Chapter 6
AVERY
Wilder was an asshole.
There, I said it. Well, I thought it really hard, which was almost the same thing.
I sat in my car in my driveway, clenching the steering wheel hard and glaring at him through the window.
He was busy getting Gracie inside and didn’t look back.
Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t given a shit about me when he was running late to collect Gracie at school. Why would he care now he was home free?
What if I’d had an appointment this afternoon? A coffee date with a friend? A life outside the classroom? And okay, I didn’t have any of those things, but he didn’t know that.
I waited until Wilder and Gracie had gone inside their house and climbed out of my car.
I hurried inside, dumped my backpack on the floor, and then, like some sort of weird stalker or neighborhood gossip, hurried straight to the kitchen window and peered through the gap in the gauzy curtains at Wilder’s house.
I couldn’t see shit, but it didn’t stop me from looking.
I dug my phone out of my pocket and called Dallas.
“Hey,” he said, sounding happy and relaxed even though it was a Monday. “What’s up, Avery?”
“He was late again,” I growled.
“What? Who?”
I leaned over the counter and dislodged the coffee mug I’d left out this morning. I caught it before it fell and lifted it up to look it in the googly eyes. “Wilder. My worst parent.”
“Oh, your new neighbor,” Dallas said. “I remember.”
My parents and Dallas and Camden had come up last weekend with boxes of books, clothes and random junk I hadn’t seen in years.
I was glad Dallas had made it since it had given me the chance to vent teacher-to-teacher about the world’s most annoying parent—Wilder.
I’d left out the part where Wilder was a stripper, but I didn’t need it: Dallas thought it was hilarious enough when I said that it turned out Wilder lived right next door, and it was all I could do to stop him from rushing over there to introduce himself.
After my family left, the house didn’t seem as empty as it had before they arrived.
Maybe it was because my dad had wandered around doing random things like tapping the baseboards and making approving humming sounds, and my mom had used my stove to make potatoes au gratin, and there were now photographs and knickknacks on my bookshelf.
“He was actually on time this morning,” I said. He’d even smiled at me and waved as he left, so I’d thought that perhaps we were finally at a turning point when it came to his tardiness. More fool me, right? “Then this afternoon he was so late I’m only just getting home now.”
“So what’s the procedure at your school?” Dallas asked.
“What?”
“When parents are late, there’s a procedure,” he said. “You have to ask if you need to take the kid to the principal’s office so they can call her emergency contact, or the police, or CPS, or whatever.”
My stomach lurched. “The police?”
“Depends on your school’s policy,” Dallas said, his tone taking on the same calm authority it took to keep a bunch of middle schoolers on track. “Which is why you need to get on top of it right away, because otherwise this guy is going to keep taking advantage.”
Dallas was right, and I knew it. Obviously Wilder didn’t take me seriously, so I needed to bring in the big guns.
Our principal, Mrs. Freeman, who was pushing five feet tall even in her heels, wasn’t a big gun at all in terms of size, but when it came to firepower?
She’d leave nothing but a smoldering crater, and she’d do it with a cheerful smile.
“I just… ugh.” I didn’t have words for how angry I was.
“Avery,” Dallas said, “did you skip lunch?”
“What? No, I—” I blinked and thought back. “I might have.”
“Go and get a snack and eat that while you start making your dinner.”
“I’m not five,” I whined like a five-year-old.
“Avery.”
“Fine!” I wedged my phone between my ear and my shoulder and stepped away from the window long enough to wrestle open the cookie jar. I had a cookie jar now, courtesy of Mom, and she’d baked me a batch of oatmeal cookies before she’d left yesterday. I jammed one in my mouth. “I’m eating a cookie.”
“Good. Now eat another one.”
“Do you boss the kids in your class around like this?”
“Only if they’re cranky because they need a snack. Feel better?”
“No,” I lied, then sighed. “Fine. Yes.”
Dallas gave a soft laugh. “Mom’s cookies have that effect.”
“Yeah,” I said. And it was true. It was the taste of home and comfort and a reminder that I had people who were there for me when things got tough. People like my brother, who would know how to deal with my worst parent. “So what am I going to do about Wilder?”
“Next time he drops his daughter off, you’re going to calmly but firmly take him aside and remind him that school hours aren’t flexible, and that if he can’t be on time, he needs to make arrangements for after-school care.”
I thought about Wilder’s old truck and his scuffed work boots and worn shirts. “I don’t think he has the money for that.”
“That’s not your problem,” Dallas said. “He’s the parent, so he needs to step up. Where’s the mom in all this anyway?”
The other moms had been all too eager to fill me in on the scandal that was John Wilder, teen dad. “The playground gossip says that Wilder refused to marry her when she got pregnant. But now she’s gone to college, so he’s taking a shot at parenting.”
Dallas sucked air between his teeth. “So he probably doesn’t even want to look after the kid.”
“I don’t get that vibe,” I said, right before I wondered why I was defending the worst parent in my class.
Dallas hummed. “Uh-huh. Well, don’t let him weaponize his incompetence. And as tempting as it is, don’t offer to take his kid home after school.”
“I’m not going to offer that,” I said. “The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Dallas said. “Some parents will push the envelope, and you have to be prepared to push back.”
There had been a fleeting moment when I had considered offering to drive Gracie home, but Dallas didn’t need to know that.
He’d only lecture me on boundaries and professionalism and protecting myself, and I didn’t need him to tell me it was a terrible idea.
Wilder didn’t live alone, but I had no idea what the deal was.
There was the cute guy who’d collected Gracie last week, and I’d seen at least one other guy coming and going on a dirt bike—I was pretty sure he was the cranky asshole from the gas station—but I didn’t know if they were roommates or brothers or hell, even a threesome.
The schoolyard gossips hadn’t said anything about Wilder being gay, but maybe they didn’t know everything.
And hey, he’d seemed pretty comfortable dropping his ass in my lap and working it.
I pushed down the memory of Wilder rolling his hips, his muscled torso glistening with sweat and body glitter, that rose up in my mind unbidden.
Fantastic abs and an ass you could bounce a quarter off had no place in this.
If Wilder couldn’t make it to school on time, there was no guarantee that he’d be home when I dropped Gracie off. And if there was nobody there after school, what then? There was no way I was taking Gracie to my house as a male teacher living alone. No way in hell.
“I’ll talk to him about his timekeeping and make it clear he needs to get it together,” I said. “I’ll even use my bossy teacher voice.”
Dallas snorted. “No offense, but anyone who’s met you knows you’re not even a little bit bossy.”
I had past boyfriends who would beg to differ, but again, not something my brother needed to know. Instead I said, “Hey! I have a whole class who hangs onto my every word! They basically think I’m a god.”
“They’re five,” Dallas said. “They don’t know any better.”
“Excuse me, some of them are almost six,” I said, laughing.
“Oh, well, that makes all the difference,” Dallas said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Listen, I gotta go. But call me if you need to talk, okay?”
“I will.”
We said our goodbyes and ended the call, and then I ate another cookie.
I was looking out the window at Wilder’s house when the screen door creaked and slammed as he came out onto the front porch.
I expected him to get in his truck, but instead he sat heavily on the top step, and even from here I could see the way his shoulders sagged.
As I watched, he brought the heel of his hands up to his eyes and scrubbed at them, and I got a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach.
I stared through the gap in the curtains, unable to look away as Wilder dabbed at his eyes again with his sleeve.
I had the wildest urge to go over there with the jar of my mom’s cookies.
But before I could do anything, the screen door banged again and the guy who’d collected Gracie the other day appeared and sat on the step next to Wilder, throwing an arm over his shoulders.
Wilder sagged into the touch, and the other guy said something that had Wilder nodding slowly.
The guy ruffled his hair with an easy affection that had me back to wondering if they were a couple.
I had a moment to wonder why that thought stung—a partner was a good thing if it meant there was someone else helping care for Gracie—before a voice rang out, loud enough that I could hear it through the closed window. “Daddy! Daddy! Where are you?”
Wilder’s chest heaved, but then he pulled himself upright, wiping his eyes again before calling, “I’m out front, sweet pea.”
Gracie came flying out the door, and the relief on her face when she saw her father was unmistakable. Wilder stood and turned and scooped her up, a fake smile plastered on his face, and said something that had her nodding vigorously. The three of them went back inside.