Page 74 of Tutoring the Bad Boy
He sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, that is messed up. Her mom?” He looks at me.
But, thinking back to that day in her office, she said she knew I’d told Ginny about the deal. For a second, she threw me, but I’d recovered quickly enough to make her think I’d known all along when I didn’t. At the time, I really didn’t care how broken Ginny’s heart was as long as it was in as many pieces as mine.
Ginny thought she was being sneaky, but I knew she was listening in. I figured she wouldn’t care anyway since she was cheating on me, but if she did for some reason, I wanted it to crush her to think I’d played her the whole time. She’d played me, and turnabout was fair play. Except she hadn’t.
I need to talk to my dad. “Chris, take the ball. I have to go, but I promise I’ll tell you everything, okay?”
Chris grins. “Yeah, man. Call me later.”
We fist bump, and I take off for home. My dad isn’t working near as much as he used to, and when I get to the house, his car is in the driveway. The relief that washes over me is instantaneous.
He’s going to look at me different when I tell him. I know he is. I just don’t know what else to do at this point. Ginny is never going to believe me. Never. Even if by some chance she does believe me, she’ll never trust me again.
When I walk in the door, my dad greets me with a smile. “Hey, bud. I thought you’d be out a while.”
I take a seat on the sofa closest to his recliner. “I have to tell you something.”
He pushes the footrest down and leans forward in the chair. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”
“But you don’t even know what it is yet. What if…what if I’ve done something so terrible that you’ll hate me?”
“Never going to happen, bud. Never. Just tell me.”
Over the next hour, I tell him everything, starting from the very beginning. My dad doesn’t interrupt, but he’s so stoic that I have no idea what he’s thinking as I’m talking. He said he wouldn’t hate me, but that was before.
I made a deal with Ginny’s mom to break Ginny’s heart. To purposefully deceive her. It’s wrong. It’s a level of wrong I never thought myself capable of. I finish the tale, and I feel like a monster. I’m ashamed of myself.
My dad is quiet long enough that I’m positive I’ve destroyed my relationship with him. I’m antsy. My leg bounces. The longer he’s quiet, the closer to the floor my heart gets.
“Dad.”
“Principal Gray made a deal with you to break Ginny’s heart?”
I nod.
His eyes narrow. “That woman came to you and told you she’d help you get into MIT?” A fire lights in his eyes. “I’ll make her regret stepping foot in this town.”
My eyes widen. “What? But I’m the one who accepted the deal. And then I did it. I broke Ginny’s heart. I know I did. She wasn’t cheating on me with Chris.”
His lips press together in a tight line. “No, but she knew what happened between the coach and your mom,” he says, standing and muttering a few curse words. “They’d started an investigation because he was funneling money from the athletics department to pay for his getaways with your mom. They used the photo she sent me by accident to prove one of the transactions because of the location tag.”
“That’s part of what got me. It was the same thing that happened to you. It was like she knew just how to wreck me,” I say, keeping my seat. “I didn’t know anything about the investigation.”
“Not a whole lot of people did, but Norma Gray did.” He sets his hands on his hips. “I swear I’m going to make her regret ever speaking to you.” There’s a menacing tone that laces the words. My dad is furious. And not at me.
“Dad.” I let out a chuckle. “I appreciate the willingness to go to battle, but all I really want is Ginny.” I rake my hand through my hair. “I love her.”
The word flies out of my mouth, and I’m stunned. I shouldn’t be. I was thinking it before all this went down. I buried it when I saw the pictures, but it took nothing for that flame to return and burn brighter than ever before.
My dad freezes and then smiles at me. “You love her?”
I drag my gaze to his. “With all my heart.”
He takes his seat again. “I think we need to go after Principal Gray. What she did was unethical, and I’m sure I could get legal charges brought against her.”
“Part of me wants to, but Principal Gray loves Ginny and—” My dad starts to protest, and I stop him. “I’ve seen the look in her eyes when she talks about Ginny. She honestly believed she was protecting her.” It was totally twisted, but if Shakespeare has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes people do dumb things.
“The woman has no business being a principal or anything near a school. Kaleb, I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this. What she did was wrong.”
