Chapter four #2
“Don’t disrespect your mother, your grandma, or me.”
Rubbing the spot where she flicked him, he grimaces. “Sorry. It’s just not home.”
“But it will be.” I step up to him. “You’ll see, Chase.
Carrington Cove is a great place to live.
” I keep telling myself that too, hoping it will click because for the past four weeks, all I’ve felt is nausea about the move.
But now that we’re here, I’m excited to show my son that living in a small town has its perks.
I’ve barely been home since leaving for college. Most of the time my mom and Gigi would venture down to Georgia to see Chase and me, partly because I couldn’t get Andrew to stop working long enough to make the trek ourselves.
Well, at least I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Turning and walking toward the hall, Chase says over his shoulder, “I’m going to check out the rooms.”
The three of us watch him walk away before I turn back to my mom and grandma. “It’s going to get better, right?”
They nod in unison. “It will,” my mother says. “Once he starts school and baseball, he’ll adjust.”
“I hope so.”
“Speaking of school, when do you report?”
“Monday. I gave myself the weekend to get settled in, and then Alaina said she needed me as soon as possible.”
“I knew we’d get her back home somehow,” my mother says to my grandma, bumping shoulders with her.
“Yeah, more money and a handsome man.” Gigi bounces her eyebrows. “Speaking of the cover model that came by here looking for you a few months ago, what do you plan on doing about him?”
“Cover model?” I ask, even though I’m fairly certain I know who she’s referring to.
“Oh yeah.” Gigi smirks. “That man belongs on the cover of those smutty books your mother and I read.”
“Mom!” my mother admonishes.
“What? You act like he wouldn’t sell thousands of books with that face and those muscles.” Gigi glances back at me. “And I’m going to guess he’s packing too.” She bounces her eyebrows and then holds her hands nearly a foot apart from one another. “Just tell me. Am I close? Bigger or smaller?”
Groaning, I stare up at the ceiling. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”
***
“And this will be your office.” Alaina Bell, the principal of Carrington Cove Elementary, gestures for me to enter the office, where sunlight pours in through the open blinds.
The box of décor I brought with me makes my arms ache, so I move toward the desk to set it down before gazing out the window, admiring the view of the campus.
The office is spacious, with a large mahogany desk sitting under the window.
There are a few matching shelves on the wall to my left, along with two chairs with navy cushions for visiting parents and students.
The walls are bare, but that’s an easy fix.
Most importantly, it’s the fresh start I needed, and I’m grateful for it.
Turning to her, I say, “It’s perfect.”
“I’m glad you think so.” She lets out a deep breath. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you took this job, Scottie.”
“Part of me still can’t believe that I did, but it was the push I needed to leave Georgia.”
“I’m glad it worked out then. Finding a new administrator in the middle of the school year is tough, but our last assistant principal just wasn’t a good fit. I got a lot of complaints from staff and parents.”
“It happens, but I promise I’ll do whatever I can to keep fostering the culture and atmosphere that you’ve built here.”
“Our teachers need someone they can count on to support them. Discipline is harder than ever these days. These kids are dealing with issues at home and have access to information that is beyond anything you and I dealt with as kids.”
As a former teacher, I know what it is like to be in the classroom and the decision fatigue you battle every day.
Teachers are the backbone of the schools, and my job now as an administrator is to help them make their lives easier any way I can.
Getting my administration credential was a decision I didn’t make lightly, but once my divorce was final, I needed a way to financially support Chase and me on my own.
I didn’t want to rely on Andrew for anything, especially since he’s already shown that he’s a lost cause in that respect.
“Believe me, I know. I saw some cases down in Georgia that would shock you.”
“Your experience is exactly what we need, and I’m really excited to work with you.”
“Same here,” I reply, feeling genuinely excited for the first time in a long time.
Alaina is a few years older than me, but I remember her from our high school days.
She was always friendly and one of those girls who could hang out with any group.
She wasn’t popular, but she was well-known.
For the past five years, she’s been the head principal of Carrington Cove Elementary, and now she’s essentially my new boss.
“Okay, well I’ll let you get settled before the teachers start arriving. I’ll introduce you officially at the staff meeting this Wednesday, but I’m sending out an email to the staff shortly.”
“Sounds great.”
Alaina leaves my office and I turn back to the box that holds my degrees and credentials, pieces of paper that I may never have earned if I hadn’t had Chase.
As if he knew I was thinking about him, my phone chimes in my purse with the sound of a text message.
When I see my son’s name on the screen, I can’t help but brace myself for what he’s going to say.
Chase: This school is so small, but my science teacher is cool.
Smiling, I type out a response.
Me: It is small, but that means you’ll become close with your classmates.
Chase: I already met a few of the guys on the baseball team.
Me: I’m excited for you, honey.
Chase: Gotta go, Mom. Next class is about to start.
Me: Love you. Have a good day.
Chase: Love you too.
I hold my phone to my chest and breathe out a sigh of relief. Everything is going to be okay, especially if I can avoid seeing Grady until Chase graduates from high school.
The second his face pops into my head, I groan, tossing my phone back into my purse and trying to focus on arranging things in my new office. But, like every other time I’ve thought of Grady these past weeks, our night together plays back through my mind like a montage of black and white snapshots.
Me seeing him in the bar.
Me flirting with him, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
But God, he looked so rugged, so manly, so much hotter than he did as a teenager—even though he was attractive back then as well.
Me wondering what his lips tasted like as I watched him sip from his whiskey.
His eyes staring up at me while his head was between my legs.
The way his face tightened as he sank into me.
The sounds he made as he came, and the sounds he drew from me each time he gave me an orgasm, each one stronger than the last one.
It was just supposed to be one night—a few hours to give in to my curiosity, let myself live a little and be with someone who I knew was safe.
Grady was always a safe place for me.
Then why didn’t you say goodbye to him before you left, Scottie? Why leave him like that?
“Ugh,” I groan out loud, fighting with myself for the umpteenth time.
It’s not that I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t bring myself to say those words to him before—not when I found out I was pregnant and changed my number at Andrew’s request, and I sure as hell couldn’t say them that night.
Fifteen years ago was one of the hardest times of my life.
Reporters were calling me non-stop, wondering why I wasn’t playing in the upcoming season as planned.
I was on track to make the national team, but I couldn’t tell them—not until it was too late to hide the reason. And by then, I was old news.
I was also in a relationship with a man whose child I was carrying, desperately trying to convince myself that marrying him and building a family was the right thing to do—that we owed it to Chase. Even if it meant I would be tied to him for the rest of my life.
I should have listened to my gut. Andrew turned out to be one of my greatest mistakes, and severing my friendship with Grady was another.
Pushing Grady away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
Watching him succeed, seeing him achieve his dreams just reminded me that I wouldn’t be chasing my own.
And seeing him again only solidified what I already knew—he is the type of man you keep forever, the type who deserves everything he could ever dream of.
And here I am, a mess—a single mom with an ex I wish would jump off a cliff, and a son who needs me now more than ever.
So I let myself be selfish for just that one night, to take what I wanted, what I needed, and live in a fantasy of what it would be like to be with Grady Reynolds.
But that’s all I got. That’s all I deserved. That’s all I would allow myself to have.
So I left without telling him and headed back to my life, the one I had chosen all those years ago.
My mom told me he stopped by her house looking for me just like I knew he would. That’s why I left before Christmas, days before I planned to—because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the look in his eyes when I told him that he and I were just a one-night thing.
But that was before I got the call from my mom about the job offer and the house.
“It would be good for Chase,” she said, and as a mother herself, I knew her heart was in the right place.
So I sat down and made a list of pros and cons. And ultimately, I knew this move was what my son needed. If I had it my way, I would have stayed far away from Grady and his magic dick.
The boy I once knew grew into a man who still made heads turn everywhere he went. Now I know it’s only a matter of time before we cross paths and have the inevitable awkward conversation about why I’m here.
But I’m not going to worry about that until it happens. I can’t. I have too many other things to focus on right now, like getting my office together.
So that’s what I do, ignoring the calls from Andrew that I know will eventually come and organizing the contents of my desk and hanging my degrees up on the wall.
Once I’m done, I sit back and take a deep breath, reminding myself that everything is going to work out for the best. Until another wave of nausea hits me, just like it did on the road a few days ago, and I throw up my breakfast in the trashcan under my desk.