She was probably right. She usually was. So I’d been trying to get better when it came to discipline.
“Why are you hiding behind the door?” I asked, flipping the collar of my white button-up down over the tie.
Olivette batted her lashes at me. “I found the outfit I want to wear.”
“Did you now?” I arched an eyebrow. Something told me I should be very suspicious of this behavior. “Let’s see then.”
“You said I could choose anything.”
Oh God, what have I done?
I frowned. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did, Daddy. I remember. This morning. We were eating cereal. And I asked if I could pick my clothes for parent-teacher meetings. And you said yes. So I picked.”
“Uh huh,” I said. She was rambling. The master manipulator knew the more words she used, the less likely she was to lose out on whatever it was she wanted. “Quit being sneaky. Let’s see this outfit of yours, kiddo.”
Olivette pushed herself through the doorway to jump over the metal strip nailed down between the carpet of the bedroom and the hardwood in the hallway. She landed with a thump, while simultaneously throwing her arms out wide and smiling at me. “Ta da!”
My daughter, the sneaky little trickster, was wearing a frosty blue princess dress covered in snowflakes. Her nana had bought it for her for her birthday in May, and she’d worn it around the house and out to dinner several times since. It wasn’t going to fit her for much longer, something I was stupendously grateful for, so the number of wears she had left were dwindling. But that fact did not mean I thought it was suitable for parent-teacher meetings.
“Erm,” I stammered, blinking at her sparkly dress and matching shoes. How did I handle this? Could I say no? Was that stepping on her right to make a decision—a right I’d handed to her this morning over cereal? “Did you show Nana?”
Olivette nodded dramatically and picked up the ends of her skirt to spin in a circle. The glitter danced obnoxiously. “Nana likes it. She says I’ll make an impression.”
“Yeah, I imagine you will.”
“I want to look pretty.”
My tie hung all kinds of crazy from my neck. I tore it off, threw it back on the bed, and dropped to a knee in front of my daughter. “Olivette, you always look pretty. You’re my beautiful princess. And if this is what you want to wear tonight, then that’s what you’ll wear. Now, I need your help.”
Olivette’s rosy cheeks and bright wide eyes made me grin. She nodded eagerly. “How can I help, Daddy?”
I pushed up to my feet and pulled two T-shirts out of my closet, one black, one dark gray. “I need you to tell me which of these shirts I should wear. It’s important.”
Olivette’s brown eyes swung from one shirt to the other. Her lips pursed, and her eyes got all scrunched, and she pressed a finger to her lips in a pensive, thoughtful expression. I had no clue where she’d learned it from. Some TV show probably. “I like the gray one.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
She nodded. “Positive. The gray one.”
I plucked it from the hanger. “Gray it is.”
My grandmother called Olivette and me to dinner. Olivette sprang out into the hallway, and her heels hitting the floor faded away as she approached the kitchen. I changed into my gray shirt and followed her out and joined them at the kitchen table, where my grandmother had laid out a spread of corn on the cob, baked potatoes, and chicken.
I cut Olivette’s pieces and slid her plate back to her. She dug in.
My grandmother sat at the opposite end of the table from me. Her glasses were up on her head, buried in her gray permed hair like they always were when she cooked, and she leaned forward to undo the apron behind her back. Once she had it undone, she set it aside on the empty chair across from Olivette.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said.
My grandmother smiled at me. Wrinkles sprang to life in her skin. “You’re welcome. You’ve been busy at work. And you know how much I love to cook.”
There were times, like tonight, where I felt like I was taking advantage of my grandmother. She was in her early seventies and in good health due to her lifestyle. Most people thought she was only sixty or so. She walked every morning and kept busy. She had a busy social life and went to ladies’ nights, where, on more than one occasion, I’d had to come pick her up at the bar after she indulged in one too many martinis. Her favorite drink. Her friends usually hitched a ride, and I’d come to find the constant discussion of my good looks and muscles amongst my grandmother’s friends as humorous, rather than humiliating, which was how I’d felt the first few times it happened.
My grandmother assured me it was all in good fun and suggested I wear long-sleeved shirts to pick her up in the future.
I’d listened.
She’d lived with me and Olivette since my daughter was born. I hadn’t had to ask her to help. She’d just showed up two nights after I brought Olivette home from the hospital with two suitcases in tow and told me she would need the guest room. She hadn’t left since, and in the months that followed, we emptied her apartment and completed the move.
I would never be able to thank her enough for coming to my rescue when Olivette and I lost her mother. It was a curveball life threw my way that I never expected and that I never thought I’d get through. There were dark days after that. Very dark.
The only light was my little girl. My perfect, precious, wonderful little girl who was half of me and half the woman I lost.
“So you don’t mind that Olivette wears her princess dress to the meeting tonight?” my grandmother asked.
I swallowed my food and washed it down with a sip of water. “No. If that’s what she wants to wear, then she can wear it.”
My grandmother looked down at her plate, and I had a suspicion this was one of those moments where she thought I should put my foot down and say no. But Olivette was happy, and she loved that little dress, and she was running out of days where she’d be able to wear it. I didn’t want to be the father who rained on her parade over something as simple as an outfit. It meant a lot to her and nothing to me what she wore, so who was I to tell her no?
“Well,” my grandmother said, “I think you look lovely, Olivette. I just worry that you might get to the school and see all the other kids in their shorts and T-shirts. Will that bother you?”
“No,” Olivette said quickly.
“You heard her,” I said.
My grandmother dropped the subject. “Very well. I’m sure a lot of the other little girls will wish their father was cool enough to let them wear a princess dress to school.”
Olivette wiggled excitedly in her seat and grinned at me. I grinned back. It was impossible not to. “Thanks, Nana.”
I glanced at the clock and realized we were running short on time. I polished off the last bite of my dinner and asked Olivette to go to the bathroom before we left. She slid off her chair and went down the hall as I collected the dishes and began loading them in the dishwasher.
My grandmother came and stood beside me near the stove, where she put the kettle on to fix herself a cup of tea. She did this every night after dinner. It was either ginger and lemon tea or chamomile, depending on her mood. She folded her arms over her chest. “Are you looking forward to tonight?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
“Because this is a big step. Olivette is going to school. She won’t be here all day anymore. She’ll be there.”
I swallowed. “Yes, and?”
“And it’s an adjustment for every parent to make. I won’t blame you if you’re… emotional.”
I scowled at her. “Nana, don’t toy with me like that. I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
Chuckling, I nodded. “Yes! Yes, I’m fine. This is good. For all of us. Olivette needs this. And you could do with some free afternoons, don’t you think?”
My grandmother smiled coyly. “Don’t turn this around on me. I just want to make sure you have yo
urself together enough not to cry in front of her new teacher. I have tissues in my purse if you’d like to borrow it.”
“Very funny.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I’m not trying to be funny.”
I closed the dishwasher with my hip. “You could’ve fooled me.”
She fished her favorite mug out of one of the top cupboards. It had a little sparrow on it and yellow and pink flowers. “Your grandfather used to say that to me all the time.”
“Probably because you spent all your time trying to fool him, you sneaky woman.”
She laughed. “Yes, well, a good wife keeps her husband on his toes. Good for the brain.” She tapped her temple with the tip of her forefinger.
“Liar. You just liked being top dog.”
“Liked?” she asked sharply. “Past tense? I don’t think so, son. I’m still top dog.”
I would have protested, but she and I both knew she was right.
6
Allie
Planting my hands on my hips, I stood back to admire my classroom.
It had come a long way since last night when I first arrived to start setting up. I’d received my class list with all my students, a grand total of fifteen kindergarteners, and had used said list to label all the cubbies and hooks where they would hang their jackets and put away their items when they first got to class. I’d also labeled their desks, where they wouldn’t spend a whole ton of time, but I wanted to avoid the arguments anyway, and I’d made sure the fridge shelves were also labeled to make it easy to keep track of lunches.
The decorating had been good fun too.
I’d hung some of my favorite posters, all paint by number pictures from previous students. They were six-foot wide by three-feet high, and I had one hung that wasn’t colored, which we would spend the year working on together. Then the kids would sign their names, and I would make sure it was hung up next year, too.
It was a tradition.
I moved to the whiteboard to print my name across it in blue marker. The parents would be arriving any minute now with their children, and I wanted to make sure everything was just right.
There was a desk at the entrance with a pamphlet which contained a syllabus. I knew such a thing was a bit extreme for a kindergarten class, but I only did it so the parents could see what my plan was for the year. Where my focus was.
Basic math skills, social skills, and reading skills.
Emphasis on reading skills.
Hopefully, the parents of my kids this year would understand why it should be a top priority. The public-school systems were being flooded with kids who couldn’t read, and that affected every single subject. I was determined not to send my kids forward into a school system that was not going to be of any help to them if they didn’t have these skills, and I was fully aware it was not something many parents took the time to nurture.
Beside the printed-out syllabus pamphlets, there was a charcuterie platter, paper plates, and a sangria pitcher filled with iced lemon water. On the opposite end of the table, there was a veggie platter. Hopefully, I checked everyone’s boxes, and people didn’t arrive hungry.
Hunger wasn’t the biggest of my worries, however.
Mrs. Tully was.
Brady was in my class.
There was no telling what kind of wild experiences I was going to have with her this year, but I knew whatever they were, I would learn from them. It was that simple. I refused to be the teacher she bullied into getting her way, or Brady’s way, and I refused to let her frazzle me and knock me off my game.
This was my classroom. The shots were mine to call. And I was going to have to keep that in mind for the rest of the year.
The first of the parents and children began arriving at five minutes to seven. The first few went straight past the “buffet” and took up desks with their children, but as soon as they saw other people filling up their plates with snacks, they went back to get some for themselves. I encouraged everyone to help themselves, to grab water, and to get comfortable, and I maintained my position at the front of the room.
It was important to show the parents that I was supposed to be there. That I’d earned it.
Mrs. Tully and Brady came through the door two minutes past seven. Brady had an iPad clutched in both hands and only didn’t walk straight into my buffet table because his mother steered him by the back of his neck, her perfectly manicured red fingernails flashing on either of his shoulders.
She was dressed in a white pencil skirt and black blouse that plunged rather low. A sparkly jewel hung between her cleavage, and she pursed her plump red lips as she looked around the room, seeking out a seat. She strode forward, the heels of her six-inch pumps clicking across the floor, and her son snickered at something playing on his tablet.
Mrs. Tully took her seat near the front. Brady sat beside her. Then she looked around and spotted the papers on everyone else’s tables. She cleared her throat. “Am I supposed to have one of those?” Her voice was tight, strained, and demanding.
The other parents blinked dubiously at her.
I moved forward. “I’ll grab you one from the back. It’s just a syllabus I threw together so that all parents and legal guardians are aware of my plans for the year.”
Mrs. Tully stared blankly at me. “Okay.”
Wearing a practiced smile, I went to the back of the room by the door. I picked up a syllabus and held it up. “Does anyone else need one?”
A couple of hands went up, and I gathered a few. When I went to step out from behind the table, they slipped from my fingers. In my attempt to catch them mid-air, they flew wildly around my head and scattered all around the floor.
“Shoot,” I muttered under my breath. I dropped to a crouch.
There was a matte-black boot on top of one of my papers. I reached for it and looked up the length of a man’s leg. He was wearing dark washed jeans and a gray T-shirt under a thin black jacket. I gazed up at his face, caught him smiling at me, and willed myself not to turn hot pink.
I failed.
He dropped to a crouch in front of me and began collecting my papers. “Happens to the best of us,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth.
I sucked in a sharp breath of embarrassment and inhaled a whiff of something glorious. Pine. Sandalwood. Smoke.
Him.
I dared not look up into his face. I’d gotten a sneak peek when I gazed up the length of his leg, and I knew from that paralyzing half-second how handsome he was. He was in the air all around me, and I watched, transfixed by the tendons that flexed in his wrists as he collected all my papers, except one, from the floor.
I reached for the last one, and his fingers grazed mine. We both pulled away and rose to our feet, and I did my best to keep my gaze averted until the last possible second, where I hoped my pink cheeks were no longer neon and my eyes weren’t bulging out of my head.
“Thank you,” I said, finally gathering the nerve to look at him.
I regretted it instantly.
He was obnoxiously good looking. The kind of good looking you didn’t see on the street every day. Or ever. The kind of good looking that invited trouble. And flushed cheeks. And fidgeting fingers.
The kind of good looking that ended in trouble.
“You’re welcome,” he said smoothly.
He had blond hair cropped short on top and even shorter on the sides. His eyes were deep and dark, and for a moment, I assumed they were brown, only to realize that they were actually blue.
Quite blue.
His jaw was sharp and clean-shaven. I imagined for a brief moment what it might feel like to run my fingers along it. Like touching a statue, I supposed.
And then my consciousness slammed back into me, and I remembered where I was.
My classroom. Surrounded by four-year-olds and their parents. And there I was, getting all flustered over a hot dad.
Pull yourself together, Allie.
I thrust my hand into the open space between us. “I’
m Ms. Branson.”
His blue eyes flicked to my hand, and he clasped it in his own. His grip was firm, warm, and calloused. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Branson. I’m Mav Cantone.”
“Cantone,” I said thoughtfully. “You’re Olivette’s father.”
His eyes widened a little at that. “Yes. Do we know each other?”
I shook my head and tucked my syllabus pamphlets under one arm. “No. Sorry. I spent some time organizing the classroom and staring at my attendance sheet. Your daughter has a unique name. I remembered her. Speaking of which, is she here?”
Mav looked down toward his right side, and there, hovering behind his muscular thigh, was a blonde-haired little girl with deep brown eyes and a face full of freckles. She blinked shyly at me before retreating behind the safety of her father’s leg. It was as thick as a tree trunk.
Several kids could have hidden behind him.
“She’s shy,” Mav said.
“That’s okay.” I looked to where Olivette was hiding and caught her eye when she poked her head out for a second time. “I’m really shy too. There’s no pressure in my classroom. How about you two find a seat at the back, grab a snack, and we can chat later? Sound good?”
Mav nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Branson.”
He turned and walked away, forgoing the snacks I’d laid out. Olivette hovered behind his every step, matching them with her own like she was his secondary shadow. Then they took their seats, and Mav pulled her up onto his lap.
She wore a powder-blue sparkly dress and left a trail of fine glitter in her wake.
I smiled to myself as I made my way to the front of the class, pausing to hand Mrs. Tully her syllabus. She looked down the length of her perfect nose at it before putting it down face first on the desk. I let it roll off my shoulders, took my place at the front of the class—my class—and looked out at the faces in front of me.
Here goes nothing.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming. I know you all have very busy lives, and I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary. So let’s get started. I have plenty of time afterward to answer any and all of your questions or address any concerns you might have. If you keep your syllabus, you will leave tonight with my contact information. You can reach me via email or by calling the school. I want us to have an open line of communication because we’re on the same team. Your children’s team.” I smiled expectantly.
Ignite The Spark Between Us: Searing Saviors #4 Page 4
