“I came by to talk about the fundraiser,” he said. “When I saw Brittany in the hall, I had to compliment her on her delicious cake. Who are you?”
Beckett bristled at my side. I couldn’t stand the awkwardness or the weird testosterone spike in the room, so I stepped in. “Tristin, this is Beckett. He’s my boyfriend and the principal here.”
“We met at the fundraiser,” Beckett said flatly, not moving away from my side.
There was a flash of disappointment in Tristin’s eyes when I said the word “boyfriend,” but he didn’t comment on it. Just seeing it there made my stomach drop, though. Damn it.
“Yes, of course we did,” he said smoothly, but Beckett remained stiff at the dismissive tone of his voice. “You’ll have to forgive me. I was introduced to so many people that night.”
You’ll have to forgive me. A statement. Not a question.
Tristin didn’t apologize, nor did he seem at all remorseful about either not having remembered Beckett or, more likely, pretending that he didn’t. As if he’d heard my thoughts, he brought his gaze back to mine, and a faint smirk touched his lips.
“I’ve never been very good at names and faces. Have I, Brit?” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made me want to punch him—playfully, of course—for the obvious power play.
“Brit?” Beckett repeated the nickname, then narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t like the shortened version of your name. Why is Mr. Ramsey calling you by it?”
“Mr. Ramsey.” I accentuated the title and had to bite back a laugh at the humor that lit Tristin’s eyes when I did. “Tristin, I mean, went to high school with me. We’re old friends.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Tristin murmured.
Beckett’s brows drew together again, but he didn’t ask any more questions in front of Tristin. I also didn’t remind him that he was the one who didn’t like the cheapened, shortened version of people’s names. Personally, I didn’t mind it. Especially not when Tristin said it. In fact, I liked it when he used it. It reminded me of simpler, happier times.
“If you’re here to discuss the fundraiser, we should go to my office,” Beckett said curtly. “After you, Mr. Ramsey.”
He swept out his hand, pointedly waiting for Tristin to leave before shooting me a glare. “We’ll talk about this later.”
I nodded instead of rolling my eyes at him. “Sure. See you later.”
With every interaction between us, Beckett was treating me more and more like a child or a prized possession. I didn’t like it at all, but making a scene about it at school wasn’t an option. If I did, I’d be proving that I was as mature as the child he was treating me as.
The men departed, leaving me stewing in too many conflicting emotions as I sat down to grade my papers. Frustration over my situation with Beckett won out in the end, and I pressed my pen so hard into the paper that I nearly tore a sheet before I gave up.
No matter what Tristin stirred up in me, I needed to deal with Beckett first. Not only was our relationship not working, but he also needed to learn how to treat the woman he was with. That wouldn’t have been an easy conversation to have under the best of circumstances without it deteriorating into a lecture or a screaming match.
Since Beckett was still my principal and I really did love my job, it would be an even more difficult subject to broach. Breaking up with him was going to have to be done very delicately if I didn’t want our personal relationship to interfere with our professional one.
Or maybe I’m fooling myself to think there’s a way to do it that wouldn’t jeopardize my job. Suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, I went outside to get some air.
The bell had gone for recess, and Shelley was watching over our classes outside. She smiled when she saw me coming.
“Hey, you. What are you doing out here? It’s my turn to monitor today, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I needed to get out of my classroom. The walls were closing in on me.” I quickly gave her the lowdown of what had happened, explaining how Tristin had shown up and asked me out just before Beckett walked in.
“Well, what do you know?” she mused. “A midday dick-measuring contest over my best girl. How are you feeling about that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, repeating the same sentiment that I had at the fundraiser. “I’m confused as hell about Tristin. After the way I broke up with him, I never would’ve dreamed he’d been acting this way toward me if he ever came back.”
Before we could discuss it any further, there was a commotion on the playground. A flash of orange hair in the middle of it made me groan.
“It’s Lou again,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
Lou was eight and the most troubled student in my class. He had a rough home life, and that made for behavioral problems here at school. He and I had bonded, though. One of the other teachers had gotten bitten by him once when she tried to calm him down, and since then, there were few who went into the thick of it when he was involved.
When I rushed over to break things up, his freckled skin was red, eyes filled with anger. His face fell when he saw me, and the fight rushed out of him at the speed of light.
Lower lip trembling as I pulled him away, he pointed at the boy he’d been sitting on top of. “He made fun of my mom. She’s not a whore, Ms. Cleaver. I promise.”
“I know, sweetheart,” I said calmly. “What did I tell you about using that word, though?”
“It wasn’t me,” he protested loudly, wrenching his arm out of my grip as he shot the boy a narrow-eyed glare. “Peter said it. He said she’s a drunk and a whore.”
“Ms. Hart will set Peter straight. Why don’t you and I take a walk?” I met Shelley’s gaze and waved her over.
After letting her know what had happened, I watched as her mouth formed a hard line and left her to do what had to be done. Lou and I stayed on the playground but walked toward a pool of shade formed by the canopy of the towering oaks along the side.
“What Peter said hurt you.” I kept my voice soft and gentle as we sat down on the grass together.
Lou’s eyes were watery when he nodded. “He makes me so angry. They all do. They’re assholes.”
“They’re what?” I didn’t scold him for his language. The school counselor had been very clear with us when she’d explained that he’d lash out at any attack—perceived or otherwise.
He sighed. “I know it’s a bad word, but I can’t help it if that’s what they are. He said that I was a ginger and that I probably survived on eating souls since we can’t afford any food.”
Indignant rage flared in my belly. I hated how some of the kids treated him. We’d followed every process in the book, but it hadn’t helped much.
The school and parents were involved, but there was nothing I could do in this moment except to be there for him. “What Peter did was wrong, and what he said was very hurtful and unfair.”
He nodded, his little features scrunching up again. “What’s the but? I know there’s one coming.”
“The but is that two wrongs don’t make a right,” I said. “Getting into a fight is also wrong. Hitting him and resorting to violence isn’t the answer.”
Lou scoffed, averting his gaze as he crossed his arms tightly in front of him. “There’s nothing I can say back that will hurt him as much as my fist can.”
He kept raging for a few minutes after that, and I let him get it all out. At the end of the day, emotions were always better coming out than being bottled up.
Ha. Maybe you should follow your own advice on that one.
Putting a pin in that thought for now, I focused all my attention on Lou and had him laughing again soon enough. I wished there was more I could do for him, but there wasn’t. All I had left in my toolkit was to continue being here for him, and for now, that was going to have to be good enough.
7
TRISTIN
A hard-core workout like the ones I’d started every day since I’d enlisted usually helped me get m
y head straight. Almost as soon as I’d arrived home, I’d ordered the equipment I needed to turn the game room into a home gym.
When I eventually got around to getting a place of my own, I’d be taking this stuff with me. Lord knew it was saving my life—and probably the lives of all those who had to work with me later—by helping get all this fucking aggressive energy out.
While I thought I’d held my pose when I’d been at the school, I definitely hadn’t felt as calm as I’d tried to appear. I’d even baited the guy by calling her Brit and pretending like she still knew me, like there was some kind of inside joke he was missing.
I didn’t fucking bait people. My fist slammed into the punching bag so hard the chains rattled. But I’d definitely baited the asshole.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Finding out Brittany was dating someone had disappointed me, but it shouldn’t have knocked me off course this hard. I was practically burning up with the need to tear someone or something a new one.
It was a good thing I no longer had access to bombs, because I might have dropped one somewhere unpopulated just to take the edge off. Although, as soon as that thought hit, I knew it wasn’t true. I wouldn’t have done that, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t vibrating with unjustified, irrational fury.
Why am I never good enough for her? What is about me that she couldn’t live with when she can date a pompous prick like that fucking principal of hers?
All of last night, I’d tossed, turned, and then tossed some more. Archer had taken one look at my face when I’d gotten back to the office and had locked us both in. It had been a good call from him not to encourage interaction between me and anyone else.
He hadn’t asked how it had gone. The strategy he’d gone with instead was to offer me a choice between leaving and going to get blindingly day drunk, or to stay and get stuck into the real nitty-gritty. If it had been a month later, I’d have gone with going to get blind fucking drunk. It had been years since I’d done that, and it sounded like a brilliant plan, but it seemed like a bad idea when I really did need to be learning the ropes.
We’d gotten a lot more done than I’d thought we would, but it had only delayed the storm of emotions raging through me now. Since punching didn’t seem to be helping at all, I tossed my gloves down on the ground and went for a run instead.
I should’ve known all of this old shit was going to resurface at some point. What I was feeling now wasn’t only because I’d found out she was seeing someone. Sure, I was bitterly disappointed that she was and even more so that the guy she was seeing was such a dick, but this was more about all the unresolved issues in our past.
All that stuff had been shoved down so deep, I hadn’t taken any of it out in years, and now, it was all rushing to the surface. I didn’t want to relive those days, but I couldn’t help thinking back once my feet hit the pavement outside.
The rhythmic pounding of my footsteps didn’t lull me into a sense of calm like it usually did. Instead of the mindless, blissful escape I’d been after, I got catapulted into memories I’d rather not have had.
Brittany standing in front of me with her face blank, completely expressionless. Like she didn’t give a fuck that she was ripping my heart out when she told me it was over. How every reason she gave me for it had seemed like a lame excuse.
“We’re about to graduate, Tristin.” Her voice reverberated in my head. “After graduation, we’re going to start separate lives. It’s better if we just part ways now.”
Or better yet: “You didn’t really think we were going last, did you? We’re too different, Tristin.”
Even all these years later, it still felt like the Hulk had his fist wrapped around my lungs when I thought back to those words. Pushing through the feeling that I couldn’t breathe, I picked up my pace until I was sprinting down the street.
To this day, she hadn’t given me a single solid reason for her sudden change of mind. In fact, we’d hardly spoken at all after that conversation.
She hadn’t reached out to me again, and I sure as hell hadn’t reached out to her. As much as I felt like everything she’d fed me had been a bunch of lies, I’d refused to resort to begging her for the answers.
But maybe it hadn’t been a bunch of lies after all. Maybe she just really wasn’t and hadn’t been as into me as I had been—and still was—into her.
When I looked into her eyes, I still saw the future I’d conjured up for us back then. I still saw my grandmother’s ring on her finger and her walking down the aisle toward me. I still saw the house full of children we’d talked about having and the nights we should’ve spent tucking them in together.
I mean, for fuck’s sake.
On a much baser level, I’d also realized that I’d never wanted another woman the way I wanted her.
Memories of what we’d done together had kept me company through a lot of long, lonely nights. Which was fucking pathetic given that we’d started dating at sixteen. It had taken us two years of messing around before we’d finally slept together.
There had been a time when I’d taken advantage of the fact that women apparently liked men in uniform and hung out at the bars around the base just waiting for the pilots to come in. I’d seen my fair share of action, hoping that I’d forget the way it had felt to be with her, but it had never happened.
Eventually, I’d stopped trying. There had been a few women I’d dated casually, but as soon as things started getting serious, I’d ended it. Like some kind of commitment-phobic fuckboy.
The worst of it was that I hadn’t been home for much more than a week and I was already back in her trap. It was pathetic, and yet there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
At some point, I wanted to sit her down and have a real talk with her about what had happened. Not to confront her, but to try to find out what was so fucking lacking in me when she could date a prick like that.
If I was the type, maybe I would’ve tried to get back at her by throwing myself dick first at any vagina that moved. But I wasn’t that guy. Never had been and never would be.
I just had to remind myself of what I’d come home for. American Aviation. Not Brittany or a second bite at the cherry with her.
Focusing on work was what had gotten me through our breakup, and it would get me through this sudden, absurd resurgence of fuck old feelings that had no right to be back. It wasn’t like Brittany had led me on or given me hope.
She’d told me she’d baked a cake and then agreed to speak to me in her classroom. That was it.
Perhaps my time in said classroom would’ve been better spent demanding real answers than asking her out, but whatever. I’d spent fifteen years without answers. I wasn’t going to implode if I didn’t get them right this very minute, but I would get them.
If it was the last conversation we ever had, then so be it. Obviously, I needed proper closure now that I was back. She had no reason to deny me that.
By and large, except for when she’d broken up with me, Brittany was a reasonable person with a good heart. I was sure that if we could just sit down and talk about it, she’d tell me what I needed to know.
Eventually. I also wasn’t the guy who was going to storm back into her life and demand answers from her like she was a child who had misbehaved.
Rash decisions got people hurt. It had been true in the Air Force, and it was true now. I wouldn’t let these emotions run away with me. I couldn’t afford to.
My mind needed to be focused on the company, on rebuilding a life for myself here, and on adjusting to being a civilian. All of those things would require my full attention, and having come to that realization, I felt my rage, frustration, and confusion receding.
I had a plan. That was good. Now I just had to stick to it.
When I got back to the house after a run that had ended up being about ten miles long, I saw that the nurse had put my dad on the upstairs balcony. Veering off toward him instead of heading to my room, I poured a glass of water from the jug
she’d left out and drank it down.
“You’re looking better today,” I said once I’d swallowed. “You’ve got some color in your cheeks. I’m glad to see it.”
Dad smiled from the wicker chair he was sitting in, his back and legs supported by thick pillows as he reclined with an ottoman beneath his feet. The sun shone down on his gray hair, turning it a shining silver that made him seem stronger.
“I’m feeling better too,” he said. “The doctors say I’m recuperating well.”
“Great news.” I refilled the glass and motioned toward the one standing on the low table beside him. “Would you like some more?”
“Nah, I’m good. If you had a nice scotch with you, I’d have taken you up on it.” He chuckled, but the sound soon gave way to a soft sigh. “You don’t have to tell me that I can’t have scotch, and you don’t have to remind me that it’s not even eight in the morning yet.”
“I wasn’t going to do either of those things.” I sat down in the chair next to his. “Mind if I sit with you for a while?”
“Not at all. I won’t say I’m not surprised, though. You’ve been hitting the office much earlier than this every other morning.”
I shrugged. “I lost track of time while I was working out.”
“It looks like you pushed yourself quite hard,” he commented, his blue eyes sharpening as they lingered on my sweat-soaked shirt. “Is everything going okay at work?”
“Yep. Everything there is perfect,” I said.
He let out a relieved breath. “For a moment there, I thought perhaps you’d forgotten you weren’t on the base anymore. You got started down in that gym of yours hours ago. We don’t require extreme fitness at American Aviation, you know?”
I laughed when he broke into a grin. “I know. How do you know when I went down there?”
“I might be a frail old man, but I still like to know what’s going on underneath my own roof.” His grin melted away when he tipped his face toward the sun. “How are you doing? You seem to be adjusting well, but I know appearances can be deceiving.”
Bad For You Page 5
