Page 22 of Kiss the Girl
“You have to stay, Grace.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Tab.” I had every intention of staying, but it wasn’t Tabitha’s place to tell me what I needed to do. Not when I was the one who’d been here for fifteen months, handling business. Literally. I was the whole reason Handy’s had stayed in business, and she couldn’t even give me credit for that.
“Then who’s going to do it? Gary can’t.”
“Stay in your lane, Tabitha. Because this isn’t it. You made it clear that it’s mine, so you don’t get to start butting in now.”
“I’m not trying to tell you how to run the store. I’m only talking about what affects Dad.”
“Again, I’ve been here for all of it. You were here for two days at Christmas last year when the store was closed, and Dad didn’t have any appointments. Why do you act like you know what’s going on here?” I knew why. It was the same reason she’d been doing it my whole life: she was two years older than me, and she’d always acted like it granted her the right to be my third parent. I’d been over it by the time I was five. “It’s fine, I’m fine, Dad’s fine. Make your chiffonade with a clear conscience. We’ve got it covered.”
“But I—”
“Bye, Tab.” I disconnected the call. She’d managed to dampen the high I’d been feeling ever since Dad had come in with his news. For over a year, I’d refused to consciously consider the worst. It wasn’t until he’d told me that hope was finally in sight that I realized how much every molecule in my body had been bracing for the worst ever since coming back to Creekville.
I wouldn’t let Tabitha steal that relief.
I would definitely go home and start looking at job postings with my availability date as January 2. If Tabitha had a problem with it, she could come supervise him herself. But Dad was getting healthy. I would be getting my life back soon.
And I smiled again because I finally had something to look forward to.
Chapter Eight
Noah
I rolled into work short two hours of sleep but on time, if slightly bleary-eyed. Paige was working the breakfast shift, and that started at 6 AM. Evie’s fever had broken about an hour after we’d given her the Tylenol, but I’d stayed and slept on the floor in her room so Paige wouldn’t worry. Evie had been fine when I dropped her off to daycare, and the director had said it was fine if she kept a mask on. Evie promised she’d keep it on if she could stay in the reading corner and rest. It was a good solution all around.
I settled into my desk with a smile on my face, remembering one of Grace’s attempted words in the final match last night. “Jackwad.” Brooke had challenged it. When the online dictionary didn’t list it, Grace had insisted it was a word if you could use it in a sentence. “I’ll even speak your language,” she’d said. “High school boys are jackwads.”
“That is both true and also still not a legal Scrabble word,” I’d ruled. And Grace had complained about it the rest of the game, especially when she got caught with the J after I laid down my last tiles.
High school boys were definitely jackwads, and on Monday, this locker room would be full of them, but I enjoyed their dumb butts anyway. They had more good moments than bad. Well, except for…
With a sigh, I went to work on the outline for the second quarter health unit—AKA “the condom talk,” the duty falling to me since I had the least seniority in the department and couldn’t say no. It was not my favorite unit. Even saying the word “unit” made the boys lose it. “Sophomoric humor” is an insult for a reason.
A knock sounded on the door and saved me from trying to figure out which diagram I could use that wouldn’t call down the wrath of every parent in the Lincoln High school district.
“Coach Redmond? You got a minute?”
I looked up and smiled. “Hey, Coach Dean. Come on in.”
Frank Dean was the Lincoln football coach, a grizzled veteran who was in his mid-sixties, at least, and revered by his players. He’d coached a lot of their fathers too.
“Ready for this year?” he asked, taking the chair across the desk from me.
“I think so. I can always think of a dozen more things that need doing, but it always works out.”
“You did a fine job coaching wrestling last year.”
“Thanks. I hope we get past semi-finals this year.”
“I’m sure you will, son.”
It fell quiet, and while we had a cordial working relationship after a year of sharing the gym and locker room, we weren’t sit-in-silence-together type friends.I shifted, looking for something to talk about. “How about you? You ready?”
He pushed his cap back and sighed. “I don’t know. Mrs. Dean wants me to retire. She’s been saying that for about five years, but I think this year, I might listen.”
“Wow. Retirement is big. I’ve only been here a year, and you already feel like an institution.”
