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Sixteen
Aela
Now
Impatience madeit hard when the staff eyed my blue hair and my earrings like I was an alien who’d just crash-landed on Midland Private Academy’s private helipad.
The liaison was kind enough, however, and didn’t seem to have a stick shoved up her butt as she showed us around. It was just the teachers in every class who stared at my hair that drove me crazy.
Either Seamus didn’t notice or he didn’t care. His gaze was fixed on things that should probably interest me but didn’t. I was more bothered about their terrible art program, but he wasn’t an artistic kid even if I tried to drag it out of him to help him express himself better.
He preferred boring things like science labs and large libraries, while I fully accepted that my priorities were unlike any other mother’s. I figured few parents were complaining about the lack of a kiln and were more worried about there only being five chemistry labs.
I trudged along behind the pair of them, amused as they discussed things that told me they were on the same wavelength, and which confirmed my darling boy was a nerd.
The school was my idea of hell, but he seemed to like it, and whenever he saw a bodyguard stationed outside a classroom, or inside, it caught his attention.
I could almost see the mental chalkboard in his head scrawling, ‘child of important person standing at ten o’clock.’ He probably had a running tally, and I wasn’t averse to that. Anything to take his mind away from the fact he’d been on the football team back home and would have to try out again.
Of course, ‘back home’ was relative.
The tour took forever, and while I preferred his old school in Rhode Island, I wasn’t about to complain that he seemed to like this campus. Our talk this morning had put some things into perspective for him, even though I wasn’t particularly happy about Declan blurting out that I was richer than him.
It wasn’t like I’d needed proof to know that Conor had hacked into my accounts.
The lack of security on my finances put me on edge, but it was one of those things. Hackers could get anywhere they wanted. I just had to hope that they’d leave me alone. Unless Conor could put some kind of whacko trapdoor on my account alone, which I wasn’t sure Bank of America would be totally happy about. Or maybe Conor had done that already—Iwasfamily now, wasn’t I?
We ended the tour with Shay seeming happier than I’d expected, especially since we were supposed to visit another two schools today. As we left Park Avenue and headed into the city, I prepared myself for a long tedious day, which was what I got. The other tours were just as boring, just as annoying with the reaction to my hair because I had to wonder if these people had ever even heard of Instagram, but Shay’s reaction just wasn’t as positive. Shame, too, because the second school had a better art program, and the third was closer to the penthouse.
By the end of the final tour, I was ready to go home, and though I wasn’t comfortable driving through Manhattan anymore, I didn’t have to.
We had two, count ‘emtwo,armed guards. George and Liam, although Liam would only be around when Shay was in class.
They’d shown up about a half-hour after Declan had left, and the necessity set my nerves on edge even if it had confirmed something to Seamus that I didn’t particularly want confirming.
He was like the kids in the schools he’d just been wandering through.
He needed a guard.
I wasn’t sure what was going through my kid’s mind, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t want him getting too cocky for his own good, too big for his britches as my grandma would have said, but toning things down wasn’t easy. One semester at the fancy school he liked cost more than a family home, and the penthouse wasn’t exactly slumming it.
I’d managed to keep things on the down low before, but he’d been dragged into this world and was coming face to face with the truth of his status.
At fourteen, that was enough to turn my great kid into an egomaniac, so I needed to make sure to bring him down a peg or two.
All throughout the tour, I’d been planning what to do, and my solution was simple.
Remind him of who he was.
What he was.
“Can you take us to the nearest KFC, please?”
The guards, neither of whom I recognized, didn’t reply, nor did our driver, which made me wonder if we’d even be heading that way. Were their orders to take me home immediately? I wouldn’t argue, even if the constraints would wear on me quickly.
The city had changed a lot since I was last here. Three or so years ago, I’d dared dash back for a gallery opening of old art school friends that I’d helped by holding an exhibition there, and had even had time to hold a workshop or two, but I’d sweated bullets each and every visit.
In my line of work, avoiding NYC was a death knell, so I’d braved it and, miracle of miracles, hadn’t been caught.
