“We all are,” Hayden said, grinning. “But Mav is a protective cat. He’s not sharing any goods.”
I was spared from the torture of this conversation when my phone rang in my pocket. I frowned when I fished it out and saw “Searing Elementary” flash across the screen.
“What the hell?” I muttered before lifting it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mr. Cantone?”
“Speaking.”
The principal, Jim Vickers, cleared his throat. “Hi, Mr. Cantone. Sorry to bother you. Do you have a moment?”
I turned my back to the guys, who were now hazing each other. Well, not each other. They were hazing Maddox. Poor kid. “Yes. Is something wrong? Did something happen? Is Olivette okay?”
“Yes. Absolutely fine. Nothing to worry about. I just need you to come to the school sometime this week to sign some paperwork. I have a request here to move Olivette Cantone out of Ms. Branson’s kindergarten class. What time works for you?”
I could hear my own heart beating in my ears. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
32
Allie
“Brady,” I called across my classroom, “no running in the classroom, okay? You can run outside all you want but not in here.”
Brady stopped in his tracks.
“Thank you.” I smiled.
He went back to playing with Olivette, who was waiting for him at her desk.
We were in the middle of printing lessons where the children were practicing their spelling as well as their writing. At this age, none of them were very good at either, but it was a good time to start.
In my opinion, the sooner the better. Some of my students hadn’t held a pencil before, while others seemed well versed with one. I gave out crayons to those who struggled with the pencils, and we practiced forming letters before I let them work together to spell out their own names.
I was about to make a lap around the room to check on them when someone knocked on my door.
I looked up and found Patty Gee, the teacher from across the hall, standing outside my classroom door.
I got up and went to answer it.
“Hi, Allie. Mr. Vickers asked me to cover your class for fifteen minutes or so for you. He needs you down at the office.”
“Did he say what for?” I asked, feeling my brows draw together on my forehead.
“Something about signing paperwork with the parents of one of the kids transferring out of your class?”
“Oh,” I breathed.
Patty cocked her head to the side. “Are you all right, Allie? You look pale.”
“I’m all right.”
I was not all right.
The thought of facing Mav made me want to hurl.
“Um, okay,” I stammered. “Does he need me right now?”
Patty nodded.
“Shoot. Okay. Um. Right.” I turned back to my room like I was looking for something.
“You don’t need to bring anything,” Patty said. “It’s just to sign a couple of pages. Are you sure you’re all right?”
I slipped out the door into the hall. “Yes, I’m fine. Just distracted. Thank you for watching my class for me, Patty.”
She frowned at me. “Don’t mention it.”
Patty’s eyes bored holes into my back as I walked down the hall toward the office. My stomach performed a full routine of somersaults, and I was silently thankful I’d had a light lunch today.
This was not how I’d wanted things to go. When I put in the request to transfer Olivette, I hadn’t realized I’d have to see Mav and talk to him about it. I thought the school would call him, inform him of the transfer, and that would be that.
This was going to be uncomfortable.
When I got to the office, I slipped inside. Our receptionist, Shelly, pointed to Mr. Vickers’s office door. “Hi, Allie. He’s expecting you. Go on in.”
I chewed my bottom lip as I approached the office door. Once I reached it, I hesitated. But there was no going back now. I’d submitted the request, and now I needed to face the consequences. And face Mav.
“Here goes,” I whispered. Then I knocked and pushed the door open.
I saw Mr. Vickers first. He was sitting behind his desk, clean-shaven, wearing a pleasant smile and his usual khaki pants. He waved me inside. “Come on in, Allie. Take a seat. Have you and Mr. Cantone met before?”
“Yes,” I said.
And then my eyes wandered over to Mav.
He was sitting slightly behind the door, staring straight at me. His expression was neutral but somehow stern. His dark blue eyes followed me as I tucked my skirt under my thighs and took the seat beside him.
I kept my attention on Mr. Vickers. “You need me to sign paperwork?”
Jim nodded. “Sure do. But we’ll see to that a little later. I apologize, Mr. Cantone, I’m a bit of an outsider when it comes to these kinds of issues. I’m not sure why the request was made. But let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about it, shall we?”
“Sure,” Mav said. His tone was cool.
Jim turned toward me. “Is there a specific reason why you requested to have Olivette moved out of your classroom, Ms. Branson?”
This couldn’t have been more awkward. “Um. I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mav interjected.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Mav straightened. “But I have to talk to Olivette first before I sign anything. This will be a big change for her, and she doesn’t like change. She’s become comfortable in Ms. Branson’s class, and if I don’t have to disrupt her schedule, I won’t.”
Jim nodded and pressed his fingertips together. His eyes slid to me. “Does that sound reasonable to you, Ms. Branson?”
“Yes,” I said hurriedly.
“Very well,” Jim said, smiling at both of us. The tension in the room was clearly lost on him.
Mav got to his feet. “I have to go back to work.”
“We will be in touch soon, Mr. Cantone,” Jim said, getting to his feet and shaking Mav’s hand.
I kept my eyes down when Mav turned to leave. He paused briefly, and I knew he was looking down at me, but I didn’t dare look up. I couldn’t. I’d break.
Then he left the office without another word.
Jim took his seat back and sighed. “Well, that was quick and painless. Wasn’t it?”
I swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, painless.”
“You’re free to go, Allie. Poor Patty must have her hands full watching over two classes.”
“Thank you,” I muttered on my way out the door.
I walked down the hall back to my classroom like a zombie.
Is this what Mav and I had become? Two people who couldn’t even look at each other when they were in the same room?
No, it wasn’t.
It was what I had become.
Patty was leaning against the doorframe waiting for me as I came down the hall. I doubted she even set foot in my classroom after I left.
“All good?” she asked.
I nodded. “All good.”
“What student are you transferring out? Brady Tully?”
“No.”
“Oh. Really? Then who?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m just curious,” Patty said, crossing her arms and leaning toward me conspiratorially. “Come on. Who’s giving you a hard time in there?”
“Nobody. I just have a student who I think would do better in a different classroom.” My throat ached as I said those words. Mav had made a good point in the office, and my guilt was crippling.
Olivette was a shy little girl. It took a lot for her to make friends. And she had made friends in my class. With me and with Brady. She’d exceeded her father’s expectations and was flourishing in my room, and I wanted to transfer her out because I couldn’t deal with the fallout of my decisions.
“And just think, you were so optimistic at the beginning of the year.” Patty snorted. “I tried to warn you things
go to shit the longer you do this gig.”
“That’s not what this is, Patty.”
“Then what is it?”
“Patty,” I said sharply. She flinched. “Please, leave it alone. It’s none of your business, and it’s not something I’m proud of doing, okay? We’re done with this conversation.”
“Jesus.” She scowled. Then she marched to her classroom door. “You’re welcome.”
“For what?”
“For watching your classroom,” she said bitchily.
I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean for standing in the hallway for five minutes? Okay. Yeah. Thank you for your hard effort. It helped immensely.”
Patty scoffed and stormed into her room. For once, I didn’t give a damn what she thought. Hell, I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Because all that mattered was what I thought, and I thought I was acting like a spoiled child. I was uncomfortable, and I was trying to brush it under the rug by banishing Olivette to a different classroom.
You’re making a mistake, I thought as I went back and joined my class.
33
Mav
Rinehart let me leave work when I got back to the station after seeing Allie.
I was in a mood.
He’d pulled me aside and told me to go home to sort myself out. The station had their shifts covered, and they could survive without me for a day. I surprised myself by taking him up on his offer. I’d be no use to anyone in the foul mood I was in, and the only place I wanted to be was home.
But being home didn’t make me feel better.
I sat in the living room brooding while I waited for my grandmother to come home with Olivette after picking her up from school. I’d decided not to go myself because I knew Allie didn’t want to see me.
When they got home, Olivette greeted me with a big hug, and then she took off to the kitchen.
“Where’s she off to?” I asked.
My grandmother put her purse down on the sofa and sat down across from me. “I told her there was a treat in the kitchen. She has to find it.”
“Oh?”
“I needed to buy us some time to talk. Just me and you.”
I frowned. “There is a treat in there for her, right?”
My grandmother smiled. “Of course, there is. What kind of monster do you think I am?”
I raked my fingers through my hair and slumped back on the sofa. “Just making sure. What did you want to talk about?”
She studied me calmly. I had the sense this was going to be one of those conversations I didn’t like having. But that didn’t matter. If she wanted to talk about it, then damn it all, we’d talk about it. “You need to make things right with Allie.”
I almost laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think I have a chance of pulling that off. She’s done with me. With us.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did she say something to you when you picked up Olivette or something?”
My grandmother pursed her lips. “Not exactly, no. But she didn’t need to say anything. I could see it written all over her. She’s hurting, Mav. And she’s lost. You need to talk to her and make it right. Because I see the same things in you. Pain. Confusion. You both want this to work, but neither of you knows how to do it. From the outside looking in, I really want to rip my hair out.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She moved closer and patted my knee. “I’m not attacking you. I’m trying to help you. Talk to the girl.”
“And what am I supposed to tell her?”
“The truth.”
“About what? I’ve been nothing but honest with her. She’s—”
“You have to tell her about Clara.”
I grimaced like she’d slapped me.
I hadn’t heard Clara’s name out loud in ages. Years, probably. Hearing it now still brought back visceral memories of the delivery room. Of the blood. The panic. The beeping monitors. The frantic doctors.
Of being shoved out into the hallway as they tried to save my wife’s life and failed.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Mav, it’s time. I haven’t pushed. Not really. I’ve sat back and let you take things at your own speed. And you’ve done all the healing you can on your own. Now you need to start talking about her. You need to tell Allie so she knows the truth. And you need to tell Olivette.”
“She’s too young.”
“She deserves to know,” my grandmother said. “You know she does. And yes, she’s young, but you can spare her a lot of wondering and a lot of hurt if you tell her the truth now. You can help guide her through it. Because life without her mother is going to get harder and harder the older she gets. She’s going to need you to be there. And you have to tell her the truth. Always.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes as my temples ached. This was too much. Far too much. Clara was still a deep dark crevice I could easily fall down, and I didn’t want to risk it. Not now. Not when I already felt so terrible after losing Allie.
Olivette came bounding into the living room with a chocolate candy bar in her hand. She’d already dug into it and had chocolate all over her face, and she shoved the last bite into her mouth and beamed at her grandmother as she got to her feet. “I found it!”
“It would appear you did.” My grandmother laughed softly. She patted Olivette’s head as she walked around her and made for the hallway. “Your father wants to talk to you about something, Olivette. Take a seat. Nana is going to go rest her eyes for a bit.” She locked eyes with me and nodded at Olivette before mouthing the words, Tell her.
Olivette slid onto the sofa and sat with her hands in her lap. “Yes, Daddy?”
I looked at my daughter. At her pink lips and sharp cupid’s bow. Her big eyes so like her mother’s. Her hair, the shape of her chin, the way she pursed her lips and stuck out her tongue when she was concentrating.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. “Olivette, I want to talk to you about your mother.”
She stared blankly back at me. “Okay.”
I looked down at my feet and tried to organize my thoughts. How did I say this? “I want to tell you about why she’s not in our life. And I want you to know it has nothing to do with you or me. It was out of everyone’s control. Do you understand?”
“Like an accident?”
I nodded. “Yes, exactly like an accident. Your mother… my wife… her name was Clara. She was a beautiful woman, kiddo. She was smart and silly, and she loved to laugh. She was just like you.”
“She was?” Olivette breathed.
I fought against the tightness in my throat. “Yes. She liked to paint. She was terrible at it, but she liked it anyway. And she loved to dance. She started to dance when she was your age. And that’s how I met her. I saw her when she was dancing, and I had to know her name. She was an angel. Truly. Because she gave me you. But the thing is, she didn’t get to stay with me after you were born.”
“How come?”
Fuck me, I thought, gritting my teeth against the emotions I’d kept at bay for the last couple years. I had to say it.
Just say it.
“She died, kiddo.”
Olivette blinked. “Died?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you. She loved you more than she loved anything in this world. Just like I love you. Do you understand?”
Olivette pursed her lips. “I think so.”
“She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to always be with you. But life had other plans. She fought as hard as she could to stay, but in the end, it was just me and you. Like it is now.”
“And Nana.”
“And Nana.” I smiled. “Of course, Nana.”
“And Allie.”
I felt my eyebrows lift. “Allie?”
Olivette nodded. “Yep. She’s family too, isn’t she, Daddy?”
I paid a teenager twenty bucks to let me i
n through the front doors of the Wynnwood Estates. He seemed confused and maybe mildly concerned, but as soon as the bill was in his hand, he shrugged it off and walked away, leaving me to rush inside, cross the lobby, and duck into one of the elevators.
I jabbed the button for the fifteenth floor and rode it up with my hands in my pockets, my left foot tapping anxiously as I watched the numbers roll over on the display above the door.
There was no way to know if Allie even wanted to see me. There was more than a good chance that she’d open the door and promptly shut it on my face immediately thereafter. But if there was a chance I could talk to her and fix this, I had to take it.
I should have come clean with her when things first started heating up between us. The night we went to Tratetello’s. I should have told her all about Clara and how much I missed her. And perhaps more importantly, I should have told her I was ready to move on.
The doors chimed and slid open. I burst out and jogged to Allie’s door and didn’t hesitate to knock. When she didn’t answer within ten seconds, I knocked again, harder this time, until I heard her voice on the other side telling me to calm down and that she’d just be a second.
Please let me in. Please let me in.
The door swung open.
“Mav?” Allie blinked at me. She was wearing a loose pair of white pants and a white tank top that showed a couple of inches of midriff. Her copper-red hair was down, and her eyes looked even more green than I remembered. She stuck her head out into the hall and looked both ways. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please, I want to tell you everything. I want to tell you about Clara.”
“Who’s Clara?”
“My wife,” I said. “She’s dead. And I need you to know our story and what happened. And if after everything, you still don’t want to see me and you want Olivette out of your class, I’ll respect that. Just please, let me in. Let me explain.”
Allie searched my eyes. Then, to my surprise, she stepped back to let me inside.
Ignite The Spark Between Us: Searing Saviors #4 Page 20