Page 87 of Whiskey Shivers

I fully admit hanging around the main office as long as I could, forgoing my prep time for my first period class and watching the clock, sweating absolute bullets while the second hand spun around the dial and the minute hand ticked away as I scrambled for things to talk about with the secretaries about the holidays without revealing too much of what I’d done on mine – in some cases, I just outright made some tame and boring shit up.

When the door opened to the main office’s conference room where they mostly handled parental and disciplinary meetings with two families of students (the irony not lost on me at all) Hex looked impassive, and shook hands with the principle and some higher muckety-muck from the school district. I felt my heart sink as he walked past the secretary’s wrap and I realized he didn’t have his staff identification clipped to his pocket like he usually did.

“I’ll see you at home, baby,” he murmured and bent at the waist to press a kiss to my forehead.

“No,” I murmured, hurt. “They didn’t.”

He gave me a kind look and a wink and said his goodbyes to Arlyna, behind the desk, and Sal further back.

I turned to the unknown admin and Mrs. Donal.

“I’ll finish out the school year, but I quit,” I said and I left the office, Hex chasing me out into the hallway.

“Don’t do that, baby.”

“Oh, I’mabsolutelydoing it,” I snapped. “And there’s not a goddamn thing you are going to do or say to change my mind!”

“Babe,” he tried, and I straightened to my full height and gave him an absolutelywitheringlook.

He stopped in his tracks and gave me his silent look the way that he did at home when I dug my heels playfully. I thought of it as his “do what now?”Dom look – but right now, we weren’t having sex, it wasn’t about the club, and I would not be backing down.

His expression softened and he pulled me into his arms and only when he did that did I realize my eyes had become glassy with rage. I did that, cried when I was angry as hell – but the softness and the grace that he showed me cut through that layer of anger exposing the hurt and the grief at losing him here on the day to day and exposed my fear.

I didn’t know if I could do this without him. He had become my talisman to make it through the school day knowing that he was here and that I had backup if I needed it. I mean, I didn’t think lightning was going to strike twice and that another twenty-something year old man was going to attack me in the bathroom, but still – I avoided the second-floor girl’s bathroom at all costs now and one of the things getting me through my days here had definitely been that my savior was right around the corner should I need him and they were taking him away from me… and not even for anythinghedid… but because of me.

And right on the heels of us handing them a check so big it not only had wiped out the lunch debt for this school, but the entire district with enough left on the books to put it in the black to offer more free lunches next year to some of the kids that were merely on reduced lunch whose family really needed it.

The bastards.

“We’ll talk when I come pick you up,” he said as we’d ridden in together without a single damn care this morning.

I nodded and said, “Okay.”

To their credit, Mrs. Donal and the district administrator were arguing behind the glass windows of the front office and hadn’t followed us out here. Mrs. Donal looked pissed and the school district official simply looked like the cutthroat corporate psychopath that he likely was.

“I love you,” I said and he kissed my forehead and said, “I’m a text or phone call away, but you can do this you little badass.”

I snorted a laugh and wiped my eyes and said, “I know I can. Still, this is bullshit.”

“Citizens,” he said with a shrug and I nodded.

“Citizens,” I agreed because the club was right. They liked to make things ten times harder than they needed to be and for what?

I sighed and we parted ways and it hurt, but it wasn’t the kids’ fault and they still needed an education. An education that I aimed to provide them.

* * *

My phone rangafter the last bell, I heard it vibrating in my briefcase. I went and got it and saw Hex’s name and smiling face flash across the screen. I caught it just before it went to voicemail.

“Hey,” I murmured.

“Hey, I’m out here in the employee lot but they won’t let me come in the building.”

“Bastards,” I muttered.

“Yeah, well, I knew it was coming, baby, and we both know it’s gonna be alright.”

“Yeah, it will,” I said with a defeated sigh. “But it should be fine right now.”

---