,” I said and set her down again.

Mrs. Moore set Gracie’s bright new kindergarten backpack on the porch, followed by the sports bag I’d packed on Friday night for the weekend. The sports bag looked suspiciously saggy.

“Did you remember to pack Mr. Peanut Butter?” I asked.

Gracie gasped and bolted back inside the house to grab her stuffed frog, and Mrs. Moore looked even more sour and disapproving.

Like, I got it, but we were already running late, so what the hell was another few minutes?

And I didn’t want to deal with an upset Gracie tonight if Mr. Peanut Butter wasn’t there at bedtime.

I’d bought the stuffed frog for her second birthday.

She’d named it Mr. Peanut Butter, and hell if I knew why.

The way little kids’ brains worked was random and wild, and it made me laugh.

Made me a little sad too, because it seemed like something most people lost as they grew up, and I’d miss the ways Gracie was funny and weird right now when she got older.

And here it was. The “my kid is having her first day of kindergarten and I’m having an existential crisis about it” moment I’d been waiting for, right on cue.

But then Gracie came running out of the house again, Mr. Peanut Butter tucked under her arm, and she looked so goddamn happy and excited that all I could do was grin at her.

“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” I said, and she raced toward my truck. I picked up her bags and nodded at Mrs. Moore. “See you Friday.”

She stared after Gracie, something longing in her gaze, but whatever sympathy I felt for her—and granted, it wasn’t a lot—died the moment she glanced at me and her expression soured.

She shut the door in my face.

I kept my smile plastered on my face as I turned and headed for my truck, because I didn’t want Gracie to know what I thought of her grandmother. I lifted Gracie into the truck, tossed her bags in with her, and clipped her into her booster seat.

Goose Run Elementary hadn’t changed much since I’d been there.

It was K-5, and after that they sent the kids to Park View for middle school and Mecklenburg for high school.

I didn’t remember it as being so small, but last time I’d been here I’d been that way myself.

Cassidy had handled all the enrollment stuff a few months back, and I’d just signed what I needed to sign.

Then she’d gotten the news about her scholarship, and suddenly I was the hands-on parent.

Which was great. I wouldn’t have it any other way, just…

“Daddy,” Gracie said as we idled in the parking lot, “are you going to stop the truck?”

I turned off the ignition.

It was just that the small cluster of buildings suddenly scared the living shit out of me.

I knew what people around town said about me.

The times I’d met other parents at birthday parties or the park or shit like that, I’d seen the way they looked at me, like what is he doing here?

Some kids Gracie’s age had parents old enough to be my parents, and I just looked like a fuckup to them.

Cassidy got some of it but not as much as me because she was the good girl who got pressured into sex, and I was the golden boy who turned out to be an asshole because I dumped her when she was seventeen and pregnant.

Like I’d been a hypocrite the whole time, and my villainous mask finally got exposed, instead of what it was: we were both young and made a mistake together, and now we were both doing our best to be parents to our daughter.

And it wasn’t like we were the only teen parents in Goose Run—hell, we weren’t even the youngest—but our families were from the good side of town, and we’d been brought up right, and we were supposed to get married.

Our parents had the paperwork ready and everything.

And I said no.

That was what people remembered now. That I was the one who went against our parents, and God, and said no.

Worst night of my fucking life. Worse even than when Cassidy had told me she was pregnant.

Because I might have felt the ground dropping away from under my feet when she’d broken the news, but the night a couple weeks later when I’d refused to marry her?

That was when cold, hard reality had broken my fall.

My parents had kicked me out, Mom crying and Dad spitting Bible verses at me—the ones about children obeying their parents, mostly.

Hearing them was nothing new, but the anger behind them was.

If it hadn’t been for my best friend Danny, I wouldn’t have had any place to go.

He and his grandma took me in. They were from the wrong side of town. And now I was too.

I glanced across at Gracie. She was watching me with a worried look on her face, and I forced a smile because I didn’t want to make her think there was anything scary about kindergarten.

It was weird, thinking back to how terrified I’d been the day Cassidy told me she was pregnant.

At the time I’d thought my world was ending.

And it had gotten upended a little, it was true, but there was nothing I’d do differently now.

Well, okay, maybe I’d wait a couple years before having a kid, but the point was, choosing between the life I’d planned and the one I was living was a no-brainer, because my world might have gotten shaken up, but who cared about that when Gracie was my entire universe?

“You’re gonna have so much fun today!” I told her, and she grinned at me.