Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ZERO
I saw Jasper’s mood shift. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was bugging him, because Simone scolded him, or something else, but he seemed to curl in on himself and when Simone came around to check on his work again, he crumpled the paper and shoved it off his desk.
That surprised me and I opened my mouth to say something, but Simone didn’t even bat an eye. She just walked away.
“Dude. What was that?” I whispered quietly enough not to disrupt the rest of the class.
“Nothing. Leave me alone,” Jasper snapped, burying his face in his arms and pulling his hood over his head.
I thought back to what the therapist had said about kids in grief. She mostly referred to Isla, but she gave me significant looks when it was about Jasper too. The random outbursts—and crying on Isla’s part—were normal for kids in grief. Something I said or did must’ve upset him.
I didn’t want to push, but the whole point of me being here was to get him to act right. I couldn’t just let him refuse to do his work.
Leaning closer so we wouldn’t be overheard, I murmured, “I get that shit is hard right now, and I don’t want to force you, but if you don’t get your shit together, you’ll end up expelled, and then we’ll be shit out of luck.
I’m doing my best to keep you and Isla together.
You gotta start pulling your weight, man. ”
He lifted his head a little, frowning at me. “What are you talking about?”
I gave him a look. “The social worker shows up at least once a week. If she hears you got expelled, what do you think will happen? She’s not going to just let that shit slide.
She’ll blame me for not keeping you in check, and if I’m not your guardian, you and Isla will get split up.
The age gap is too big to keep you two together.
You gotta meet me halfway here. You don’t have to be perfect.
Hell, if you passed with all C’s, I won’t be complaining.
I did the same thing. But if you want to stick with Isla, you need to do better. We both do.”
He studied me with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to figure out if I was just bullshitting him to get him to behave.
I wasn’t. The social worker had been understanding so far, but if Jasper got expelled, I wasn’t sure she’d keep being so nice.
I was doing everything I could to keep the kids with me.
He needed to help out if he wanted to stay with Isla.
With a heavy sigh, he nodded and sat up, pointing a finger at the paper in front of me. “What don’t you get?”
I looked down at it, then back at him. “I don’t remember any of this.”
He rolled his eyes, dragging it toward me, then started talking like some kind of math genius, saying shit about fractions and intervals I had no hope of understanding. I lifted a hand to stop him. “Hold on, wait. I always sucked at math. Teach it to me like I’m five.”
His head dropped forward and his sigh was long-suffering, which made me smirk.
I tried again. “Think of it as practice for when you’re tutoring Isla.
” He lifted his head again, frowning at me, and I raised my eyebrows back at him.
“What? You didn’t think it’d be me, did you?
I know enough math to do my job, that’s about it.
You’re the math whiz here. I’m fully relying on you to tutor her when she gets older. ”
Something flashed across his face I couldn’t quite catch before he masked it, nodding slowly. “Alright, fine. But you’re not five. Pay attention and it will make more sense.”
He spent the rest of class walking me through the assignment, talking low enough not to disturb the rest of class when Simone started going over the homework from the day before. It was still confusing as hell, but I managed to finish the paper before the class was over.
On our way out, Simone handed Jasper a fresh copy of the paper he’d crumpled without a word.
He accepted it with a scowl and walked out, leaving me to chase after him.
I’d kind of hoped to talk to Simone for a minute or two, but I did promise I would be professional while she was still Jasper’s teacher.
I didn’t trust myself to behave when I was around her.
I gave her a mock salute and jogged after Jasper, falling into step with him in the hallway. “So what’s next?”
“Gym,” he grumbled.
“Sweet. Xander said he shared that class with you. Are you two friends? He’s a nice kid.”
“Ugh, Zero. Don’t be weird,” Xander griped as his class filed into the gym ahead of Jasper’s. He must’ve overheard me, his face pulled into a grimace. “You sound like you’re setting up a playdate. Don’t make it awkward.”
“What? I was trying to help,” I complained, glancing at Jasper to see if I’d overstepped. To my surprise, he was smirking, and he rolled his eyes when he noticed me looking at him.
“He’s right. Don’t make it weird.”
“Who’s making what weird?” a new voice asked. The teacher, a big dude in a t-shirt and gym shorts, was setting up some cones on the ground and looked over his shoulder at us curiously.
“Nothing, Mr. Cornwell,” Xander replied. Jasper just grumbled and ducked past him.
When the teacher raised an eyebrow at me, I shrugged helplessly. “Jasper’s my cousin. Xander’s older brother is in my crew. I thought they’d be good friends.”
“Ah.” He nodded understandably. “Unfortunately for this age group, you can’t force it.
You’ll make it worse if you try.” He waved me closer, speaking low to not be overheard.
“I do have some ways to get them working together though, if you’re willing to play sacrifice.
Teaming them up against a common goal does wonders. ”
Sacrifice? I almost didn’t want to know.
“What did you have in mind?”
SIMONE
I couldn’t help myself from poking my head into the gym.
It was my free period and I was supposed to be grading papers, but I heard from other teachers during lunch that Elias was popular with the kids.
I wanted to know what he was doing to make a difference.
I’d seen him speak to Jasper after he’d gotten frustrated, whatever he said seemed to help.
What were the chances he could do that with Jasper in each of his classes?
“Ha! Missed me!” he crowed, then yelped and ducked as Jasper threw a ball as hard as he could at his guardian. My mouth fell open in surprise when I saw the set up. The entire class was going up against Elias in a game of dodgeball. How he managed to not be tagged out instantly was beyond me.
“Hey, Simone,” Marcus greeted when he noticed me watching.
He was leaning against the wall, a big grin on his face, not lifting a finger to help as three kids at once threw balls at Elias.
He managed to block them, holding a ball and using it as a shield while his free hand tossed whatever he could get his hands on.
“What did the poor man do to get you to put him up against a bunch of rowdy preteens?” I asked incredulously. Elias wasn’t a bad person, kind as far as I was aware. I wasn’t sure what he’d do to deserve this kind of treatment.
Marcus barked out a laugh, shaking his head.
“Nothing. He wanted to get Jasper to get along better with his peers. Kids do better with a common enemy.” He jerked his chin toward where Jasper and Xander seemed to be working together, one trying to distract Elias while the other moved out of his immediate line of sight to try and catch him off guard.
I let out a startled laugh when Elias hit the deck, physically flattening himself to avoid the balls flying his way.
“This feels extreme. Shouldn’t you help him?”
Marcus raised an eyebrow at me, gesturing toward the kids. “By all means, join his team. I’m sure a few students would be happy to get a chance to bean the toughest teacher in the school with a ball.”
I gave him a look, that wasn’t going to happen, but I still felt bad. Elias was breathing like he’d run a marathon, dodging and jumping like his life depended on it. And given the determined look in Jasper’s eyes, maybe it did.
Jasper caught a ball, and I could see the moment he came up with a plan. His eyes narrowed and he stepped back, murmuring something to Xander who had just tried and failed to hit Elias again. Xander nodded in agreement and I was surprised to see Jasper hand over the ball. What was he up to?
Elias was busy fending off a pair of girls who looked like they were working together as well to try and get the biker out of the game.
He managed to get one of them, but had to spin to avoid the second, grabbing another ball that had rolled toward him just in time to face Xander head on.
Xander lowered his stance, looking ready to move fast, but he surprised everyone when he dribbled the ball a few times, then tossed it behind him.
Jasper, who had been acting unaffected, caught it and tossed just as Elias tossed his ball at Xander.
It hit him square in the face and the whole gym cheered as he stumbled and landed on his butt.
Cackling, Marcus pushed off the wall, blowing his whistle to get the kids’ attention. “Alright. You win. That means free gym for the rest of the period. Go!”
They scattered, happy to have an excuse to play without structure for just a little while.
I watched Marcus offer Elias a hand, clapping him on the back when he pulled him to his feet.
Elias looked sweaty and tired, but his smile never faltered, and when he noticed me hovering, he came straight toward me, using the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face.
I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not, but it gave me quite the view of the tight muscles of his stomach and chest covered in tattoos.
I appreciated the view for the few seconds I had it. He obviously took care of himself.
“Hey. What are you doing here? Come to join us?”
“Not on your life,” I countered, eyeing his sweaty form. “I was curious how gym would go with you as Jasper’s shadow. Seems like a lot of effort just to get him to play with other kids.”
He shrugged, hands shoved into his pockets as he glanced over his shoulder at Jasper. “Worked, though, didn’t it?”
I followed his gaze to where Jasper was talking to Xander and another boy, Kaiden, looking a lot less combative than normal when interacting with his peers. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t pick a fight or snap at them either. It was an improvement.
“I suppose so. You’re going to be sweaty for the rest of the school day,” I pointed out.
“Eh. I’ll live.” He waved that away, spinning to lean against the wall next to the open door so he could continue to speak to me while keeping an eye on Jasper. “Hey, how often does he crumple his work like that?”
Pressing my lips together, I considered how to answer. “Jasper has yet to fully finish an assignment. He does just enough to pass and not a single ounce more.”
Elias’s face hardened and I could practically hear what he was thinking. He didn’t blame Jasper. He blamed himself for not making things better fast enough.
“It’s not your fault, you know that right? I couldn’t even imagine what Jasper is going through right now. That he even shows up and does the bare minimum is more than I think many of us expected from him after we heard what happened.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Elias agreed, though his face was still dark. “It just feels like I’m not doing enough. He’s just a kid. He shouldn’t be dealing with this shit right now.”
“Language,” I corrected, then added, “It might be that you’re too close to it to notice, but he’s improved since the day he showed up here.
Yes, he crumpled his work, but he’d normally spend the rest of class with his head down and speak to absolutely no one.
You got him to do some work helping you, and he’s a lot happier now than he would have been if you weren’t here.
” I waved over Marcus when I noticed him watching us, asking when he got close enough, “On a normal day, how interactive would Jasper be during class?”
His brows furrowed. “Bare minimum. He probably would’ve let himself get tagged out within the first minute then sat on the sidelines until class was done. It’s something of a miracle that he played with everyone else.”
I gave Elias a significant look. “See? Step back a little when assessing how he’s doing. Don’t look at it day to day. Compared to day one, he’s made a lot of progress. And with a consistent adult in his life supporting him, he’ll only continue to improve.”