We hung up and I finished typing up my email, then sent it and logged out of my computer. I grabbed my cellphone and hurried out of the office. “Mary, I have to leave. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Is everything alright?” she asked.
I paused at the door and shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it will be. Pack up and leave, because it’s not fair for you to be stuck behind.” I smiled and quickly left the office.
When I got to my car, I had dialed up Tasha’s number. She answered almost immediately. “Hello?”
“Hey, Tasha…it’s Matt.” I slid into my car and started it up, then backed out. I fumbled with the phone and putting my seatbelt on, but finally got it done, before I continued. “Just got a call from Cody’s school. They asked me to come in and speak with them. Any ideas why?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I waited, getting a little impatient at her stalling. I opened my mouth to tell her to just spit it out and let me know what happened, when she responded. “Well, there was a little altercation at the school when I picked up Cody. Some kid was bullying him.”
That was all I needed to hear. As a scrawny kid growing up, I also got bullied. It was never fun. I despised being the one that always got picked on. “A bully?” I asked. There was a knot in the pit of my stomach. “What happened?”
She quickly told me her side of it, about how she was standing up for Cody and I couldn’t really knock her for that. I appreciated that she cared enough to stand up for him. So, I just listened and reflected on her information. “Cody and I talked, and he said it’s been going on for a while now. What bothered me the most was that with all of the students and teachers out on the schoolgrounds, no one noticed this kid Bobby pushing him around.”
“He should have said something to me about this,” I mumbled, but again I knew what he was going through. I never said anything because I thought it would only make it worse, and I never had someone like Tasha that would stand up for me. I pulled into the parking lot of the school. “Alright. I’m here at the school about to go in,” I told her, not feeling any more at ease than I did when the dean called me.
“Okay, I’m sorry you had to leave work and go up there, Matt,” she said.
I parked my car. “You don’t have to apologize. Thank you, Tasha. I’ll be home when I’m done here. Bye.”
“Bye,” she softly replied. I hung up the call and got out of my car. I slipped my phone into my pocket, prepared to know what I was battling.
***
Dean Westcott peeked her head out of the office and motioned for me that she was ready. I truly felt like I was going to the lion’s den, but this was ridiculous. If this was about what happened in the schoolyard, then it was their fault, not anyone else’s.
I took a seat in the chair that she pointed to. There was a man seated in the chair next to the principal. She soon introduced him. “This is Henry Jackson. He’s the head of the board at this school.”
I nodded and ignored his outstretched hand. I looked at her and she cleared her throat, before she began.
“It’s been brought to my attention that there was an incident on the lawn today when the students were getting picked up. Bobby Gentry’s mother and father called me and said they didn’t appreciate that their little boy was being bullied by one of the guardians.”
“Hmmm…” I sighed, shaking my head. “There was an incident?” I asked. I tried to keep my emotions in check, but I was fuming inside. “You think Bobby was bullied? Well, that’s quite interesting, considering that no one at this school knows who the real bullies are. My babysitter simply was trying to point out that bullies shouldn’t be tolerated…and that bully is Bobby Gentry who has been riding down on my nephew and extorting money from him for God knows how long. My babysitter should be commended for addressing a situation that was happening right underneath your noses and none of you even noticed,” I added and looked between the two of them. They gave me a look of disapproval.
“Well, we don’t tolerate adults bullying kids, and you should mention this to your babysitter, before she’s no longer allowed at this school,” Dean Westcott said defensively, her voice rising an octave.
“Wow! So, you don’t tolerate adults sticking up for children, but you tolerate other kids bullying, so they can weasel lunch money out of some unsuspecting kid?”
Dean Westcott shrugged. “We aren’t sure what really happened.”
I heaved a sigh and rolled my eyes. “I just told you what happened.”
“We have to look out for all of our children, and adult’s harassing other people’s children is simply not allowed,” Dean Westcott said.
“I thought you said you weren’t sure what happened.”
“Sir—” Dean Wescott began, but I cut her off by holding up my hand.
“Well, it’s like this…it seems to me that you’re more concerned about my babysitter’s actions than the fact that she was protecting my nephew. That’s ridiculous and I will pull Cody out of this school without batting an eye,” I fumed. “Plus, I have no problem removing all my financial backing to this school and you know that there’s a lot.”
“You don’t need to do that. We’re just saying that maybe you should tell your babysitter to back off,” the head of the board spoke up.
I leaned back in my chair and fired shots at them both. “I think that instead of that, you need to start implementing plans to reduce the bullying, because I’m sure Cody isn’t the only one.” I stood up from my chair. As far as I was concerned, the meeting was over. I glanced at Dean Westcott for a minute. “That should be your challenge. Get rid of the bullying and this school will be better. Besides, I doubt my friends that have their kids in this school would appreciate knowing this is going on. And I have no issues with telling them and maybe they will want to pull their child from this school, as well.”
“You don’t need to be hasty,” she huffed.
I laughed, and it was mixed with a little arrogance. “You haven’t seen anything yet. I promise you that my words aren’t just empty promises.” I turned around, but when I reached the door, I looked back at them. “For the record…I stand by Tasha and I don’t have to apologize for her. She did nothing wrong.” I left the office, leaving them both dumbfounded.
I got out to my car and hopped inside, then started it, and backed out of the parking spot. I was ready to get home to Cody and make Tasha aware that I wasn’t taking their side and that’s what really mattered.
The house was twenty minutes from the school. When I got home, I entered the house and found them in the kitchen. Tasha already had Cody sitting down for the food that the cook had prepared for him. She looked up and her face was one that looked worried.
“How’d it go?” she nervously asked.
I shrugged. “I just stated my case. I don’t stand for bullies and I think they should have the same beliefs. If they don’t, then that’s their problem…and it’s going to be a big problem for them. I’ll make sure of it. No one is going to bully Cody around and be protected by the principal.”
She nodded. “I was so upset when I witnessed it. I just had to do something.”
“Thank you, Tasha, for being there for Cody,” I said and looked into her distressed brown eyes. I wanted to touch her hair and rub it back into place, and run the pad of my thumb across her pouting lips, but I refrained from my desire to console her. At least, not in the way I wanted to.
Cody looked up at me. “The cook made beef and noodles, my favorite,” he said with a smile.
I smiled too. “Sounds delicious,” I said.
“Then, I’ll be heading home, so you guys can enjoy your dinner,” Tasha said, breaking me from the moment.
“Why don’t you stay and eat with us?” I suggested. “After all, I think enough was prepared and it would be my way of thanking you for today.” I looked around the kitchen. “Besides, you didn’t try to burn my house down today, so that’s always a plus.” I laughed, so she would sense
that I was really just teasing about that. She looked at me, then down at my nephew.
“Please Tasha…stay!” Cody begged.
It warmed my heart that he’d already grown so attached. When she looked up at me again, she nodded. “I would love to stay and have dinner with you.”
“Good!” I said. I went over to the counter to grab two more plates, then turned around and saw Tasha and Cody were deep in conversation. I smiled knowing she was someone we could both get attached to.
Chapter Seven
Tasha
After we got past the fact that I unwittingly got Matt sent to the principal’s office, things settled into a normal routine of my picking Cody up from school, giggling and talking for a while, getting his homework done and dinner warmed up. I never expected to have a job as a babysitter, but Cody was a wonderful kid, and his uncle wasn’t so bad either. I could get used to the job, especially working for the hottest bachelor in town. Of course, I didn’t speak those thoughts out loud. I stayed on my best behavior, and I didn’t do anything to provoke Matt into thinking that he couldn’t trust me. In fact, I was a pretty darn good babysitter, despite originally not having any experience.
So, when Cody came to me and told me that he wanted to have some guys over after school, I didn’t really think much of it. After all, I was glad to see that he was becoming sociable with some of the other kids from school, especially after the incident with Bobby the bully.
“Sure thing, Cody,” I responded. I was going to be the cool babysitter if it killed me. I didn’t know then that it very well could have.
When I was leaving their house, Matt walked me to the door. “What’s this I hear about some of the guys coming over tomorrow?” Matt asked. He held a little smirk on his lips, which I found sexy and enduring.
I smiled and shrugged. “Oh, Cody told you already? I was planning to talk to you about it before I left, but it’s really no biggie. Just thought it’d be a way for Cody to make more friends. Nothing much actually.”
He nodded slowly. “Ever hang out with three or four ten-year olds?” he asked. The way he was looking at me made me sense that he had a secret of some sort.
I laughed. “Well, no, but how hard could it be? I can take them to get some ice cream, watch them play a game of football, put a movie on. It’s really quite routine.”
He arched an eyebrow, then laughed and shook his head. “You really have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” He snickered, and it was so cute. “I would pay money to be here, actually.”
I frowned. That was an unusual response. I mean, they were ten-year olds, not toddlers, but Matt was grinning at me and looking so sexy that I really didn’t care if he wanted to tease me with it. I would prove that I could handle a few ten-year olds.
“I’ve got this Matt.” I playfully patted his shoulder and his eyes bore this smoldering heat into mine, causing me to slowly pull my hand away. I didn’t recognize that kind of passion between two people, and I certainly never saw a man stare at me with such hunger in his eyes. I was taken aback and slowly backed up, nearly falling out of the house.
He laughed as if to say that that alone proved I couldn’t handle that many boys. I could feel the blush creeping up from my neck to my cheeks. “You don’t think I can handle it, is that it?” I asked. My tone was quiet and maybe a little hurtful that he had no faith in me.
He shrugged. “Guess it’s not so much that I don’t think you can handle it, it’s just that I’m reminded of how things went on the first day you were here.”
I crossed my arms in front of me and gawked at him. “Not really fair there, Matt. You know that I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve been here a few weeks now, nearly a month, and have I given you reason to doubt me?”
He tilted his head, his eyes sparking with a mischievous grin and then he slowly shook his head. “No…you have not given me any reason to doubt you. I stand corrected. I am sure that tomorrow will be amazing.”
This time I felt that he was teasing me even harder, but I wasn’t going to worry about that. I would prove him wrong if it was the last thing I did. “It will be amazing and it’s really quite a shame that you won’t be here.” I smiled at him and let out a snicker of my own. “Have a good evening, Matt.” I turned around and left him to stand there. I honestly didn’t think it would be that big of deal.
However, the next day, I was thirty minutes into it and thinking a totally different story. Four boys, including Cody, loaded up in the back of my vehicle and I took them to get ice cream, making that our first stop.
It was all simple enough, but after each getting their ice cream cone and taking a seat in the booth, the simple turned into chaotic. “I should have gotten chocolate,” Bryce, one of the boys said.
Another boy, Jason, tried to taunt it in his face that he was eating chocolate and that irritated Bryce, so he flipped his hand up, catching the cone and knocking it from Jason’s hand and onto the floor.
Jason shot up. “Are you kidding me? That was a jerky move,” he shot back.
That caused Bryce to stand up and defend his actions. You shouldn’t have been rubbing it in my face. Cody and the other boy, Max, were watching it all unfold and eating their ice cream, as I stood up and got between the two. “It’s alright boys. We’ll fix it.” I heaved a sigh and got up, hurrying to get some napkins to clean up the mess. One of the employees noticed the fiasco and came over to help out, which I appreciated. Once we had it all cleaned up, Bryce looked at his vanilla cone and the ice cream was running down the sides.
“Yuck,” he murmured. He walked over and tossed it in the trashcan, then looked at me with a pleading look. I looked around at the four of them. “I’ll get you both a chocolate cone,” I said. They seemed happy with that and I went over and bought two more cones, this time making sure Bryce got his chocolate one. When I got back to the table, with the cones in tow, Bryce looked at it. “Maybe I wanted strawberry.” I glared at him and he snickered. “I’m kidding…chocolate is great.” He grabbed the cone and the kids happily ate their ice cream as I tried to focus on my own, before it melted and got everything sticky.
That was just the beginning of the day. After the five of us had our ice cream gone, we all loaded back up in my vehicle and headed back to Matt’s house. When we got out of the vehicle, I asked the crazy question of what everyone wanted to do. That elicited four different responses, everything from video games to playing with the football in the backyard. I saw a problem, so I wanted to fix it. “How about we compromise?” I asked. “Let’s put the suggestions in a bowl and draw one out and that’s what you can do first. Deal?”
They seemed apprehensive, at first, but then agreed to do it my way. I wrote down their four suggestions. Play video games, play football, watch a movie, and play War. I wasn’t sure what it entailed to playing War, but I wrote it down anyway.
“Who wants to draw out the winner?” I asked.
“You should do it Tasha,” Cody suggested. That actually made a valid point, since the others would argue over who should draw out the choice. So, I held it up, so it wouldn’t appear I was cheating, then swished them around and pulled out game number one. “Football,” I said. That was met with three other groans, but we all traipsed out to the backyard and got the football anyway.
I sat back and watched as they got on two separate teams and started their game. After a while, it seemed like they were forgetting the fact that the majority didn’t want to play the game and they started to get into it. I was pleased with myself that the compromise seemed to work.
At least that was for the first twenty minutes and then Bryce was running with the ball towards the goal and Jason must’ve still had it out for him because of the ice cream situation, because he ran into Bryce tackling him to the ground and literally pinning him down.
“Ouch!” Bryce hollered, the minute his knee hit the ground. I jumped up and ran to him.
“Are you alright?” I asked. Jason rolled off him, looking too please
d with the tackle. Bryce rolled onto his back and held his knee. Even through his pants, I could tell he was bleeding underneath. “Bryce, I’ll clean you up,” I said. I helped him up and he leaned on me to walk back to the house, but after a while, he started walking normally.
I took him into the bathroom and he sat on the toilet. I pulled his pants up and sure enough he had a gash on his knee. I wasn’t certain how to fix it, but wound up playing it by ear. I looked in the medicine cabinets and drawers and located antibiotic cream, gauze, and tape that I could cover over the gauze.
“Does it hurt really badly?” I asked. I first wiped it off, to clean it, then put some cream over it.
“It stings, but I’m tough,” he said.
“I can see you are,” I said smiling. I finished cleaning him up and taping the gauze to his knee. “There. You’ll be good as new,” I said.
“Thanks!” He pulled his pant leg down, then stood up.
That’s when I heard Cody. “Uh…Tasha?” I looked to find him standing at the door, his fingers squeezing his nose, as blood was dripping onto his shirt.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“Uh…I kind of hit him with the football,” Max said, following up the rear.
I groaned and looked at him, then helped him into the bathroom. This was a long afternoon already, I wondered when it would be time to get these kids home.
That didn’t come for another two hours, but after I got Cody cleaned up, we had least settled on just watching a movie, because it was a lot tamer than football and I certainly didn’t want to play a game called War, because it looked like they had already been through a war.
When the movie was over, I told them that I needed to get them home and that caused them to groan, but I was beat and figured that to regain my sanity, I needed to get them home. Plus, Matt would be home soon, and the cook would start preparing their supper.
We got in my vehicle and I took them on the path that each one led me to their home. I smiled and waved as they got out of my car one by one. Even though every bone in my body was tired and I just wanted to crash into my bed, I kept up appearances. When I got back to Matt’s place, I saw his car in the driveway. My freedom was near.
Drive Me Wilde (Breathless Book 6) Page 4
