Page 78 of Rags to Royals

“Is it something for school?” I ask his back. I know he went up to meet everyone today.

He shoots me a big grin over his shoulder. “Yep.”

“So how did it—” I cut off as I step into the dining room.

Henry is sitting at the table, but it seems he’s occupying the only empty space in the room.

The dining room table and all of the chairs are covered withplastic shopping bags. I can see that there are boxes of tissues and rolls of paper towels in one. Another holds boxes and boxes of markers. There are notebooks, bottles of glue, three-ring notebooks, folders, boxes of pencils.

It looks like an office supply store blew up in my dining room.

Henry looks up from his phone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I greet, both brows arched.

“Professor Brady had a good day,” he says dryly.

I look at Cian. He’s grinning like a kid.

“Bill Emerson is a good guy,” he says.

I nod. “He was a good teacher too.”

“You had him for history?” Cian asks.

“Yeah.”

Cian grins. “That’s cool.”

“Is it?”

He clears a chair by grabbing two shopping bags and moving them to the floor. One tips and a box of tampons falls to the floor. “That you and Mariah had the same teacher? Yeah. Kind of. Isn’t it?”

I guess it is. Bill Emerson was always kind, and I did learn a lot from him. Though I’m embarrassed when I think back to how I behaved during the time I was in his class. I don’t want to know what he remembers about me. I am happy that Mariah can show him that I raised an amazing kid, at least. There are two other teachers still teaching here that I also had when I was in school, and I feel the same way about them.

“What is all of this?” I ask, bending to retrieve the tampons.

Cian takes them, stuffing them back into the bag. “Stuff for the school.”

I look around. “You need this many—” My gaze falls on a bag that has crayons in it. “Crayons, for your classroom?”

He sets the bag on the table. “Well, this is for multiple classrooms. Including the elementary school. Did you know that teachers have to supply a lot of this stuff out of their own pockets?” He frowns. ‘They ask parents for help too.”

“I am aware of that, yes,” I say with a grin.

He gestures at the cleared chair seat and I sit.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” he says. “The school should be able to supply their classrooms. And I know it’s a budgeting issue. But thegovernmentshould be adequately funding schools.” His frown deepens. “That definitely needs to be looked at.”

I chuckle. “You know you’re not the first person to think that, right?”

“Of course. But I do have some people I can talk to. And, regardless, I can certainly afford to buy supplies for the school.” He scowls at the bag to my right. It’s got construction paper and notecards in it. “I mean, how the fuck do they expect a school to function withoutpaper? And tissues? Teachers are supposed to go to work, get paid a pittance,andbuy tissues for their kids too?” He shakes his head. “That’s unacceptable. We’ve already started the process for setting up a fund to take care of all of that.”

My eyes widen. “A fund? That will pay for all the supplies for Emerald?”

“Yes.”

“For this year?”

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