Page 17 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
Nobody argued about being kicked out of the living room—but then, I hadn’t expected them to. For all they could be a pain in my ass, I had to admit that the guys had been pretty great about Gracie coming to stay with us and the disruption to their lives. They were doing their best to watch their language when she was around, and the place was a lot cleaner than it used to be. I guessed nobody wanted a five-year-old getting tetanus from a rusty fork or something. But more than that, none of them complained about pitching in sometimes to help look after her. I could go out at night and shake my moneymaker knowing she was safe, which took at least some of the pressure off.
As the guys shuffled out of the living room, I stripped down to my underwear and unfolded the couch into a bed. Danny’s boyfriend, Miller, had bought us a new couch after he broke the old one. I still hadn’t figured out quite how he’d broken it, but since this was more comfortable than the old one, I hadn’t asked too many questions.
I worried sometimes about how this was going to work long term, but for now Gracie had a bedroom and I had somewhere comfy to sleep, so I was calling it a win. Sure, the lack of privacy wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t like it was cramping my style or killing my love life—mainly because it was already dead in the water.
I got plenty of offers, don’t get me wrong. It went with the territory when you took your clothes off for a living. Before I’d had full-time custody of Gracie, I’d considered the odd quick hookup a perk of the job. But now, between working two jobs and being a full-time parent, I didn’t even have the energy to jerk off in the shower. Instead I spent those few precious minutes of alone time each morning as I showered letting the running water lull my brain into something like silence and remembering how to breathe.
The glamorous life of a single dad. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I was tired of being tired. When Gracie gotovertired, she sometimes just had a meltdown into tears. It didn’t happen often the older she got, but man, wouldn’t it be great if adults were allowed to do that too? Like, when everything got to be too much and the pressure built too high, you could just lose your shit like that? Just cry until you crashed out. That sounded pretty sweet, actually.
Not that I needed a breakdown to fall asleep tonight, though.
I was gone the second I hit the pillow.
“Daddy, hurry up!”Gracie said, tugging at the hem of my shirt. “We can’t be late! Mr. Smith willsee!” She glanced toward the front door like she expected her teacher to be standing there with a stopwatch. Maybe she did—kids had some strange ideas about what teachers did outside of school hours, so it probably made perfect sense to Gracie that Mr. Smith would come over to check we were running on time.
“Calm down, sweet pea. We have plenty of time, I promise. Besides, haven’t you forgotten something?” I looked down pointedly.
Gracie looked down as well and giggled when she saw her bare feet. A minute later she was flying down the hallway to her room, which meant I could finish packing her snacks in peace.
We were actually running on time for once—and yeah, okay,maybeGrace wasn’t the only one who’d had visions of Avery Smith standing on his front porch and tapping his wristwatch, although I had a feeling that my mental version of Mr. Smith smiled a lot less and judged a lot harder than Gracie’s.
Despite Gracie forgetting to put her shoes on, we made it to school in good time. Better than good time—we were at least ten minutes early and arrived at the same time as a bunch of other kids. As we walked to the building, I was nervous, and I wondered if there would ever come a time when the prospect of seeing Mr. Smith—Avery—wouldn’t tie my stomach up in knots.It was a combination of being ashamed of being called out for turning up late too many times, the awkwardness of remembering that embarrassing lap dance every time I saw him, and now, just to add a whole bunch of confusion on top of that, the fact that I couldn’t decide if Avery was subjectively cute or objectively cute—and why the hell it even mattered.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a nod when we reached the doorway.
“Hi.” He looked at his watch, but instead of making a show out of being surprised I’d dragged my ass here on time, he gave me a little pleased smile that I barely had time to register, let alone translate, before he turned his attention to Gracie. “Good morning, Gracie. Are you ready for another fun week?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed and bounced right past him into the classroom.
There was another kid lined up right behind her to bask in Avery’s attention, so I gave an awkward wave and peeled back to the parking lot.
Why had I waved?
It was weird. Better than shaking my ass in his face, but still weird.
Hopefully he hadn’t noticed.
I was on the highway when I got the call from Steve.
“Hey.” He sounded pissed.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You left the house yet?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because thisassholehas just pulled the pin on today’s job.” The way he emphasized the word made me think the asshole in question was in earshot.
“What? We’re meant to be starting! You’re keeping the deposit, right?”
“Of course I’m keeping the fucking deposit!” Steve lowered his voice. “I’m just telling you there’s no point coming in today, or the rest of the week.”
“Shit. Why’d he cancel?”
“Fucking Morris,” Steve said.
Morris was a guy over in Hopewell who was trying to grow his business by fucking over Steve’s. And the prick happened to have enough money that he could afford to underquote by thousands. Maybe even more if today’s customer was willing to lose the deposit he’d already paid to Steve.
