Chapter 6

BRATT.

It was strange to walk up the stairs and into the office without Noah clinging to me like a little koala bear.

Sylvia, my administrative assistant, was at her desk and gave me a knowing look when she saw me.

“How’s our boy doing?” she asked.

“There was a moment where he latched onto my leg—first-day nerves and all that. His teacher is really great with him, though. Got him to go in willingly. No tears at all.”

“I’m glad Noah’s doing well, Bratt, but I was asking about you.”

I blinked, momentarily confused, then laughed. I sat on the edge of her desk, bending one knee. “Is it that obvious?”

“I’ve known you since before Noah was born, so I do like to think I have an eye for your moods.” Sylvia’s eyes crinkled. “Plus, I’ve raised a litter of my own. I remember the first day of school very well.”

I nodded and exhaled heavily. “I feel like I’m missing a limb. It’s taking just about everything in me not to turn around and take him out of school.”

“You’ll get used to it in no time, especially when the art projects start rolling in. All the macaroni necklaces and portraits. You’ll love it too much to give it up. You’ll also get used to having some grown-up time all to yourself surprisingly fast,” she said with a laugh. “By the time summer rolls around, you’ll be begging me for help again like when you were a brand-new father.”

“Have I thanked you for that lately, by the way?”

“Every chance you get, sweetheart,” Sylvia said with a roll of her eyes. “But don’t worry about it. It’s been a pleasure to help you learn how to be a father and watch Noah grow up. I’m so proud of you both.”

In some ways, Sylvia was like a second mother to me. She’d been in her late forties back when I hired her as a secretary, and as I grew up and became a father, she came to fill the role of both employee and mentor. I’d tried multiple times to give her a promotion to chief operations officer, but every time I’d offered it to her, she politely declined. She said a role as COO would be like marrying her job, and she had no interest in being married to her job.

Regardless, she still did much of the work a COO would do, but she liked not being obligated to do it.

I was happy to pay her an executive’s salary regardless of what we called her. Sylvia was an invaluable part of my team, and many of the efficiencies my company could tout came directly from her. She was a genius when it came to logistics.

Speaking of logistics…

“How are preparations going for the meeting with Lennon Brooks this week? Are we still on to talk about purchasing the plot of land in town?”

“Travis didn’t tell you?” she asked. “The meeting got canceled in a…fairly dramatic way.”

“Uh, no. Travis didn’t tell me.”

“Because I was waiting for him to be less stressed.But thanks for that, Syl,” Travis said from behind me. “You’re already on edge. I didn’t want to make it any worse.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, my inner wolf rankling.

Travis approached the desk. He crossed his arms and shifted his weight to one foot.

“Brooks let slip that we’re a wolf-owned business,” Travis said. “Apparently, the property owners aren’t interested in doing business with ‘filthy mongrels.’”

I inhaled deeply, flexing my hands to rid myself of some of the tension building in my body. I rolled my shoulders and neck as a flare of fury ripped through me, and I exhaled nice and slow. When I was a kid, I’d struggled to keep my temper in check, but when I became a man and a father, I’d worked a lot harder to regulate myself.

I wanted to scream at Travis, but Travis wasn’t the bigoted prick. I wanted to tear into the jerk who turned us down, but that would only prove him right in refusing to deal with lycans.

“Does the owner of the property realize the Supreme Court made it illegal to refuse the sale of property to lycans?” I asked, my words clipped and snappy.

“I’m sure he does,” Sylvia said. “Because when I called him to discuss it with him, he told me we could take him to court if we had a problem with it.”

“Fantastic, that’s something we absolutely have the money to do,” I seethed. “When is this shit going to stop being a problem for us?”

“Well…probably a lot longer than the month or so we have to locate a place to build. And we really don’t have the money to take a real-estate mogul to court. They will absolutely out-lawyer us,” Travis said.

He was right, of course. “It’s just the principle of it,” I griped.

“We will be reporting it to the proper bureaucratic channels, but you know how long it takes for those things to go through.” Sylvia handed me a folder with our logo embossed on the outside. “I’ve already put together a list of alternate locations—all vetted to make sure they aren’t owned by other lycanphobic asshats. Go with Travis to tour them. You always feel better when you take an active role in solving a problem.”

I took the folder and opened it, finding a dossier of about a half-dozen locations in far less-centralized areas. Each address was paired with a list of pros and cons, the asking price, as well as a summary of the environmental reports—primarily the information that would impact our ability to build an office that represented us as a company.

“I adore you, Syl. Unbelievable work, as always,” I said.

“And, as per usual, I prefer the single life,” she responded. It was a running joke after the many times I’d jokingly threatened to marry her sheerly for how helpful she was to me and Noah.

I was still pissed, but I did manage to quirk a small smile. She was right. I’d be better suited to getting to work on finding another place, even if I shouldn’t have to.

“Trav, let’s hit the road, yeah?” I said.

“You got it, chief,” Travis said, picking up the keys for the work truck out of the bowl we use as a catch-all for office resources: car keys, business cards, things like that.

We descended the stairs together and got into the work truck, a large, charcoal four-seater beast of a truck with four-wheel drive. Travis got into the driver’s seat, and I settled in the passenger seat. When he first started driving the work truck, Travis was a nervous wreck about it. He’d been a long-time lover of sporty coupes and was convinced he’d kill someone with the truck. It took me forcing him to drive the truck whenever we had to go somewhere together for him to get used to it. Now, it was habit to have him drive any time we went somewhere together, truck or not.

There was a bit of an awkward silence as we drove, and I was pretty sure I knew why. Travis sometimes got a little nervous when I was on edge. He’d witnessed some pretty ugly moments in our teens. Times I really flew off the handle. Never directed at him, of course, but a wolf in a fit of rage wasn’t easy to handle, even as a friend or bystander.

Travis learned pretty early on that the best option was to just let me stew, that trying to rationalize with me or calm me down only made things harder for me because I felt like I had to defend my feelings.

All the same, it always made me feel a bit guilty when Travis clammed up. I’d come a long way since my tumultuous youth, but I knew his behavior was a holdover from times I’d either frightened him or placed a burden on him he didn’t deserve.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I’m fine, Trav. I mean, all things considered. I’m pissed off, sure. But I’m not about to go all aggro, okay?”

Travis nodded and exhaled. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I clammed up again, huh?”

“A bit,” I said. “But I was also telegraphing a lot of anger back at the office.”

“For good reason,” Travis said. “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t be real with me, Bratt. It’s just…I mean, you haven’t had a good run in a while, right? Things have been so busy with work, looking for a place to build the new office, and getting Noah ready to start school. I’m just worried that you’re getting a little…pent-up.”

I rubbed my jaw. I really hadn’t shifted in a long time, and Travis’s concern was fair. It wasn’t always good for shifters to stay in one form for too long. Lycans who stayed in their lupine forms for too long often found themselves having a hard time socializing normally in society, and those of us who forgot to give in to those wilder instincts sometimes experienced problems with rage and cruelty in our dealings with other people.

“I think it’s been…a few months, maybe? You’re probably right. I’m due for a shift,” I said.

“A shift and a stiff drink, I think,” Travis said. “So, after we look at these places, why don’t I drop you off at the shifter reserve, and then we’ll go out for drinks tonight.”

“Tonight? It’s a Wednesday, Trav,” I said.

“And your parents have been begging to see Noah, and you are the boss, so you can sleep in if you want.”

“But you can’t,” I pointed out. “You’re not the boss, so what will you do tomorrow?”

“Obviously, I’ll call out sick. My boss is a fucking idiot. He won’t care,” Travis said with his perfect deadpan delivery.

I shook my head. “You’re a ridiculous clown.”

“And you’re a tightwad in need of a break. You’re lucky you have me.”

“Ah, yes. My humble, kind friend,” I joked.

Travis grinned as he stared at the road ahead. “Humility is for chumps.”

“Right.”

Touring the other options Sylvia had prepared for us was much less painful than I’d thought it would be. None of the options were as perfect a choice as the one we’d already placed an offer on, but all were workable.

My favorite of the options was only a five-minute drive from POSHA, which would be great when Noah got old enough to walk to and from school. The old dental office had been vacant for some time, complete with outdated green vinyl flooring, X-ray lights embedded in the walls, and the perpetual smell of amalgam filling material and hospital-grade disinfectants.

The demo would be pretty substantial, and with how old the building was, we’d have to hire people to deal with old wiring and plumbing issues.

All told, we’d have to recalculate the budget for the project, which was unfortunate and likely meant I wouldn’t be getting a Christmas bonus this year. That’s how it went, though. When you owned your own business, it was always an experiment in Murphy’s Law—anything that could go wrong, would go wrong.

We called our realtor and told him to put in an offer for the place, and with Travis’s blessing, we came in at a little over asking price—luckily, we had liquid cash to spare.

When all was said and done, it was nearly one in the afternoon, which left me about an hour and a half before I needed to pick Noah up.

“Do you think it’s enough time?” Travis asked me when he checked the clock on the dash. “I was hoping you’d have a little longer to go beast mode, but these things always take more time than I want.”

“I’ll be fine. Why don’t you just drop me off and grab some lunch? Pick me up when you’re done, then we’ll go get Noah and take him to my folks’ place.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said.

He dropped me off at the reserve and drove away, promising to grab some lunch for me. As the truck headed down the street, I turned to enter, as I rolled my shoulders.

Shifter reserves were a relatively new concept and only found in progressive, shifter-friendly areas of the country. Ours in New Middle Bluff was especially nice and a project championed by a coalition of local shifters. The New Middle Bluff Shifter Reserve was sort of narrow, but it had a large radius of about four square miles. If I were to compare it to something, it was similar to a giant running track, only with tall grass, trees, and patches of sand instead of latex or polyurethane paving.

It wasn’t very busy in the middle of a typical workday. There were perhaps only about six wolves I could hear nearby. Most of them were running—there wasn’t much else to do in a reserve so close to a city. In some more remote places, shifters often would gather for hunting retreats where they gave in to their wilder side by taking down massive elks in traveling packs.

I didn’t really need to do that to take the edge off, though. I could find a lot of peace in feeling the mossy earth beneath my paws and the wind through my coat.

It was always a little tricky to shift when it had been a while since the last shift, kind of like going from being sedentary to suddenly starting up your old routine of going for a jog every day or doing yoga each morning. It was much easier for my son to shift in and out because he had a much smaller body, but as you aged, it required more of your metabolism to shift.

I took off my shoes—not that I had to, considering my clothes would just go wherever my human form went when I shifted, but I wanted to feel the grass beneath my feet. Grounding myself always helped to bring me closer to my wilder side.

The word shift was a bit of a misnomer when it came to what we did. Shifting made it sound like our body cracked and changed into a different one, but it wasn’t like that.

When we shifted, it was more like one form replaced the other rather than our bodies changing form. That’s why we could do it so quickly. It happened in the blink of an eye because that was all that was needed to call upon that part of ourselves.

Scientists had been trying to explain it for years; some astrophysicists even speculated that it caused a bend in reality or called an alternate form from a parallel universe. Some of them said that when we took our lupine forms here, they took their human forms there and vice versa.

But I was just a contractor. All of that went straight over my head. I just called it magic because that’s pretty much what it was until some egghead in a lab decided otherwise.

I drew in a deep breath as I closed my eyes, focusing on the sensations around me: the breeze rustling through the trees, the distant honk of a car horn probably a mile away, the rhythmic panting of another wolf somewhere farther in the reserve as they sprinted through the tall grass.

I dug my toes into the damp dirt under the cushion of the grass, smelled the loamy quality of it, and scented the dew still collected on the leaves in the shade of the tree canopies.

The beast inside me reached out, and I welcomed it, letting that wild, instinctual quality race through my veins.

When I opened my eyes again, I was a wolf.

I tore off into the greenery, shoes forgotten behind me. The concerns of my human life were no longer. There was no lycanphobic asshole making my life hard, no irritating, expensive demo, and no worry over my son growing up too fast.

Okay, perhaps there was some of that last one. Because as I ran, I caught Noah’s scent and found myself gravitating toward his school.

The reserve bordered the school, and as I raced over grassy bridges that sloped over cars driving on the streets below them, Noah’s scent became stronger and stronger. Finally, after a spirited twenty-minute run, I found myself at the academy.

It was almost fifty yards away, but my keen eyes allowed me to clearly see Noah through his classroom window. He sat with the other children at a round table, smiling and laughing as he smushed balls of play dough together. Near the front of the class, I could see the beautiful Miss Cage. She held up big circles of colorful paper. They were learning to mix colors. I glanced over at Noah. Based on the gleeful expression on his face, Noah was loving it.

Despite the fact that I’d come all this way to check on my son and despite the fact that I’d been worried about him since dropping him off, I found myself staring, not at him, but at his teacher.

My sense of smell was always strong, even in my human form, but as a wolf, it was tenfold. Her scent drifted through the open windows. The sweetness of honey and soft pink roses carried on the air like flower petals in the spring.

Her smile was so radiant, and her hair burnished like some fine Greek statue devoted to a goddess. I wanted to smooth my hands over that warm, tanned skin—wanted to feel the downy lightness of her in my arms. I wanted to—

Over the din of my desire, I heard the distant call of my name. No, not my name.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

Shit. Fuck.

I looked back to see my son get up from his chair and run over to the window I was staring through like a peeping tom. Marley looked out the window in surprise—the class thoroughly disrupted, thanks to me and my silly, wonderful son.

As she came to the window, Noah pressed his hands and nose to the glass, scanning the reserve for me after he’d no doubt caught a whiff of my scent. Even from this distance, I could tell Marley had seen me.

I was ashamed to admit it, but I tucked tail and ran away like a coward.

I couldn’t describe why, but it felt like I’d been caught doing something bad. Well, maybe I had been—I didn’t see any other parents sneaking around to check in on their kids like some weirdo. Embarrassment blazed through me as I sprinted through the reserve. I suddenly dreaded seeing Marley when I went to pick up my son.

Maybe I could just send Travis in to get him?

No, that was even more cowardly.

I groaned internally and forced my legs to go faster and faster as if I could outrun my own humiliation. Why did I even care what a kindergarten teacher thought of me?

Because it wasn’t just any kindergarten teacher, was it?

There had been another teacher looking out the window, too, I realized. The shifter teacher. But my embarrassment didn’t extend to her. No, just to the perfect sandy blonde who smelled like honey and roses.

Fuck.

I didn’t have time for this, and the last thing I needed to do was complicate Noah’s school experience by becoming interested in his teacher. Yet, more and more, I found that my interest in Marley was more than just cursory. It was hardwired into me biologically. Something about her just turned my wolf into a puppy who wanted nothing more than belly rubs and ear scratches.

By the time I’d circled the reserve, I was panting, my tongue lolling out of the side of my mouth. I sniffed around until I found my shoes, then plopped down into the grass with a deep sigh.

After I’d caught my breath, I shifted back to my human form and checked the watch on my wrist. Just as I registered the time, a face came into view, hovering over me.

“Did you overdo it, old man?” Travis asked.

“Don’t call me an old man, jackass. We’re the same age.”

“I don’t have to lay on the ground after going for a jog, old man.”

“This old man is about to get up and kick your ass,” I grumbled as I propped myself up on my elbows. “How was lunch?”

“Middling,” he replied, then thrust a plastic bag at me. “We really need to find some new places to eat. All of the old haunts are getting boring… or complacent.”

I sat up and took the bag, setting it aside to put on my shoes. “You just have a strange relationship with food. I’ve never met someone so opinionated about salad dressing before.”

“Would you let that go? That poor locally grown romaine was swimming in Caesar dressing. Swimming! It’s a salad, not a dressing soup with a bit of lettuce thrown in as a treat.”

I leveled him with a look.

“I did it again, didn’t I?”

“What? Prove me right?”

“Yes, I hate when I do that.” He offered me his hand. “Come on. We have a few more errands to run before we go and get Noah.”

I chuckled as I took his hand and let him help me to my feet.

I ate the burger and fries Travis had picked up for me as we finished the mundane errands—picking up some new checkbooks and Sylvia’s preferred brand of coffee for the office, snacks to have on hand for clients, and those little sticky notes that looked like tiny arrows to help people find where to sign the contracts.

Then, it was time to get Noah.

That dreaded, awful time.

“What’s got you so keyed up? I can feel the tension rolling off you, man,” Travis asked when he turned onto the street to the academy.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, straightening and trying to look as casual as possible.

“Yeah, and don’t do that. It makes you look worse,” he said.

“Fuck me.” I groaned. “When I went on my run, I caught Noah’s scent and came to check on him. When I did, he scented me and ran straight to the window. I think his teacher saw me peeping.”

“So, someone who’s never seen your lupine form before saw you through a window? I mean, I think you have a decent amount of deniability there.”

“Sure, if Noah hadn’t been screaming ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’”

Travis winced.

“Yeah, so I’m a weird, creepy man—”

“Weird, creepy, old man—”

“You really want me to kick your ass today, don’t you?”

Travis laughed and shook his head.

“Bratt. You need to relax. You are not the first parent to peek through the windows on the first day of kindergarten, and I’m positive you will not be the last Noah’s teacher ever encounters. Since when do you even care what someone thinks about you? That’s not like you,” he said.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. This was the second time today I was trying to avoid talking about Marley—only this time, I wouldn’t be able to escape it with a well-timed lie.

“Oh, I see,” Travis said. “You’re freaking out because you’re into her.”

“I am not into her. She is my son’s teacher,” I said.

“Bratt, you don’t get nervous around women. You make them nervous. You’re into her.”

“Okay, she’s fucking pretty, and she smells good. What do you want from me?” I asked. “Do you know how confusing it would be for Noah if I started dating his teacher? He’ll start every school year thinking all his teachers are surrogate mothers or tell them to kiss me or something.”

Travis pulled into a parking spot and waggled his eyebrows at me. I resisted the urge to punch him in the face.

“I could think of worse things for those teachers. So, what is it about her, Bratt? You into the denim skirt and athletic sneaker look these days? The smell of baby wipes and dry-erase markers really doing it for you?”

“Oh, fuck you. She doesn’t look like that, asshole.”

Travis devolved into a fit of laughter. Anger roiled in me, hot and bitter, along with a misplaced sense of protective brutality.

“You know what, asshat? Come on. You’re coming with me.”

His laughter died abruptly. “Oh no. I don’t do kids. This is a Noah-Only zone. That’s the agreement we’ve always had.”

“Well, the agreement is null and void when you imply I’m trying to fool around with a Sunday school teacher.”

“So, you do want to fool around with your son’s teacher?”

“Don’t change the subject. Out of the car. Now.”

Travis huffed, the mirth leaving his expression as quickly as it came. I got out of the car, and he followed after me sullenly.

Kindergarten got out before the rest of the school, which was pretty par for the course, as far as I was aware. The school was still mostly quiet as we entered through the foyer with the model of the solar system and through the side door that led to the playground.

“Nice digs,” Travis said. “I haven’t seen this place since we’d just gotten the bones of the thing up.”

“It’s a great school,” I said in agreement.

“With hot teachers, apparently.”

“Would you quiet the hell down? Half the students and faculty are shifters,” I hissed.

“I could just go back to the car if I’m embarrassing you?”

I gave him a withering glare.

“Is that a no, then?” he asked.

“It’s a no.”

We joined the other parents just as the bell signaling the end of the school day for the little ones tolled. I heard Marley’s voice straining through the open door as she tried to herd the kids and make them listen to her.

“The bell doesn’t dismiss—hey! Hey! Hold on. Single file li—urgh.”

Despite the shifter kids’ keen sense of hearing, all the children, including mine, seemed to deafen to Marley’s instructions. They ran out of the classroom, each child scanning the crowd before hurrying to their parents.

Noah ran at me, and I laughed, scooping him up into my arms.

“Hey, kiddo, how was your first day of school?” I asked.

“We learned colors! And sang ABCs. And Miss Cage said I’m really good at my alphabet.”

“That’s ‘cause we practice all the time. We learned over the summer, remember?”

“Yeah!” he said. “Daddy, I made you a wolf out of play dough, but Miss Cage says we can’t take it home until tomorrow ‘cause it has to dry.”

“That’s amazing, kiddo. I can’t wait to see it.”

“How come Uncle Travis is here?”

“I asked him the same thing, my du—holy shit,” Travis blurted.

I glanced at Travis, then followed his gaze to the classroom door where Marley was coming out of the classroom. There she was in her tight capris and flowery blouse. She was resplendent, and even though she seemed a little tired and frazzled from the day, she was still a ten. Maybe even an eleven.

“I told you,” I muttered.

“Daddy, Uncle Travis said a bad word.”

“Noah, you are entirely right. He did.”

“Yeah, loud enough for all the shifter children to hear it too. Real nice,” said another parent—a short woman with a cropped haircut.

“My bad,” Travis said in a voice that sounded in no way sorry or remorseful.

The woman scoffed and picked up her child before hurrying out of the playground.

Travis rolled his eyes. “What a bitch,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

“You’re such a jerk,” I said through an incredulous laugh.

No one else seemed to mind the momentary lapse into profanity, for which I was grateful. Well, no one else, aside from Noah, anyway, who told Travis that he would have to wash his mouth out with soap. Perplexed, I asked him where he got that idea because I certainly had never done something like that. Cartoons, apparently, was the answer.

Once Noah had finished scolding Travis, he insisted on showing me his school. I explained that I’d just seen it with him that morning—even explained that I’d helped build it—but Noah wasn’t taking no for an answer.

I let him take my hand and lead me around the playground. He was intent on walking himself rather than having me carry him, so I had to bend slightly at the waist to accommodate my son’s length.

I did my due diligence of reacting strongly enough to look sufficiently impressed. I nodded eagerly and extended as many vowels as I could. When Noah was satisfied with a job well done on his tour, he took to playing on the jungle gym. Most of the children and parents had already taken their leave, and Travis was talking to Marley and the shifter teacher.

I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t heard what they were talking about for the last ten or fifteen minutes, and just as I started to head over to them, Marley suddenly sputtered a laugh.

She bent over, holding her sides as her laughter rand through the air. Travis smiled awkwardly as he rubbed his nape, and the other teacher looked over at me and quickly jostled Marley’s shoulder.

I smiled as I approached. “What’s so funny?”

“N-nothing,” the other shifter said.

Marley put a hand on her friend’s shoulder as she tried to straighten again.

“F-Fur Sure Solutions?” she sputtered. “Oh my god, it’s like a bad dad joke.”

“Marley,” the shifter hissed, eyeballing me like she was worried about offending me.

I wasn’t, though. If anything, I was happy to see Marley laughing so hard at something so small. Olivia never laughed—not at dad jokes, not at comedies. She’d always just roll her eyes and call everything stupid. When I named my company, she called that stupid too.

“That funny, huh?” I asked, cracking a smile of my own.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” she gasped through her laughter. “It’s just so…dorky. You look like a cross between a lumberjack and a menacing member of a motorcycle gang and… Fur Sure? I just—”

Travis met my eyes, and I gave a good-humored shake of my head.

“If you think that one’s funny, you’re going to love my other dad jokes,” I said with a quirk of my eyebrow.

“Please, no. I need to recover from this one first.” She wiped at the corner of her eye. “I’m so sorry. I’m not being professional at all right now.”

“Hey, school day’s over. You can let your hair down. Won’t bother me a bit,” I said.

Noah suddenly called from behind me from his perch on the jungle gym. “Daddy, I have to pee!”

I blew out a breath and turned to look at him while Marley stifled another fit of laughter. “Good to know, champ! Come down the slide, and we’ll find the bathroom, buddy.”

Travis scoffed as Noah ran toward us. “I’ll take him and get him buckled in the car,” he said. He looked pointedly at Marley and then back at me, raising his eyebrows in silent communication.

Travis and his damned, relentless wing-manning.

“Thanks,” I said with a nod. “Be right out.”

Travis ruffled Noah’s hair. “Come on, kid. You wanna go see your grandparents?”

“Nanny and Gramps? Yeah!” Noah shouted, leaping lightly into the air as he and Travis went to seek out a bathroom.

Once Noah was sufficiently out of earshot for his wolf ears, Marley turned to me with a kind smile. “So, I just wanted to let you know that if you are curious about what we do in class during the day, you can absolutely drop in once in a while. You can either volunteer or bring by lunch or come in as a parent aid.”

First, I cringed internally, and then I cringed externally.

“I was really hoping you hadn’t seen me,” I said, rubbing my hand over my chin. “You probably think I’m an idiot. Or a creep.”

She shook her head, her kind smile widening to reveal a row of perfect white teeth. “No, it’s sweet. A lot of dads feel awkward about showing their hand when it comes to how much they love their children, so it’s nice that you came and checked on him.”

And then, like a teenage boy, all my blood rushed to my face.

“Well, ah, aside from his father disrupting the entire class during your lesson on colors, how did he do today? Any problems?”

Marley shook her head. “Noah is a very bright boy. He’s super friendly and imaginative. We’re going to work on talking over others—learning to take turns—but that’s a pretty standard developmental concern that we address in kindergarten. Noah isn’t the only one who will need to learn that,” Marley said. “Don’t worry too much. He’ll do great this year.

“That’s good. I’m glad he’s being nice to the other kids,” I said, sighing with relief. “It’s been a long day. Noah is my only son. It’s difficult to accept that he’s growing up, you know? It feels like only yesterday I was teaching him how to walk.”

Marley nodded. “I’ve been working as a teacher for a long time, so I know exactly what you mean. I hope you can at least take heart in knowing that you’re handling the transition pretty well, all things considered.”

“I don’t really feel like I am.”

“Well, I’ve seen everything from parents peeking in the windows to parents crying at drop-off. I’d say you’re handling it well.”

“Maybe.” I tilted my head. “Maybe I’ll believe you if you tell me your worst parent story.”

Marley gave me a cute little conspiratorial smile.

“Mr. Lucas, are you a gossip?”

“I’ve been known to enjoy a bit of a story. Although, I’d completely understand if you didn’t feel up to indulging my morbid curiosity.”

“Ah, well, this story happened out in Pennsylvania,” she said. “So, I guess it wouldn’t be such a scandal to share it. It’s not like you’re going to tattle on me.” She paused, her eyes narrowing theatrically. “Are you?”

I crossed my fingers over my heart, then lifted the same hand in a sort of scout-like pledge. “I solemnly swear to take this to the grave.”

That oath seemed to satisfy her because she nodded sagely and leaned toward me.

“The wildest experience I ever had with a helicopter parent was the stay-at-home mother who insisted on coming to each and every class with her son. She did that for close to two weeks, sometimes interrupting my lessons to correct me. I finally got the principal to step in during the third week.”

I chuckled in disbelief. “I can’t believe it took them that long to do it. Why did you put up with it?”

“It was my first year teaching. I didn’t want to get in trouble by having a parent complain about me so early on. But when it started affecting the other children’s learning experience, it became about more than just me, you know?” she said. “I’ve always been better at standing up for other people than standing up for myself.”

I didn’t know Marley very well. I’d only run into her for the first time that morning. Yet, I entirely believed that a woman with such a sweet disposition would absolutely take a bullet for someone before she’d ask a waiter to fix her meal. She just had that way about her.

“Well, listen, I won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you have plenty to do and want to get home after handling a gaggle of kids all day. Thanks for not making me feel like a creep. I’m glad I’m not the worst parent you’ve had to contend with.”

“I don’t think you can look the way you look and be considered a creep. Not that you have to look bad to be a creep… just that you definitely don’t look like—”

I watched Marley’s expression change from kind, to aghast, to mortified, and finally settling on a mixture of embarrassment and struggle.

“I think I’ll stop talking before my foot makes it from my mouth all the way down to my stomach.”

The silly look on her face and her endearing nature when she was trying, and failing, at being coy had me laughing before I could stop myself. Truthfully, watching her fumble like that made me want to take a bite out of her. I composed myself, though, not wanting her to think I was having a laugh at her expense.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, letting us both off the hook.

“See you tomorrow, Mr. Lucas.”

“Just Bratt,” I said. “Remember, I don’t like being ‘mister’ anything.”

“Right. Bratt.”

“Atta girl, Marley,” I said, winking at her.

Before I could get myself into any more trouble, I went to join Travis and my son at the car.