Chapter 2
AVERY
Ihadn’t thought it was possible to dislike someone on sight, but that was before John Wilder had rolled up late to my classroom on the first day of kindergarten.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite true. I didn’t dislike him on sight per se, because there was a lot to like.
He was good-looking, with long blond hair that he had tucked up in a messy kind of bun, and he was tall and muscled, which were both things I normally appreciated in a man. But that was in men I wanted to date.
Not only had he been late dropping off his daughter, he’d forgotten her snacks. And then, because apparently he was either too ignorant or arrogant to check the time, he’d been late to collect her.
My older brother Dallas, who was also a teacher, had warned me, saying, “No matter what, there’s always one parent who turns up late, forgets to sign their permission slips, and is generally a pain in your ass.
” I hadn’t believed him, but it looked like he’d been right.
And it seemed like John Wilder was going to be that parent.
Sure, he’d apologized that first day and said it wouldn’t happen again, and while he hadn’t been late to collect Gracie again, he’d been late twice more with drop-off and the last one to arrive every day this week.
It was heartbreaking to see the relief on his daughter’s face when he came jogging into the classroom, like she hadn’t quite believed he’d make it.
Gracie was actually a sweet kid, and I felt for her and wished her father would make more of an effort. I wondered what had happened that she’d ended up in his custody—not that it was any of my business. Families were complicated, I knew that much, and often it was better not to ask.
And it wasn’t like I’d given it much thought anyway.
I’d been too busy this week figuring out how to corral seventeen little kids.
Keeping them engaged and entertained was enough of a challenge that once or twice I found myself wondering if teaching was really what I wanted to do.
I mean, it definitely was, but still. All those faces staring at me expectantly every morning still gave me butterflies.
The reality was, running a classroom on my own was intimidating as heck.
As for Gracie’s dad, he’d taken to dropping her off and picking her up again with no more than a nod of acknowledgement, and I was pretty sure he was avoiding talking to me. It seemed that he liked me about as much as I liked him.
The bell sounded, jangling me out of my thoughts, and when I opened the classroom door for the parents, Gracie’s father was the first in line.
He must have come straight from work because he was wearing a ratty tank top and dusty jeans and scuffed work boots, and there was dirt on the back of his neck.
Somehow it didn’t make him any less attractive—not that I was looking.
“Mr. Wilder,” I said with a polite nod, because I was nothing if not professional.
He scrunched up his nose. “Uh, hey.”
“Daddy!” Gracie ran over to us, and John Wilder’s expression went soft and fond as he crouched down and scooped her into a hug.
“Hey, sweet pea. Ready to go?”
Gracie nodded.
“You sure about that? I don’t see your backpack.”
Gracie’s mouth dropped open. “I forgot!” She scrambled out of her father’s hold and skipped over to her cubby, and John Wilder and I stood there awkwardly as we waited for her to come back.
At least I had a flood of other kids and parents to distract me, but I was very aware that he was still just standing there and that it was taking way too long for Gracie to collect her backpack.
I bit back the urge to comment that she had a memory like her father’s—and yes, I was still judging him for forgetting her snacks at the start of the week.
Who didn’t have a checklist for their kid’s first day at kindergarten?
Good-looking guys who obviously thought the rules didn’t apply to them, that was who.
Gracie finally skipped over with her bag and announced, “Now I’m ready. Bye, Mr. Smith!”
“Bye, Gracie,” I said. “See you on Monday 8:30 a.m. sharp.”
Gracie nodded, eyes wide.
“Okay, let’s go,” John Wilder said, shooting me a dark look, and then they were gone.
I spent the next ten minutes dispatching kids, talking to parents, and pretending not to hear when one of the moms asked me if I was single, and when everyone had left, I heaved a sigh of relief.
I’d survived my first week without anyone bursting into tears—including me—and it felt pretty darn good.
I locked the classroom and made my way to the teachers’ lounge.
It was a smallish room with three tables, a fridge, and a coffee maker that was constantly on the fritz.
In theory it was where we ate our lunch if we weren’t on lunch duty, but in practice it was where we spent all our time lined up for the copier and the laminator, hoping they wouldn’t die from overwork before it was our turn.
Calling it a lounge was a stretch, honestly.
But it was free of children and parents, and I supposed that alone made it worthy of the title.
I was barely inside the door when Dana Locke, the second-grade teacher, waved me over to her table.
Dana was a petite blonde who was somewhere in her forties, and I liked her a lot. I went and sat down. “Hey, Dana.”
“Hey. What are you doing tonight?”
“Not much,” I said. “Maybe doing laundry and calling my mom. Another wild night in Goose Run.”
She laughed, then said, “Good. You’re coming out for drinks to celebrate making it through the first week. Everyone’s going.”
Alan Parker, the first-grade teacher, nodded from over where he was futzing pointlessly with the coffee machine. “First-week drinks. It’s tradition.”
The thing about Dana was that she was one of those cheerfully enthusiastic people who were almost impossible to say no to—so I didn’t even try.
Honestly? The fact she’d even invited me filled me with warmth.
It felt like I might eventually fit in here, once I knew everyone better.
And a couple of drinks and some company sounded pretty good after a week of spending my evenings alone, staring at the walls of the tiny motel room I was currently staying in while I worked on my lesson plans. “I’m in,” I said. “Where are we going?”
She said it was some bar called Easy Rider over in Brodnax, and before I could even ask how we were getting there, she added, “Don’t worry about who’s driving. My husband will drop us off and pick us up so nobody has to stay sober. That’s also tradition.”
“Good thing too,” Alan added. The gleam in his eye suggested that he was planning to make the most of tonight.
“We’ll collect you around eight,” Dana said. “What’s your address?”
“I’m staying at Goosey Gardens,” I said. The place had neither a goose nor gardens, and really, that told you everything you needed to know about it.
Dana winced. “Really?”
“It’s only temporary,” I said quickly. “I put an offer in on a house last week, and since it’s empty it should close pretty quickly.”
“You bought a house? In Goose Run? After a week?” Dana stared at me, wide eyed—which was pretty rich since she lived here too.
“It was two weeks,” I said, “and I’ve always wanted a place of my own.
And I like Goose Run. It’s small but it’s close to everything, and honestly, given that my rental options are either Goosey Gardens or Mrs. Craddock’s Room and Board with no pets and no visitors, I figured I might as well buy something. ”
Dana laughed. “That’s fair. Let me know when moving day is, and I’ll get my husband to come over with his pickup.”
“Thanks,” I said. Something loosened in my chest at the offer. These were good people, and I was making the right choice in settling here. “Though I’m not sure I have enough stuff that I’ll need a pickup.”
“Well, just in case.” Dana gathered up the paperwork she had spread in front of her and stood. “I’ll see you tonight. And fair warning, we can get a little wild.”
“Oh, I think I can handle it,” I said, grinning.
I mean, it was drinks with a bunch of middle-aged elementary school teachers.
How wild could it possibly get?
This shit was wild.
I’d expected a quiet bar and a beer or three. Maybe a cocktail.
This was not that. The bar was heaving with bodies, the music was loud but it slapped, and Dana kept shoving shooters at me.
Had I mentioned she was impossible to say no to?
I tried once, after the fourth shot, and she laughed in my face and told me I needed to toughen up if I wanted to make it as a teacher and to drink up.
So I drank up.
I switched to beer when the floor started moving, but I was still pretty wasted when, a couple of hours in, the music stopped suddenly.
I made a sad noise, but Dana grinned at me. “Don’t worry, it’s just time for the ent-en-entertainment,” she shouted into the quiet.
“Entertainment?” I blinked owlishly at her.
“Entertainment!” she agreed before slurping on the straw of a cocktail that was the size of a fishbowl and bright aqua. “You’ll see!”
I eyed her cocktail and decided that I needed one. I staggered over to the bar and ordered through pointing and repeating “The blue fish!” until the barman nodded his understanding, and a minute later I was twenty bucks poorer and in possession of my very own giant aqua cocktail.
Dana hustled over and grabbed me by the arm. “Come on, we want good seats!” Before I could ask what for, she was half dragging me across the room and elbowing her way through the crowd. The next thing I knew my ass was in a seat.
“What’re we lookin’ at?” I slurred before taking a sip of my cocktail and then a second bigger sip because it was fucking delicious.
Oh, there was a stage in front of us. It was pretty small, and it was empty.