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15
LAYLA
Monday at school, I could barely make it through my classes without checking my phone. But I did, because despite being as hyped up on love as some of my teenage students, I was still a professional. The moment the bell rang, however? Boom. Straight for my phone in the desk drawer, eager to continue our text conversation until the new class started.
Zac: Chicken parm.
I grinned down at my phone. Right before my last class, he’d told me about his newfound interest in cooking, and I’d asked him what Grayson’s favorite meal was.
Me: Ooh, he’s a boy after my own heart. I love chicken parm. You’ll have to make it for me one night.
Zac: I will. Gray will be pumped. He says he’d eat it every night if I let him, but I need a little more variety.
I chuckled as I sat in my desk chair, propping my feet up on my desk. It was so interesting to me that Zac had taken up cooking. He’d never bothered with it before, apparently because he was a single dude who spent long shifts in a police cruiser eating fast food. I remembered that he tried to be healthy about it whenever he could because he still had to maintain such strict physical fitness standards, but with a job like his, sometimes there simply wasn’t time.
Once he’d gotten Grayson, though, Zac said he’d needed to pay a lot more attention to ingredients thanks to his son’s severe peanut and tree nut allergy. That led him to care more about what he was putting in his own body, which drove him to learn how to cook. He’d been surprised to find that he really enjoyed it, too, and that only made me swoon harder. There was something about a man who could cook that spoke to me. Must be my Italian roots.
Zac: Sorry, just got a call. Talk later.
I frowned down at my phone. This was my free period, and I’d been excited to have more time to text with him. Iwasas bad as my students. If I had a mirror in front of me right now, I’d probably look like one, too, all broody and stuff.
Me: Okay, be safe.
Zac: Always.
I put my phone down with a sigh, leaning my head on the back of my chair. It wasn’t like I expected him to have time to text with me all day while he was working. I vividly remembered our conversations stalling whenever he got a call, and then I’d hold my breath until he popped back up again afterward. When it came to dating an MP, it felt exactly the same now as it had back then. Nerve-racking.
Sure, the military bases in South Carolina were relatively chill. He’d said Yuma was a lot rougher because there wasn’t much to do in the small Arizona town, and with boredom came an uptick of crime. Plus, being in close proximity to Mexico, they’d gotten a lot more drug calls out there. And with those came more domestic violence calls.
According to Zac, the base at Beaufort was better than Yuma had been, and now he found that Parris Island had its own unique challenges since it was boot camp. The recruits themselves were almost a nonissue. They wouldn’t risk getting in trouble with their drill instructors, so they often didn’t cause problems. And since their property was taken away upon landing there, there wasn’t any theft or burglary to deal with.
But being a drill instructor is an incredibly intense and emotionally taxing job, and that across-the-board job stress sometimes resulted in PMO getting called. Either way, in Zac’s words, wherever there were people, there were bound to be problems. Regardless of rank or job, things happened. When they did, he was proud to be there to hopefully de-escalate and mediate wherever possible.
I’d almost forgotten how stressful it was to love a military police officer. Every guy I’d dated since had been in some kind of benign job field. There’d been a carpenter, a barber, a bank teller, and even a veterinarian. I hadn’t intentionally gone for guys like that in my quest to get over Zac, but maybe some part of me didn’t want to feel that icky sense of dread all the time. It wasn’t so bad that it made me question being with him—our own past was the only thing doing that—but it was still hard nonetheless.
Shaking my head, I got up and grabbed my wallet. Maybe I just needed a Snickers. According to the commercials, they fixed everything, right? I left my room, locked it behind me, and headed for the teachers’ lounge. Shelby’s mom was coming out as I was going in, finished with her break.
“Hey, sweetheart, how’s your day going?” Stella asked, giving me a wide smile.
“Great, yours?”
“Well, I had a fight break out right before my free period. So, that was fun.”
I chuckled. Tempers ran hot in these hallowed halls. “A real fight? Like, a physical fight?”
“Yep.”
“Was it about a girl?”
“Oh, no. In this case, it was about a boy. I had two girls rolling around the floor, pulling hair, paint was flying, it was a mess. Literally and figuratively.”
The scene played in my mind, and I shuddered, glad it had been her and not me. As a veteran teacher with more than thirty years at this very school, Stella was great at handling stuff like that. Me? I tended to freeze and watch the fight like I was on an episode ofJerry Springer. Not exactly the best quality in a teacher, but hey, with time came experience, right?
“I’m glad you had a free period right after so you could relax a little before your next class. I hope it goes better.”
“I hope so, too. The boy in question is in this one, though, so I’m sure I’ll spend most of the hour telling the class to stop gossiping and pay attention.” Stella started to leave, then turned back. “Also, thank you again for doing that painting. It really was amazing.”
“It was my pleasure. Thank you for hiring me.”
