AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll wait right here,” Ryke says.
I leave my door ajar for a second. “Why?”
“I don’t want to get in the fucking way and make things worse.” He fixes his rearview mirror, which is disturbing seeing as how he’s adjusting it after we’ve parked.
I shift my weight, hesitating. “I need you to come with me…at least until Connor arrives.”
Now he asks, “Why?”
“Because…” I pause. “I’m really pissed, and I’m afraid of what I might say to the vice-principal. The last thing I need to do is accidentally get my daughter expelled on her second month of kindergarten.”
Can they even expel her for my behavior? I blink a couple times. That’s a frightening prospect. Even worse, I’m actually worried something like that might happen. What does that say about me?
My temper.
I unleash all my claws and my razor-sharp teeth when it comes to my sisters, my children—my family. I won’t back down, even when I should.
Lily is right.
I’m one of those piercing corners on the hot-tempered triad. I eye my brother-in-law, his aggression palpable in his brooding eyes.
So is Ryke.
But I’m hoping he can maintain a level-head this once. For me. Maybe it’ll be possible.
Maybe.
Ryke wavers. “I may say some fucking shit, Rose.”
“Better the foul-mouthed uncle than the witch mother.” I know it’s what they’ll call me, and since I have many more young children who’ll eventually attend Dalton Elementary, I can’t set every bridge on fire. For their sake.
Ryke takes the keys out of the ignition. “You’re not a witch. By Lo’s fucking definition, I’d be a witch with you.” Outspoken. Hot-headed.
“You’re not a woman. You wouldn’t be called one,” I remind him, my eyes cold.
His gaze nearly softens.
I add, “Let’s not forget that I’ve called Lo names too. We tease each other. It’s what we do.”
Ryke nods. “I’m thinking more about what my daughter is going to have to fucking deal with.”
“If she’s anything like me, you can expect at least one person to call her a bitch.” I tap my nail to the frame of the door. “Are you coming with me?”
He’s already climbing out of the car. “Let’s go.”
Together, we walk along the cement path to the double doors. I hope fate has good fortune in store for us. I hope that one side of the hot-tempered triad can cool off for just one meeting.
Is that even achievable?
* * *
“She did what?”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Mrs. Morgan-Stuart suggests for the fifth time. I’ve abandoned one of two wooden chairs that face her sleek oak desk. Ryke stands beside me like a loyal soldier, and I combat the vice-principal’s hot and heavy judgment with a scathing glare.
She treats me like a sixteen-year-old who was sent to the principal’s office, and to be precise, that situation never happened. I prided myself on being a model student.
“I’m not sitting down until you explain why that warrants a parent phone call.” I swear, if they punish her for this, I will create the mother of all fucking storms.
“She kissed a boy,” Mrs. Morgan-Stuart repeats.
My daughter’s first kiss was in kindergarten. Of course it was.
“And?” Ryke asks, his muscles as strained as mine.
“And it was in front of the jungle gym where other children could see. It was highly inappropriate for someone her age.”
“She’s a child,” I say. “Children are curious, and it couldn’t have been anything more than a simple peck on the lips.”
“Regardless…it was still out in the open where other children could see and get ideas.”
I stifle this maddened noise that scratches my throat. “It was a small kiss. You’re acting like she masturbated in public.”
Mrs. Morgan-Stuart flushes red. “Mrs. Cobalt,” she scolds and avoids meeting Ryke’s gaze. Her embarrassment is unmistakable.
“Masturbation isn’t a swear word,” I rebut. “I won’t apologize for saying something we all do.”
Mrs. Morgan-Stuart is about the shade that Lily turns when she’s mortified. “I think it’s best if we wait for your husband. Mr. Meadows…you should leave.”
“She’s my niece,” Ryke refutes, the three words beyond stilted, as though he’s trying very hard not to include a fuck. I watch him mechanically take a seat in the chair and raise his hands like he comes in peace. Then he nods to me like let’s go fucking easy on her.
If we must.
I settle in the chair next to Ryke. “My husband is on the way. I’d like to discuss this now.” I need more details. “Did the boy kiss her back, did he run away, what else happened?” If it was an unsolicited kiss, it changes the narrative.
“He kissed her back.”
My shoulders slacken.
“According to the students, Jane and Wesley kissed a few more times on the cheek before the teacher intervened. We’ve given her entire class a stern speech about appropriate behavior between classmates, but the children are all very animated about the situation. We think it’s best that Jane go home today.”
Smoke gushes out of my ears. I swear to all that is righteous. “You’re suspending her over a peck on the lips?”
“Just for the day. Jane being in the school is a distraction to the other students.”
I rise out of my seat, and if Connor had been beside me, he would’ve tugged me down. Instead, Ryke is rising with me. I can’t think about the negative result of recruiting Ryke as a teammate.
I breathe fire. “The administration created more of an uproar by acting like kissing is the plague.”
“Mrs. Co—”
“She did nothing that’d warrant suspension.”
“Is Wesley being suspended for the day?” Ryke questions, still carefully choosing his words.
I fume silently, watching Mrs. Morgan-Stuart waste time by shifting papers in a beige folder. “Is he?” I snap.
“Wesley wasn’t the one who initiated the kiss.”
Ryke mutters under his breath, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“This is insane!” I shout. “What kind of place is this? I didn’t send my daughter to the Academy of Kiss-and-Be-Punished.” I’m seconds from pacing.
Ryke rubs his unshaven jaw aggressively and then drops his hand. “Look,” he says to Mrs. Morgan-Stuart, “this is kindergarten. Why not just tell them don’t do it again and call it a fucking day?”
She looks disgusted. “Please, watch your language.”
The slip-up was bound to happen.
Ryke turns his head, and I think he’s worried about the future when his own daughter enters kindergarten. He’s holding back with his niece, careful not to step on my toes, but if this had been Sullivan, rest assured, he’d be as volatile as me.
“Dalton has values that will be upheld,” the vice-principal says. “We’d appreciate if you talked to Jane thoroughly about what’s inappropriate for school grounds.”
“I will,” I say, “and do you know what will be on my list? Drugs, bullying, stealing, cheating, murder. Not a kindergarten kiss.”
“Please,” she tries to reason with me. Am I being unreasonable? “Maybe take a good look at what goes on in your house…or places your children visit.”
She went there.
Subtly, she pokes at the sex tapes of me and my husband, and the fact that my little sister is a sex addict who lives down the street. As if we’re all so deviant.
This is ridiculous.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Ryke growls beneath his breath.
Thank you.
“It’d be wise to play by the school’s rules. This display is hardly putting good will towards the future of both your children.”
I go very still.
Ryke and I just made an utter, shitty mess of things.
[ 22 ]
&
nbsp; September 2021
Dalton Elementary
Philadelphia
CONNOR COBALT
I walk down the quiet hallway of Dalton Elementary. A little girl with a worried pout waits slumped on a plastic blue chair—right outside the principal’s office. She accessorized her plaid, private school uniform with green pom-pom hair clips and fuzzy pink and yellow socks.
Incredibly mismatched.
The corners of my lips rise high.
Jane Eleanor Cobalt is in pursuit of finding her own identity, and I’m grateful to be a witness.
As I approach, Jane picks herself out of her slumped state, relief in her blue eyes.
