Maybe Swearing Will Help

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I grimaced and kept walking, nodding my head at the man in the third truck. And the fourth.

  It was at this point that only the stray person was trickling in, and all of them were going to Lane A.

  I crossed along the crosswalk and headed up to the teachers that were steadily getting kids in the cars at lane A.

  “What,” I said to them as they came back for more kids, “exactly is the point of Lane B?”

  The two closest to me froze.

  “Umm,” one replied intelligently.

  “We’ve been sitting over there for going on” —I looked at my watch— “twelve and a half minutes now, and not one of our kids have been brought to our cars. And, saying that, every single car that came in behind me has gotten their kids.”

  The teacher could only point behind her. “If you want to…”

  I did.

  So I pushed past her and made my way into the front doors of the school, hearing my kid before I even saw him.

  The thing was, I knew that my kid was wild.

  It was just going to happen seeing as how bad Ashe and I had been as kids.

  This was our payback. Our coming to Jesus.

  This was what we got for being so bad to our parents—or so my parents liked to say.

  ‘I hope one day you have a kid that’s twice as bad as you.’

  And that’d been said no less than a hundred times as we were growing up.

  And little Chevy was definitely that.

  When I got inside, there was a teacher with her back to me talking to someone just inside the door.

  “…We’re going to take him over there once they all get through,” the teacher replied. “Teaches them for giving us these heathen kids.”

  Just then, my son who was leaning against the wall right next to the two teachers talking, saw me and screamed.

  “Daddy!” he cried.

  I picked my son up and hefted him up onto one hip.

  My little six-year-old was getting fucking huge, and he definitely wasn’t as easy to pick up anymore.

  The two women that were talking in low tones turned just as I picked him up, both of them looking at me with horror on their faces.

  “I’m sorry, but did I just hear you saying you weren’t bringing our kids out until the entire school had been emptied of children? Because of their behavior?” I asked quietly.

  Too quietly.

  Ashe would call this my ‘not happy’ voice.

  Because when I got pissed or mad or sad, I tended to get quieter and not louder.

  It was just something I’d always done.

  And these teachers had no clue what kind of hornets’ nest they’d just opened.

  “Ummm,” the first teacher said, the one that’d just opened her fat mouth. “I’ll—”

  “You’ll take these kids to their parents who are out there waiting for them just like I was…” I paused. “Now for fifteen minutes.”

  The woman gathered the kids up by their hands and hurried around me, narrowing her eyes as she did.

  I didn’t miss the implications.

  Nor did I miss the anger that she tried to hide.

  “Is your principal gone for the day?” I asked.

  The woman nodded woodenly.

  I hefted Chevy up just a little bit higher. “Guess I’ll talk to her tomorrow then.”

  The woman swallowed hard.

  “I realize that Chevy is a bit much at times,” I said. “But yesterday I walked in on him holding his baby brother as he gave him kisses to calm him down while his mommy took a shower.”

  Both women didn’t reply.

  “Chevy helps shelter cats that neither my wife nor I can touch,” I continued. “He may be loud. He may be rambunctious. He may be a little more in your face than all the other kids. But that’s just because he has such a big heart. He always wants to be at your side. And excuse the fuck out of him if you don’t like it when he gives you a hug in the middle of class. I’m sorry, but I fucking do.”

  “Language, Daddy!”

  I nuzzled Chevy’s head and turned on my heels and walked out, not once looking back.

  And when I got to the police station to find Ashe in her office and Luke leaning against her desk as they spoke about a case, I still hadn’t calmed down.

  Luke grinned and reached for Chevy, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.

  “Uncle Wuke!”

  Ashe’s eyes zeroed in on me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

  I relayed the entire story.

  “Downy’s daughter works at the school,” Luke said. “Talk to her. She’ll know who you need to talk to and what you need to say.”

  “Oh, I know exactly who I need to talk to,” Ashe growled as she stood up.

  She looked pissed as hell, like a warrior queen about to go into battle.

  Before she could so much as make it out the door, Hayes was there, startling her back into the room.

  “I have a lead on new case!” Hayes shook the pages at my wife. “Oh, and congratulations for graduating.”

  Ashe frowned. “Hayes, I graduated six years ago.”

  She pointed at the diploma that hung on the wall behind her desk.

  “I know.” He shook his head. “I was talking about the re-entry test to come back to work. I’ve heard a lot of people praising you today. So congrats. You were missed.”

  “You’re such an asshole.” Ashe punched Hayes in the chest. “Go away.”

  Hayes grinned.

  Ashe wasn’t well-liked still.

  In fact, more often than not everyone disliked her because she really did get to choose her own hours and do what she wanted.

  But that was also in her contract as a criminal psychologist.

  She didn’t much fit into the hierarchy here at KPD, and only those of the detective division well and truly liked her—besides the SWAT team that was.

  “I heard your husband got all up in a certain instructor’s face after your physical test yesterday,” Hayes said.

  Ashe’s eyes met mine. “Oh really?”

  “Yeah.” Hayes grinned. “I’m fairly sure that blows were exchanged.”

  Ashe gasped.

  “Daddy, you shouldn’t hit people. That’s not nice. Mommy says so,” Chevy chided me.

  I looked my kid dead in the eye and said, “As long as it’s defending Mommy, it’s always okay.”

  Author’s Note:

  I know that you probably have a few unanswered questions.

  They will be answered in the upcoming books. I’m just setting up a few things to happen later on! <3 Thank you all for reading, and I hope that you loved Ford and Ashe’s story!

  What’s Next?

  Chute Yeah

  Book 3 in The Valentine Boys Series

  3-24-20

  Chapter 1

  Have you ever put two and two together and come up with fifteen reasons to smack a motherfucker?

  -Banks to Callum

  Banks

  Fifteen years ago

  “Come on, let’s do it,” I said as I humped the massive thing into the hallway of the school.

  It was eerie being here after hours.

  Honestly, if I hadn’t been so pissed off at my big brother, I probably wouldn’t be doing this right now.

  But Ace had said that I wasn’t allowed to pull off a senior prank since I wasn’t a senior, and shit had gone downhill from there.

  Which was how it led me to now, standing in the middle of the senior hallway at school, with a three-foot-tall, two foot in diameter, massive dildo. It was even skin-colored, paired with quite a few veins, as well as the biggest pair of balls that I’d ever seen.

  “You got the lube?” I asked Callum.

  He rolled his eyes and produced about four bottles from his pants pocket.

  “Excellent,” I said, unearthing the massive dong from my box. “Spencer, you got the
glue?”

  Spencer held up the glue. It was super, super glue. Or so I was told. I asked the guy at the hardware store what would be the best thing to stick silicone to tiles, and he’d pointed me in the direction of that particular type of glue.

  So, it was my hope that the glue wouldn’t be coming off very easily. They’d have to chop the dick apart before they could unglue it. Or so I hoped.

  I didn’t want to make it easy for them.

  What would be the fun in that?

  “Let’s do this.” I turned the dildo up and gestured to the rather large suction cup at the bottom.

  “Do you think that someone would actually use this for what it’s intended for?” Callum asked.

  I looked at my younger brother and shrugged. “Who knows?” I said. “I’m sure there has to be a need for it. According to Amazon, it’s the number one best-selling dildo in ‘big dildos collections.’”

  Spencer snorted and twisted the lid off the tube of glue, then squirted the entire thing onto it, using the tube itself to spread it in.

  Once done, he tossed the glue into the trash can at the end of the hall and came back.

  I looked for the best place to put it.

  “Right there.” Callum pointed. “In the middle of the hallway. Right in the middle of the ‘G’.”

  I walked to where he pointed and agreed. It was the perfect spot.

  The first thing anybody would see as they entered the senior hallway was the dildo on the floor.

  Five minutes later it was stuck to the floor and Callum and I were lubing it up.

  “This is gonna be hilarious,” I declared once we were done. “Let’s go wash our hands and go.”

  Or we would have had the bathroom doors not been locked.

  “Well shit,” I said as I looked at my hands, then at the pole we would have to climb to get out of the school. “This is going to be fun.”

  ***

  The next day at school was nerve wracking. After thirty minutes of stacking shit to help us get out, we’d made it home just in time to help with chores and turn around and go back to school. Luckily, I was able to grab a shower first.

  I was fairly sure I had lube in places there shouldn’t be lube.

  The first thing I saw as I got to the school was the crowd.

  They hadn’t even made it inside yet seeing as the seniors had managed to pull off their prank yesterday, too.

  They’d put a cow—a live one at that—on top of the gym. Fortunately, they’d corralled the beast, because I could see the animal walking straight off the side of the building.

  “The bell has rung!” Principal Matthews called out. “Get inside!”

  My brother rolled his eyes at his fellow seniors’ prank.

  “Amateurs.” He snorted as he elbowed me. “What’d you do last night that had you out so late?”

  The tardy bell rang and everybody started to run. It seemed like the entire school was outside staring at the cow, even the teachers.

  That was why everyone was in school and in their classes by the time Principal Matthews came over the loudspeaker and announced the school was in lockdown.

  “And to whoever decided to glue the massive dil… eeeeep, sex toy—whatever—to the tile in the middle of the senior hallway, we will find you,” Principle Matthews declared.

  Callum and I exchanged looks, but neither one of us were worried.

  In fact, there was no way in hell they’d know it was us.

  ***

  Okay, so they somehow found out it was us.

  Well, they’d narrowed it down to about ten students, three of which had actually done it.

  How they’d narrowed it down, I didn’t know. But they did, leaving us all sitting in the middle of the senior hallway as Principal Matthews stared at us with annoyance written all over his face.

  “Who did this?” Matthews asked for the fourth time.

  Nobody answered.

  “If you do not answer, I’ll be forced to call your parents and make sure they realize that you were involved in a prank that’s going to cost us about five hundred dollars to fix.”

  Behind Matthews, two custodians tried in vain to get the dildo off the tile. At first they’d likely just tried to grab it. Now they had a massive crowbar through the middle of the cock, making it appear to have a piercing, as they tugged on it in vain.

  One custodian, the dick that liked to report when kids were sneaking around in the hallways when they should be in class, slipped and fell on his ass.

  I didn’t laugh, but it was a close thing.

  Served the fucker right. He was the reason Spencer, Callum, and I had a chance to come up with this prank in the first place.

  “Shit,” Lorvall muttered as he picked himself off the ground. “Stupid fucking kids.”

  Matthews cleared his throat in reproach.

  “Sorry,” Lorvall muttered again. “Not coming up. We’re going to have to break the tile.”

  Matthews growled.

  “I’m about three seconds away from calling parents,” Matthews declared.

  That was when I saw Candy, who’d been in detention with us as we’d come up with this master plan, shift and open her mouth.

  I couldn’t help what I did next. I threw her ass straight under the bus.

  I didn’t feel bad about it either. Not until much, much later.

  “That wasn’t me,” I said, shrugging. “It was her.”

  I pointed at Candy Ray Sunshine.

  In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done it.

  I’d, of course, considered what was going to happen the moment that I said it. My friends would all back me up, and the blame would go from me to Candy.

  Candy, the goth girl in class that did her best to become part of the wall, gasped in outrage. “I most certainly did not!”

  “She totally did,” my best friend, Spencer Morris, said.

  “She did. I saw her.”

  What else is next?

  Ask Me if I Care

  Book 4 in the SWAT Generation 2.0 Series

  4-14-20

  Prologue

  I have seen things. Awful things. Empty coffee cup things.

  -Coffee Cup

  Ares

  Six months ago

  “Are you sure you want to go out looking like that?”

  My dad’s words had me stopping short.

  I looked down at myself, then up at him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, worried now.

  “There’s nothing wrong.” My mother slapped my father across the chest. “Downy, be nice to her. You know how sensitive she is.”

  My father rubbed at his chest as if my mother’s slap had actually harmed him instead of just startled him.

  “This is a police function,” my father started. “There’s going to be quite a few people there. People that I work with on a daily basis. I don’t want them all looking at my daughter half clothed.”

  I rolled my eyes then.

  “Dad, I’m dressed. I’m going with you. Oh, and you’re welcome.” I poked him in the chest with one manicured finger. “I even got my nails done for you!”

  My dad grimaced and looked at his watch.

  “There’s still time for you to get dressed, Memphis,” Dad said to my mom.

  My mother, who was on the couch in sweatpants, shook her head.

  “If I go, I might very well throw up all over everyone.” She paused. “Unless that’s what you’re trying to accomplish?”

  My father grimaced.

  This morning, my mother had called me to ask me if I’d be willing to go to a police banquet with my father. One that she usually attended with him every year.

  Only, she couldn’t attend thanks to what she assumed was the flu taking her down.

  Honestly, I should’ve just said no.

  I’d had a long ass day at work as a guidance counselor at Kilgore High School. I’d had to break up a fight t
hat had left me sore as hell and stiff in places people shouldn’t be stiff. Oh, and to put the cherry on top, my ex-boyfriend had called and asked if we could meet up for dinner.

  Thankfully, my mother had already called at that point and asked if I’d be willing to go with my dad, otherwise I would’ve had to tell Ryan yes. Because sadly, I could never lie well when it came to Ryan McMillan. The pitcher for the Devil Rays, and the man that broke my heart the moment he got drafted.

  I honestly wasn’t sure why I said yes every time he came into town.

  I really should be saying no.

  I should be strong and ignore the call. Block him. Anything but tell him yes, I was free.

  But Ryan was my high school sweetheart. The first man I loved. The man that took my virginity. The man that I still found quite attractive even after all of his escapades.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  I looked up to see my father staring down at me.

  “No.” I didn’t see the point in lying. “What?”

  Sadly, I always told the truth.

  Even when it hurt.

  I was blunt and to the point, and honestly it was a good trait to have even if some people didn’t seem to think so.

  “I asked if you were ready to go,” Dad repeated.

  I nodded my head and held up one finger. “Let me go pee real quick. That way mom can make sure I still look good when I’m done.”

  Dad frowned and made a ‘hurry up’ gesture with his finger, causing me to grin and take off at a sprint down the hallway.

  Once done, I looked at myself in the mirror, checking out my makeup.

  I’d gotten it done professionally. My hairdresser had a woman at her salon that did makeup, and since she was free, I all but begged her to do it.

  Usually, I was one of those people that tried to go makeup free.

  I honestly couldn’t stand the way the gunk felt on my face.

  The most adventurous that I got was putting eye shadow and mascara on when I went to work. And, upon occasion, I covered a pimple with foundation.

  So looking at myself with smoky eyes and painted lips made me feel like I was looking at a stranger in the mirror.

  My light blue eyes seemed to almost pop thanks to the black eyeliner she’d used to rim my eyes. My lips looked plumper as well, reminding me of the ten minutes that it’d taken the makeup chick to make them perfect.