Chapter 2 #2
Yeah, I don’t want to do this.
I don’t need the girl I’m fucking to school me on my kid. We’re not even at that point in our relationship where I would even introduce him to her. Yet, she’s with him during the day more than I am, which creates a layer of encroachment that I wasn’t ready for.
“What are your concerns, Sienna?” I try to keep my tone even because this isn’t her fault.
It’s mine.
I forged on with dragging her out of that bar and tugging her into my truck. I began kissing her, relishing in the window of opportunity that presented itself to get her alone. And I also stupidly dreamt of more.
Sienna straightens her spine and gestures for the blue chair in front of her desk. “It’s Miss Vesper, and my concerns are how he’s been behaving in class.”
Miss Vesper, huh?
Ambling deeper into the room, I play father figure as she sifts through some more papers in front of her. Now that I think about it, I’m really digging the whole hot teacher thing on her right now. “Like?”
“He’s having a hard time making friends.” I stare at her, making her peer up at me to further explain. “Heath doesn’t like to share and, in turn, he argues when he doesn’t get his own way.”
“Isn’t that what kids normally do?”
She bows her head, and I can’t help but study the soft angles of her face and the lustrous glow of her skin. “Yes, but he throws fits and then isolates himself. I’m afraid…that he’s covering up maybe some deeper feelings of pain, fear, or loneliness.”
“Huh.” Sienna stares at me with those amber eyes as I bend over, placing both my palms on the edge of her desk, and I notice her shaky exhale.
Yeah, baby, me too.
“So, what would you suggest, Miss Vesper?”
The way she looks up at me, I can’t help but imagine the same expression with her on her knees in front of me. My dick won’t listen, doesn’t care that I’m in a first-grade classroom, it wants her.
“Are there problems at home?”
And that kills it.
My face immediately forms into a glower at her suggestion that I’m a shit dad to my kid. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She flinches a bit; however, it’s the first time I don’t feel sorry.
I’d do anything to give Heath the best life. I might not have the money in my bank account to send him off to Harvard just yet, but if he wanted to go there after he graduates, I’ll find a way to make that happen.
“Mr. Wolfe—”
“Micah.”
Her plush lips press together before she says, “I’m trying to understand what’s causing these things so I can help. And the first place we look to is the home.”
“If there were problems, it’s none of your business,” I deadpan, holding her stare with equal fervor of my being serious.
That, not only did she have a hold on my dick, but now my kid.
And that, no lie, pisses me off. I’m not going to answer her when it comes to my home life, and maybe if we were in a different setting where she wasn’t grilling me, I wouldn’t be so defensive about it.
“If you need me to have him change classrooms—”
“No.” She rocks her head back and forth. “It’s not that. I think Heath is wonderful.”
“But here I am.”
Sienna blows an exhale out through her lips. This isn’t an easy conversation so I can only imagine how it is for her.
She’s doing her job, and I’m being a dick.
“I’m just trying to understand him more. He gets distracted, but he’s young, so I thought nothing much of it. But when the other kids talk about their family or friends, he shuts down.”
A sliver of guilt slices deep throughout my chest. I can feel the gaping cut it leaves behind. Sending a sickening drop to my stomach at the shit I never wanted to happen, but it did anyway.
When my ex, Laura, dipped out without a fucking hint that she didn’t want to do this anymore—us. I got a phone call the next morning telling me that she was signing over custody, that it wasn’t what she signed up for, and I haven’t heard from her since.
She broke my fucking heart, and I haven’t been serious with someone ever since.
“Is your wife—”
“I told you that I didn’t have a woman,” I clip because I didn’t lie about anything I said before. “That’s awfully judgmental of you, Miss Vesper.”
“I didn’t mean to imply. Can…” Sienna fidgets a bit in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with this whole scenario. “Can I ask you about his mother?”
“I’d rather you not.”
She bows her head down, and I almost feel sorry for being such an asshole, but she and I are moving way too quickly on Heath and what she already knows, and I’ve never allowed someone to get that close since Laura.
Until the woman in front of me.
Now, she’s off limits. Someone I really shouldn’t get involved in because conflict of interest and all that shit, but shit.
Of course, she’d be someone who’s linked to a part of my life that I wasn’t ready to share yet.
“Mr. Wolfe, I’m trying—”
“Micah.”
“Mr. Wolfe.” When she glances back up, she’s scowling at me, but she can do whatever she wants.
Sienna still looks absolutely stunning in that damn dress that leaves everything to the imagination and creates the desperate need to unwrap it.
I’d actually like to know if that’s legal in the school system or whatever.
Surely, there has to be some dress code or something.
“I promise you that this meeting is confidential. Unless there’s abuse in the home—”
“I’d stop there, if I were you,” I suggest through a tick in my jaw. “His mother isn’t in the picture. It’s just him and me.”
“I understand. I want to get him with a therapist.”
“No.”
“Mr. Wolfe—”
“Call me that one more time, Sienna, and I’ll come around that desk.”
Her nostrils flare, but she keeps that professional manner about her because I’m in her place of work, her career, she’s not going to waste it away on me. “Heath needs someone that isn’t me and isn’t you. Someone who will see things from the outside and teach him how to express himself properly.”
“He’s six.”
“And if we don’t help, who knows how he’ll evolve. I’m not going to ask any more about his mother, but it seems as though since she’s not around, he could be rebelling and feel some sort of emptiness around him.”
A few ticks go by, and from the way this conversation is veering, I need to think about it. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
You can drop the professional act and bend over.
“No,” I reply instead, keeping to the theme of our meeting. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes.” She pulls out a piece of paper and hands it over to me.
Before I can even take it, I notice the random color of crayons and two small figures.
“Heath adores you. It speaks a lot to how much you mean to him. Anything I ask them to draw, Heath decides to create you and him doing something different.”
The picture is of him and me playing catch, both of us with brown mitts and stick-like bodies with blobs of clothes over them.
“A real Picasso over here.”
“He loves to draw.”
“He does.”
Sienna pushes her chair back and slowly rises from the only piece of furniture in the room that separates us. “Mr. Wolfe, I understand being a single parent can be rough. Anything you need, please let me know.”
“I appreciate that.”
“There’s a, umm…bake sale next week. A lot of the parents help out, and I think Heath seeing you in a school setting would maybe help.”
Yeah, I don’t bake.
“That’s a little out of my wheelhouse, Miss Vesper.”
“It doesn’t have to be homemade. People buy baked goods all the time.”
I push off her desk and immediately feel the space between us feel taut and empty. “I’ll think about it.”
“Wonderful.”
“I’ll talk to you later, Sienna.” Then I stride out of her classroom, wondering what the fuck I’m going to do with her already being in my kid’s life.