by Jamie Knight
I get to Fulton Elementary School earlier than anybody and kill some time by talking to some of the school’s teachers about the afterschool program. Not a single one of them disputed the program’s usefulness but they agreed that none of them could be bothered to volunteered since they already spent the majority of their waking hours on the school campus already. Having to stay there after hours without pay would be pretty unfair, they claim. And it’s hard to dispute that. Since I’ve been doing a little bit of research on the subject matter, I’ve found that teachers are some of the most underappreciated employees in American society, right next to sanitation workers. But that’s beside the point.
The bell rings, allowing some of the schoolchildren to run out and into the arms of their parents. The teachers all disappear before I can get a chance to ask them any more questions about the school, or the afterschool program.
I really should have Scout give me some formal training when I get the chance. I have no clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Both times I’ve worked as a volunteer, I’ve had Scout to give me instructions, but now I’m stuck down shit’s creek without a paddle. The bell has run and not a single volunteer has shown up. Not even Scout.
Minute after minute, as more and more children are picked up, I run out to look down the street to see if I can spot the volunteer bus or at the very least, Scout’s car. But nothing.
The remaining batch of kids stand around their handball court in three groups. Some of them are trying to use the basketball court to play basketball. Others are copying each other’s homework so they can get it done before they get home. A few of them are playing Pokemon Go and walking hilariously in circles.
Being the only adult around to take care of the kids, I make an attempt to walk over to them that is quickly halted by what seems to be the school’s principal.
“Excuse me, sir. Whose parent or guardian are you?” he demands.
I truthfully tell him that I’m nobody’s parent, but he interrupts me before I can get into details of my business there. I’m starting to think that I should get used to being interrupted. It’s been happening more and more often as of late.
“Then you must leave before I call the police,” he tells me.
“Whoa, police. Hold your horses there, I’m here with Children of The Future. The volunteer group,” I inform him, pointing down at the logo on my shirt. “I’m here to help out with the afterschool program.”
The principal collects his thoughts but still acts as though I should have the police called on me. He sternly looks at me and asks me why I didn’t sign in at the front.
“I didn’t know I had to do that. This is my first-time flying solo,” I stammer.
Thinking that I come off as a suspicious character, the principal tells me to wait while he calls the Children of The Future headquarters to make sure that I’m not some creep lying to get some private time with children. Really, what is it with people thinking I’m a creep today.
After a few short minutes, the principal returns having learned the obvious; that I’m one of the volunteers from Children of the Future. He does leave me with some news, though, and some advice for the future.
“If you’re the only volunteer for this group of children, you have to make sure you sign in at the front desk. Otherwise someone in the faculty has to stay behind and be in charge of these kids. Next time you’re told to come alone, make sure you do that, so you don’t worry other people, eh kid?”
“Hold on. What do you mean ‘only’ volunteer? Isn’t somebody else coming?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and sighs disappointedly. “Jesus Christ, your organization needs to get a hell of a lot more, well, organized. You’re the only one coming in apparently. I was hoping it wouldn’t be news for you, too.”
So, Scout isn’t coming in at all and I’m in charge of twenty-four or so kids. Or so. I should make sure I know exactly how many children there are. First things first, I have to take down their names and make sure their parents sign off next to their names when they arrive to pick up their kids. I know that much. Mostly because I saw Scout doing that back at the other schools. Whenever a parent showed up, they would have to print and sign their name next to their child’s name.
I approach the kids to ask one of them for a piece of paper and a pen to write all of their names down on. They’re thankfully very helpful and are happy to oblige.
This group of kids seem to be particularly fond of each other or are at least amicable enough to get along for an extended period of time. I’m guessing that they must be in the same class or something. Regardless of how they know each other or why they’re so well behaved, I’m grateful that they’re the kids I’m stuck with for the afternoon.
Scout would probably correct me for saying that I’m ‘stuck’ with the kids. But the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t expecting to be looking over kids all by myself and it’s not something I want to do on a day off.
This is uncharted territory for me.
The kids help make this a lot easier on me, though. They keep to themselves for the most part and only come up to me to showoff whatever cool new Pokemon creature they’ve caught, or to ask me a quick question about being a football player, or celebrity. Most of them are nonsensical questions you’d expect from kids their age, like if I have enough money to buy a dragon, or if I could tackle Tom Brady.
Getting to work with kids is interesting to say the least. They’re still trying to figure out how the world works. They experience so many firsts and learn so much from just a couple of conversations with someone they’ve never talked to before. It’s quite the phenomenon to observe.
Sadly, I’m not able to observe this particular phenomenon for too long. Before I know it, parents start coming in, looking to pick up their children.
Since I arrived at the school, I have been distracted from the whole kissing Scout situation. But now that the kids’ parents are starting to arrive, my anxiety is coming back to me. Through my very veins, I can feel the terror of having to confront Scout again.
As soon as the last parent writes out their John Hancock on the makeshift sign out sheet, I clean up everything I can and get an Uber to speed off to the headquarters as quickly as legally possible.
Talking to Scout isn’t something I want to speed off to do considering that she might bring up the kiss from yesterday, but maybe I’ll be able to distract her with the news that I was able to handle a group of kids all by myself. She’ll be ecstatic to know that I can be trusted with these types of jobs, and even more so that I left today knowing I didn’t make a single kid cry. Those kids were big fans of mine, I’d even venture to say.
Chapter Ten
Bryan
The Children of The Future headquarters seems empty. The majority of the building’s lights are off, and most of the cars I’m used to seeing in the parking lot are gone. I enter the building, which is still unlocked, and don’t even find the smiley receptionist behind the front desk. It’s as though everyone was raptured, and I am left on Earth alone.
Using the best of my recollection, I think hard to try to remember where Scout’s office is located. Even if she isn’t there today, I can leave her a written note. I’ll jot one down real quick and slide it underneath her door.
I take a large sheet of printer paper from the outdated printer sitting on the front desk and scribble a short detailing of today’s success. I make sure to leave out the mishap at the beginning of not knowing where to or even that I was supposed to sign in, though it does make sense in hindsight.
I fold the paper in half and walk towards the room I’m pretty sure Scout has told me is her office. I knock on the door first but before sliding the note underneath the door, I hear some shuffling coming from the other side. Some shushing, and someone whispering.
“Is someone in there?” I ask.
Scout’s voice replies, “Y-yeah, Bryan. It’s just me. I’m in here.” She sounds slightly shaky. Maybe she doesn’t want to
see me.
I try to reassure her that we are all business. “I went down to the school today, like you said. It went really well. Want to talk about it? And there are some other things we should —”
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” she insists from behind the door. “Thanks for all of your help, you’re the best, Bryan.”
I press my ear up to the door and I’m able to make out the faint whispering of a male voice.
“That’s right,” I hear the stranger mutter. “Just get him to leave.”
Without hesitation, I take some steps back and kick the door to no avail. An animalistic instinct to protect Scout takes over me and has me send another kick flying at the door to Scout’s office. With the third kick, the door swings open revealing a thin man holding Scout’s wrists down against the desk.
Again, acting on pure instinct, I run at the man and tackle him with all of my might. Since he was still holding on to Scout, the three of us end up on the floor.
“Who the fucking hell are you? Get the hell off of me!” he shouts weakly.
“Who the fuck are you? And what the hell are you doing with my wife?” I shout back as I reach for his arms to try to get him to let go of Scout.
I called Scout my wife. Why did I call her my wife?
I don’t have time to think, nor correct myself fully, but I am able to give myself some slight leeway. The stranger seems to be caught off guard by my declaration, so I take this time to take “wife” and change it to “future wife”.
“I don’t want you touching a single hair on my fiancée’s head,” I sneer.
Just like when I kissed her, I for some reason, am unable to look over at Scout to see her response. My eyes are trained on the assaulter and I can’t find a reason to get off of him until he releases Scout from his grasp.
“Let go of her… Now!” I order, putting some bass into my voice.
The man shakily releases his hands from Scout’s thin wrists and holds up his hands over his head.
“Look, I… This guy is your fiancé, Scout? Why didn’t you tell me you were… engaged?” the mystery man asks Scout.
I’m finally able to crank my head to the left to get a clear look at Scout’s face and see her nodding. She seems upset by this whole ordeal but is able to back me up with my lie.
Scout gets up on her feet and softly rubs her wrists. They have red marks on them. “I shouldn’t have to get into the details of my love life to get you to back off, Grady. I told you time and time again that I wasn’t interested, and you just wouldn’t let up. But yeah, I’m engaged and he’s my fiancé. Now please, leave.”
“You heard her,” I add. I reach my arm back and form a fist.
The man scurries up from the floor as soon as I move my knee up from his crotch and I watch him slowly turn to leave Scout’s office. I get up and put myself between him and Scout.
“Congratulations, I suppose,” he mutters before I give him one good, hard shove out through the door.
With him gone, Scout and I look at each other, back and forth. She has a slight blush to her cheeks. Part of me wants to reach forward and take her hands, but that might be too much for her.
Once more, we have no idea how to move on from here.
Chapter Eleven
Scout
He saved my life.
Maybe that’s an overstatement, but Bryan definitely saved me from something. He jumped into action, leapt across the room and brought Grady down in one swift movement. It was like watching a superhero take down a villain. In fact, it was exactly that. Grady is, by the very definition of the word, a villain. And my hero took him down.
“You lied,” Bryan mumbles.
“I lied? You’re the one who lied! I was only backing up your lie,” I tell him. “Why did… Why did you say that in the first place?”
He shrugs and leans against my desk. Papers are everywhere. “That guy had you trapped, I didn’t know what he was going to do,” he explains.
“Sure, so you tackle him. That’s fine. There wasn’t any reason to say that you were my fiancé.”
“I don’t know. It made sense in my head.”
“Like kissing me yesterday?”
He doesn’t answer the question. Bryan just looks down regrettably for a moment before looking back up at me.
“Say, what was going on here anyway?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“What did I walk into? You and him only inches away from each other — him holding your arms down? What was that? Who was that guy?”
Maybe I can use this as practice for when I’ll have to explain to Anais how our main backer decided to cut our funding in less than a week. I take a deep breath and slump into my chair.
“That guy… was Grady Banks. Children of The Future’s main backer. And he was having a real hard time deciding whether or not he wanted to pull our funding. His main decider was me. He and I used to date but we never did anything more than kiss. Then he cheated on me, so I dumped him. He made the proposition that if I gave him one night of fucking, he’d have agreed to funding the organization for six more months. Now, before you say anything, I can’t go to the police with this because Grady has a shit ton of money and can afford the best lawyers. I’d lose any court case against him,” I explain.
It takes a lot out of me to dump out all of this information, but I do feel somewhat relieved to have gotten that off my chest. I run my hands through my mess up hair and fix my pony-tail.
“He was blackmailing you into fucking him?”
I nod, ashamed of having to tell Bryan this. Nearly as ashamed as I would be if he had walked in just a few minutes later than he did. I might have been guilted into actually going through with it.
My past with Grady isn’t a topic I want to get into but Bryan looks at me puzzled.
“So, he broke in and tried to get you to fuck him?” he shoots off.
“Not exactly. The director of Children of The Future was dying for me to explain this… ordeal to her. And when I couldn’t bring myself to do it, she demanded that I at least fix the situation. And I couldn’t even do that. Now, Children of The Future is… over. I mean, I’ll keep visiting schools until we have absolutely no money to draw from but that might be sooner than I want it to be,” I explain further. “Now don’t worry about Grady going around and spreading any rumors that you and I are engaged. He doesn’t follow sports so I’m pretty sure he’s totally clueless as to who you are.”
Bryan paces the room and nods as if he is listening to me, but he stops in the middle of my office and proposes that we go for dinner. I remember the promises I made to myself over and over again that I would keep my relationship with Bryan professional. But he is nothing if not persistent.
“Come on, Scout. You almost had what could have been a very traumatic experience. Don’t you think a nice juicy steak would calm your nerves a bit?”
A steak never hurt anyone I suppose. Especially a free steak from someone who saved me from Grady.
****
I was expecting to pull up next to the type of restaurant Grady loves and am surprised when we instead park in front of a very large estate.
“Holy shit… Your place I reckon?”
Despite everything that has happened, Bryan seems happy that I am so transparently impressed with his house. I don’t want him to start getting too big for his britches, especially because I didn’t exactly know what kind of trick he is trying to pull. Does he think that since he saved me from someone who was trying to fuck me, that he now gets the chance?
I may be grateful to have had him save me, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to hop on the next dick that wants to fuck me, whether or not I want it in me.
When it comes to Bryan, I still don’t know what I want. He seems like he’s got his heart in the right place, but I can’t be too sure. I sure as sugar know that rich men think they are more entitled to women’s time and bodies than your average guy, but Bryan has proven himself to be better than that.
There are a few red flags to look out for once I step out of my car and into his home. If the first thing I hear when we get settled is some smooth R&B, I know that he’s going to try to bed me tonight. That’s not what I need immediately after what could have been a legitimate assault. And if he tries to give me drink after drink, I should know I’m in the danger zone.
When we do step into Bryan’s home, the first thing Bryan does is ask me if there’s anything I need. He doesn’t try to grab me, or go for another kiss, but instead ensures that I’m comfortable the second I set foot in his place. It sets my mind at ease. When he does put on some background music, it’s not R&B but some alternative rock in a language I can’t understand. I excuse myself to run into the bathroom for some much needed time alone.
It doesn’t seem like Bryan is being sleazy about me being at his place. And because of that, I’m starting to wonder if I should take advantage of having him to myself for so long. Would it be so wrong to act on impulse for once in my life?
Part of me wants to stay inside his bathroom forever and not have to make another big decision for the rest of my life.
But the smell of food draws me out of the bathroom. The immediate aroma of meat being cooked is indescribable, yet so familiar it should be easy to put into words. It’s the smell of my parents taking me to the nearby park and grilling chicken legs. The smell of a bunch of uncles gathered around one BBQ pit to see whose carne asada comes out the best. It’s a smell I haven’t been around too much as of late.
“What’s on the menu, chef?”
Bryan chuckles. “Don’t get too excited. It’s only a sirloin steak with garlic mashed potatoes and some pan-fried asparagus.”
“Too late. I’m very excited. You better not disappoint.”
He either doesn’t seem to get that I was just joking or he’s very focused on cooking. He looks like he’s on another world.
Forty minutes pass and the food is ready for eating. Bryan sets the table quickly and places the steaming plate of food right in front of me. It looks like it came out of a magazine, it’s so perfect. And the taste fits the look. The steak is divine, as are the sides. The food is so irresistible that I don’t look up from my plate until well after I’ve licked the plate clean and stayed seated, digesting the food for some time.