“I saw that,” Honor said, humor in her tone.
“Saw what?”I didn’t turn around.
“You stole a cookie.”
“You can’t prove anything.”I chewed as quickly as I could and swallowed before spinning around.“I didn’t take a damn thing.”
All she did was smirk.“You’ll spoil your appetite.”
“I’ll spoil nothing.”
She closed her workbook and got up from the table, bringing down three bowls from the cupboard without me even asking.She set the table while I got out the shredded cheese, tortilla chips, sour cream, and chopped veggies.
In ten minutes, we were all sitting around our little four-top, round kitchen table eating chili.
While my son wasn’t an aspiring conversationalist, my daughter made up for it by never really shutting up.And I loved it.
Growing up, our dinner table was meant to be silent.If we did anything besides ask someone to pass the peas, we got a fork stuck into the back of our hand by my father—or worse.So I made a point of always having conversation around the dinner table.Lively discussion about anything and everything.Very few topics were off-limits, and even topics that might be considered off-limits, I tried to find ways to discuss them in a manner that was age appropriate.
However, no matter how hard I tried to veer the topics in other directions, both kids kept coming back to the new principal and howcoolhe was.Particularly Austin.He seemed slightly enamoured with the guy.Up until Raina started dating Jagger, Gabrielle picked up with Maverick, and Danica fell in love with Tommaso, the kids didn’t have much of an older male influence in their lives.And we did that on purpose.However, we trusted these men, and they were wonderful with the kids.
I’d never heard Austin gush over another man the way he gushed over Lennox though.It was almost like the sun rose and set on the guy.How he read to them all over the PA system while they ate lunch, that he was out on the field with the kids during recess kicking the soccer ball around, playing hopscotch, or tossing the Hacky Sack back and forth.Austin even went on about how cool it was that their principal had two sleeves of tattoos.He wondered if maybe Lennox used to belong to a motorcycle club or a gang, but left that darker side of life to help teach children and shape the future.
“You’re ridiculous,” Honor said to him when he brought up the gang theory.“I haven’t seen any tattoos across his knuckles.And no teardrops on his cheeks.”
“Those are only if you kill someone,” Austin argued.“The teardrops anyway … I think.”
“How do you know this?”she asked.I had the same question.
He shrugged.“I pay attention to stuff.”
Honor rolled her eyes.“Weird stuff.I doubt our principal was in a gang.”
A gang?No.But that acidic prickle in my belly was back, and I pushed away my chili, unable to finish the rest.For my own peace of mind and my family’s safety, maybe we did need to do a deeper dive into Lennox Paul.Or at the very least, figure out just how old this young, handsome father was.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lennox
Thefirstweekofthe new job went by in a flash.
I wasn’t one to brag, but I felt like I’d really connected with the students, and since it was a small school, by Friday I think I knew nearly everyone’s names.
And there were some weird names.One kid proudly introduced himself to me as Barnacle.He even went so far as to tell me that his parents got angry at anyone who tried to call him Barney.That Barnacles were tough, resilient, and strong.So he should be honored to carry such a name.
Not my kid, not my cross to bear when he was older and opted to change his name to Mike or Chad when he was eighteen.
Then again, I was sure some people wrinkled their noses at my kid’s name.And while Mabel wasn’t exactly a common name, it also wasn’t a kind of mollusk.It had significant meaning, and if she wanted to change her name later, or go by her middle name, Dawn, then I was fine with it.
In addition to running, shooting hoops in the driveway, and lifting weights, I also made sure to integrate yoga into my workout routine.It was something my high school basketball coach actually insisted we all do at least once a week to not only work on our breathing, center ourselves, and “calm the fuck down”, but it also helped with our flexibility and mobility.Every Friday morning before we had a game, we had to meet for sunrise vinyasa at the local yoga studio, where we meditated for thirty minutes, then greeted the sun and got all bendy for an hour.At first, my teammates and I thought it was a load of shit and we griped about it, but when we found ourselves calmer and more focused on the court, as well as with increased core strength and mobility, we stopped complaining and looked forward to getting our namaste on once a week.
And even though I no longer played basketball, I still needed that big of Zen in my life and tried to practice at least once a week.
I was pleased to see that San Camanez offered a yoga studio, and that they had quite a few classes.
The Yoga Yurt was only a ten-minute drive from the house.So after a breakfast of overnight oats, a black coffee, and a quick kiss on the top of my daughter’s head, I left my ornithologist-in-the-making in the backyard with her binoculars and climbed into my truck.
The parking lot was packed.
