by Peter Styles
Fuck. My head fell back as my entire body stiffened with pleasure. Coming into my hand wasn’t where I wanted to be or what I wanted to be doing, but taking what I really desired was a risk I wasn’t sure I could afford to take.
I grabbed a tissue and wiped up before stalking into the shower. I had to think about something else—work, Tempy, anything to get Vance Waite out of my head.
Fortunately, we were slammed during lunch service at the diner that day. All I could do was concentrate on making sure customers got their food hot and fast. It wasn’t until business slowed that I had time to think more about what Tempy had revealed regarding her fight with the Smallwell kid. It was bad enough that the little asshole was starting rumors about Tempy, but it also bothered me that his and his families’ vicious tongues could possibly hurt Vance’s career in some way.
I glanced over at Todd, diligently checking stock. “I need to take a break for a few. You good here?”
Todd glanced my way. “Yeah.”
I untied my apron and hung it on the peg behind my door. With a clap on Todd’s shoulder, I headed out to the truck. Maybe it was time to let Principal Rickson in on exactly why Tempy had popped Kirk Smallwell in the face.
I had to cool my heels in the office for a few minutes before Rickson came out to escort me into his inner sanctum.
He shut the door behind him before crossing to take a seat at his desk. “I assume this is about Temperance. What can I do for you, Mr. Worth?”
I settled back into the chair facing him. “Tempy finally admitted to me what triggered her altercation with the other student.”
Rickson raised his brows, but said nothing.
“It seems Kirk Smallwell is spreading rumors about my alleged involvement with a teacher here, saying that I actually cheated on my deceased wife. That’s bad enough, Dr. Rickson, but Tempy says Kirk also called her a lesbian, which is why she punched him. So, as you can see, there are some extenuating circumstances here.”
Rickson sat with his hands interlocked on the desk blotter as though I had just told him Worthington was hot in the summer. After pursing his lips as though he were considering what I said, he finally spoke. “While that is good information to know, Mr. Worth, I’m afraid it changes nothing. Frankly, if Tempy can’t handle her problems without resorting to violence, I believe some sort of corrective action is warranted. That’s what we’ve done. Society simply can’t function if we were all to punch people every time they said something with which we disagreed.”
Pompous ass.
Maybe she came by wanting to punch people honestly. After all, it was exactly what I wanted to do at the moment.
“I will add the information you’ve given me to her file, but I’m afraid Tempy will still have to serve her full suspension.”
“Oh, she will serve it. You can be sure of that. What I want to know is what will be done about the Smallwell kid?”
Rickson spread his hands as if he’d washed them of the whole affair. “The counselor has spoken with the other student.”
Un-fucking-believable. “That’s it? He gets a therapy session while the kid he was tormenting—or should I say bullying?—gets a suspension because she cracked under the psychological pressure?”
Rickson’s mouth tightened. “I can assure you the two things are very different. I hardly think this could be construed as bullying.”
Before I could respond that was exactly what it was, the afternoon dismissal bell rang. Rickson stood, leaving no doubt that our meeting was over as far as he was concerned. I stood, resting my hands on the desk as I stared down at him. I detested using my size to intimidate, but this jerk-ass deserved it.
“Well, let me be the first to assure you that you will hear from me again, particularly if you can’t keep the Smallwell kid muzzled. Slander is such an ugly word.”
I left him gasping like a fish as I shouldered my way out the door, jaw tight. I stepped into the school lobby and nearly bulldozed over Vance, who was hurrying toward the office, his backpack slung over one shoulder. I grabbed his arms to prevent him from falling backward. The moment my fingers made contact with his sinewy biceps, the warmth of him traveled through the cloth of his shirt and along my nerve endings like a tingle of electrical current.
“Wyatt? What are you doing here?” His voice was a little shaky with surprise.
“I just came out of the principal’s office.” I tilted my head. “I’m guessing that’s where you were headed?”
His gaze shifted to the office, and he stepped back, away from my grasp. “I was.”
His expression was once again professional and composed. I missed the light and warmth his surprise had momentarily revealed. “Were you going to talk to him about Tempy?”
“Yes…and about Kirk.”
I shook my head. “Waste of time. Your principal is a dickless asshole who couldn’t see a bullying issue if it punched him in the nose.”
Vance bit his lip, fighting to tamp down the flash of humor in his expression. “He’s not known for his powers of observation.”
I grunted. “Well, if I have to see him again, he might be observing my knuckles flying at his face.”
“Definitely not a good idea. Maybe we should get out of here?”
I arched a brow. “We?”
A blush stained his cheeks. I felt the same heat…just in a different part of my anatomy. Maybe leaving was a good idea. I forced my attention back to what Vance was saying.
“Well, if I’m not going to talk to Rickson, I was going to get out of here anyway,” he said. “So…I didn’t exactly mean together together…but like, in the same direction.”
He was still flushed and shifting on his feet as if he was nervous. I cleared my throat and turned to walk with him. “So you were going to bat for my kid again?”
“Yeah, I guess… I just don’t think the whole situation was handled fairly.” He shrugged a shoulder and glanced up at me quickly. “I’d do it for any student, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “You must have a lot of experience with girls this age, right?”
Vance gave a short, rueful laugh. “I guess. I’ve taught at both middle and high school for several years now. But I don’t think there’s such a thing as an expert.”
Sweat broke out on the back of my neck and my heart raced. While my brain was still trying to grapple with where I was going, the words were already coming out of my mouth. “Why don’t we go get a drink? I need some advice, if you don’t mind coming to my rescue.”
Vance’s blue gaze locked with mine when he froze. An eternity passed before he murmured, “Sure. I’d like that.”
“Good. Follow me. I know a place where we can be private.” I didn’t mean that the way it sounded…hell, maybe I did. I wasn’t sure. At the moment, though, I couldn’t deal with the upsurge of hope in Vance’s expression. “Let’s go.”
9
Vance
It’s not a date. I repeated that in my head maybe a thousand times between the school lobby and my car. For my own sanity, I needed to remember going for this drink with Wyatt was not personal. Wyatt needed a friendly ear, maybe a little advice. Maybe he figured, as one of Tempy’s teachers, that I might have some insight. Truth was, I didn’t have much insight into Tempy, since I had only had her in class for a day before her suspension, but I had dealt with preteens and teenagers for my entire teaching career.
I really needed to believe that was all this was. Wyatt walked away from me twelve years ago without looking back. This offer of a drink wasn’t a reopening of that door, even if my heart longed for exactly that. I had to keep it professional. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself…or Wyatt.
It took us a few minutes to get out of the school parking lot. I tried not to make it obvious that I was following him. As paranoid as Wyatt had always been about going public with our past relationship, I was surprised he would risk going anywhere in Worthington to have a drink with me.
No big surprise, then
, that I was soon following him to a part of town that could euphemistically be referred to as “the wrong side of the tracks.” He pulled his big truck into the graveled parking lot of a bar that had seen better days. Actually, it might never have claimed any better days. Seedy might have been the best it had ever been.
I couldn’t help the stab of disappointment, but I forced it away. This was definitely not a date. I guess it just frustrated me that he felt he couldn’t even meet me publicly as the parent of one of my students. He waited by the front door, casually tossing his keys up and down in his right hand, but surprised me by opening the door and letting me precede him inside the dim interior.
A trio of guys huddled at the bar, nursing bottles of beer that looked anything but cold. Over on one side, two guys were shooting pool, though the game looked far from intense. A faint haze of cigarette smoke hung over the table. Wow, Wyatt had certainly picked a spot where we were unlikely to run into anyone we knew. Ouch.
“Grab that booth in the corner,” he said. “I’ll get us a couple beers. Place like this, whatever they have bottled is probably the smartest…and safest…choice.”
Oh, yeah, because no way would I trust the dishwasher in this place. I took the seat facing his direction. While he waited for the beer, I took another chance to study him. I had already noticed the faintest streaks of gray at his temples. Not easy to see with his short hair. Those, along with a few more creases at the corners of his eyes, were the only signs he was at all changed from the man I’d fallen for nearly half my life ago. Overpowering, overwhelming, and beneath it all more caring than he wanted people to realize. He would sacrifice his own happiness for other people. In fact, he had. I had been collateral damage.
“Here you go.” Wyatt slid the bottle toward me before taking the seat across the narrow table. No pretense here they were making room for food. This table had only enough space for drinks. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he downed the first glug of beer.
I watched the movement as though mesmerized, my mind going off in all sorts of unbidden directions. I took a hasty sip of my own beer, hoping the yeasty coldness of it would dull some of my other overheated senses.
“Thanks for agreeing to lend an ear.” Wyatt’s gaze was steady and solemn.
“No problem, Wyatt. You know that.”
He quirked a brow as if to say I was full of it. Maybe I was after the way he’d vanished from my life. A lot of people would have said I had every right not to want to see, much less speak to, him ever again. Not me. I wanted whatever connection with him that I could possibly have.
“You know, I’ve done my best to be a good dad,” he said, drumming a finger on the neck of his beer bottle, “but I’m stuck, man. I just can’t seem to find a path forward from where Tempy and I are right now that doesn’t involve her turning into some alien creature I don’t understand.”
“I can’t speak to the parenting part.” I had to look down at the table for a second. Maybe I might have, but dwelling on the past was getting me nowhere. “I do have experience as a teacher. Sometimes kids Tempy’s age and older will open up more to a teacher than a parent. Fair? Maybe not, but not uncommon.”
Wyatt grunted softly. “I just feel like she goes out of her way to shut me out.”
I shrugged. “Also not uncommon. Middle school students, especially once they hit seventh grade, are all about their peers… their tribe. That’s what they’re trying to find.”
“What the hell am I if not her tribe?” Wyatt’s head had gone back as if I’d punched him. “I’ve been with her all her life, always willing to listen to her.”
I tried to soften what I was about to say with a smile. “You’re her dad. You always will be, but middle and high school students are at that Lord of the Flies age.”
I was glad to see Wyatt’s lips twitch. “You mean where everyone falls into utter anarchy, embraces their inner savage, and kills whoever doesn’t fit in?”
I sipped my beer and clunked it down on the table. “That would about sum it up. Our job in the teaching profession at this stage is to ensure they don’t throw anyone off the roof, and they all make it out alive.”
Wyatt sat back. “I can’t tell you how utterly reassuring that is, Vance. So glad I sought your advice.”
“Hey… you’re the one who mentioned anarchy and savages.”
He blew out a harsh breath. “I just want my little girl back. I want the kid who would sit on my lap, ask me to read her stories, and actually wanted me around.”
I nodded, not wanting to tell him those days were probably not coming back.
“You know, when she was ten, she told me everything that happened at school.” He swigged his beer and sighed. “Good, bad, ugly, boring or not. We talked all the time. What did I do wrong?”
I leaned in. “Not a damn thing, Wyatt. She’s just growing up. Give it a few years. She’ll come around again. Your job now is to just be available. You’re the safety net under the high-wire act. As painful and scary as it is, you have to let her walk it.”
Wyatt stared down into his bottle before lifting a sad, silvery gaze to meet mine. “I know all that, and this is gonna sound weird… selfish… but who’s gonna be there for me?”
My heart cracked wide open. Any defenses I thought I might have built to protect me from Wyatt’s effect on me collapsed like a house of cards. I started to reach out, but stopped. Suppressing any PDA was second nature with Wyatt. I took a deep breath.
“Wyatt… I know it’s probably not the right time. There’s a lot of history and years between us, but if you’re worried about that I just want you to know I’ll be here. If you want—if you need that. I’m here.”
Wyatt just sat there, not moving. I was such an idiot. What the hell was I thinking? Just as I started to toy with the idea of how I could best make my escape, he slid his hand across the table and touched my fingers. Holy hell, it was electric. The tingling flooded me—made me tremble, made me hard. I never expected him to touch me in public. So what if it was just the tips of my fingers? It was a gesture so monumentally out of the norm for him, I nearly leapt onto the table to dance with joy.
Wyatt’s Adam’s apple bobbed again. “Vance.” His voice was taut, dimming some of my euphoria, so I steeled myself for another rejection. God, what a rollercoaster. “How can you still say that? After all these years…”
He trailed off, but his glance stayed glued with mine. Not a rejection. I was nearly giddy. I was ready to burst. It was time to take the risk, to put myself out there no matter the consequences.
“Oh, Wyatt,” I murmured. “Maybe this makes me an idiot, but the way I feel about you…it’s never changed.”
Wyatt sucked in a breath. “I need to get out of here.”
Pain. Twelve years hadn’t dimmed that either. I stiffened my spine. It was too much to expect that Wyatt could shake off his inhibitions and fears. “It’s okay. I understand.”
I started to ease my hand away from his, but Wyatt took a firmer hold, twining his fingers with mine.
“No, Vance. I didn’t mean I wanted to get away from you.” His gaze was dark with a passion I thought I would never see again. As my pulse pounded in my throat, Wyatt continued, “I want us to get out of here…together.”
There was no mistaking what I saw in his expression. He wanted me. Twelve years of being alone could end at this very moment. All I had to do was say yes. I closed my eyes, remembering what it had felt like to have him push deep inside me, feel him surround me and cradle me. As big as he was, he had always been so careful, as if I were a treasure he couldn’t believe was his.
I squeezed his hand and stared deeply into his shadowed gaze.
“Let’s go, Wyatt…wherever you want.”
We left the bar, drawing no more notice with our departure than we had with our arrival. As we walked toward our vehicles, Wyatt rested his hand at the small of my back. Twelve years melted into nothing with just a touch.
10
Wyatt
; Did I dare tell Vance that he was the last person I had been with…or would that reveal too much? I pushed the thought away as I followed him back to his place. We had both agreed it would be best, and it touched me that he was taking the long way around Worthington to get there. It also shamed me. Had my own doubts and paranoia infected the honest, open young man I remembered?
Hurting him, changing him, had never been my intention. However, I had been so focused on doing what I thought was right for Tempy, I had pushed away every other concern…about Vance, and certainly about my own needs and desires. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the small complex where he lived, I shot off a text to Ethan to let him know that I had to work late.
“No problem,” he texted back. “Dinner cooking. Tempy hanging with Cara.”
I pushed away the niggling thought that I was the one now hiding things from my daughter. I was almost fifty, dammit. I didn’t need to answer to anyone. I opened the door of the truck and glanced over to find Vance waiting for me outside the door to his place. He still looked so young, but the happy optimism that had floated like an aura around him when he was nineteen now had a tinge of wariness mixed in.
I had done that.
Now it was time to fix it.
As I approached, Vance unlocked the door, the faint trembling of his hand giving away his nervousness.
“Come on in, Wyatt,” he offered as he stepped through the open doorway. “Would you…um…would you like a drink? I think I have some beer. Maybe some wine.”
“I’m good.” Vance’s place was a reflection of him—casual and comfortable. Books and magazines held as prominent a spot as the game system hooked to his flat-screen. “Nice place.”
Vance shed his backpack, fidgeting a bit in the space between the living room and the small, galley kitchen. “Thanks. I… I could make you something if you’re hungry…”