Page 20 of Payback, Penelope

I drop into the chair in front of Mr. Garnet’s large desk with Jacob standing behind me, his hands on my shoulders, sure we’re about to lose the jobs we care so much about. Police sirens grow louder outside as they approach the school, and Mr. Garnet fixes his steely gaze on the door behind us.

A few minutes later, I want to spew my lunch when I catch sight of the two uniformed officers who step into the office and introduce themselves. Their voices are one big cacophony of noise as I start to spiral.They’re here to arrest us. I just know it. Public indecency or something worse for having sex on school grounds.

It’s only when Jacob squeezes my shoulders and Mr. Garnet turns his laptop around that I come back to the here and now. I hadn’t known there was a security camera in the copy room. The footage is a bit grainy, but it’s still obvious that it’s Mr. Andrews who is assaulting me. The audio is surprisingly clear, so we can all hear the disgusting things he said to me as well.

Then, Mr. Garnet moves his finger over the touchpad and brings up another view, this one in the teacher’s lounge. The video shows Jacob stalking through it and yanking Mr. Andrews out of the copy room by the back of his shirt, then proceeding tobeat the snot out of him. Mr. Garnet switches back to the copy room camera, then quickly closes the laptop as soon as we get to the part where I’m begging Jacob to fuck me.

The principal tugs at his burgundy tie and won’t meet my eyes while the police take our statements, then arrange to get the video footage of theincident. When they leave the office without arresting us, much to my immense relief, and it’s just the three of us, I hold my breath, scared of what’s going to happen next.

Mr. Garnet clears his throat and finally looks me in the eye. “I want to start by apologizing, Ms. Barlow. It is with great regret that I say I wish I had let Mr. Andrews go as soon as Mrs. Barry came to me with concerns about his repeated and unreciprocated…special interest in you. As his friend for over twenty years, I had…firmly discouraged…him from pursuing you, but I clearly didn’t do enough to prevent you from coming to harm at his hands. You never should have been put in this kind of position, and I sincerely apologize for his actions and my own.” Turning to Jacob, he says, “As for you, Mr. Prudencio—”

“Please, don’t fire him,” I interrupt. “He was just defending me. I—he—” I burst into tears.

Mr. Garnet pushes a box of tissues across his desk toward me, somehow managing to look even more uncomfortable than before. “I was going to say, ‘Bravo’, Mr. Prudencio.”

“Oh. So you’re not going to fire us for having—” I purse my lips. No one needs a reminder of what Jacob and I had done in the copy room.

“Ah, no. If anything, I applaud you, Mr. Prudencio, for your actions in defending Ms. Barlow’s honor. Unofficially, of course.” I have to work at not laughing at his old-fashioned phrasing, as oddly sweet as it is. “As for what happened afterward, well…” Mr. Garnet spins the gold frame on his desk around, showing us the picture of his wife in her wedding dress. “Let’s just say I understand.”

By the time we leave Mr. Garnet’s office, still secure in our jobs after promising not to repeat our performance at the school, I have a budding respect for him.

I wave Jacob on ahead when we bump into Mr. Makris—Christopher—in the parking lot after gathering our things and leaving the school. I call to mind the family pictures Jacob showed me and quietly tell Christopher, “Jacob has an older brother. Taller. Full beard. More tattoos.” Christopher sucks in a breath. “Single and wholly uninterested in the opposite sex.” His lips part, something like hope flashing in his eyes. “David lives in Dallas, and we’re having dinner with him next weekend. Would you be interested in going to dinner with us so I can introduce you two?”

“Yes, please,” he breathes out. We exchange phone numbers so I can send David’s picture to him and vice versa to make sure David is comfortable with the arrangement before we head to our separate vehicles.

Holding Jacob’s hand, we make our way to my gorgeous Wrangler—the one in which I sucked Jacob’s cock so hard after it was delivered, he came in less than sixty seconds. He picks me up when I go to the driver’s side door and plops me down in the passenger seat.

“Hey, it’s my car. I’m driving—oh. Another round?” I waggle my brows when he swivels my feet out and yanks my hips to the edge of the seat.

Jacob laughs. “Don’t think we should push our luck after the promise we just made.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, deflated.

“Don’t look so glum, Mrs. Prudencio. We’ve got plenty of time for that after we land. Right now, we need to get to the airport.”

“Mrs. Prudencio? The air—what?”

He squeezes my thighs and leans in for a kiss. “You didn’t check the trunk this morning, did you, Mama?”

“No…why would I?”

“If you had, you’d have seen our bags packed and loaded in the back.”

Excitement has me kicking my feet and pulling him in closer. “Where are we going, baby?”

“We’re taking a long weekend and going to The Bahamas. Tonight.”

“Oh? And why would we go there?” I think I know why, but I want to hear him say it.

He leans in and, trying to distract me with his tongue, he slides his hand from my thigh to the laptop bag looped on his shoulder, then produces a ring that he slides onto my left hand.

Pulling back, he says, “We’re going to get married on the beach. You’ll be Mrs. Penelope Prudencio when you take the pregnancy test right after we say our vows. Say yes, Mama.”

And there I go, bursting into tears all over again. Getting proposed to in the school’s parking lot might not be romantic to most people, but for me, I can’t think of anywhere better. This is where Jacob carried me out of my poor Betsy and forever changed my life.

“Mrs. Penelope Prudencio is a bit of a mouthful,” I tease, making Jacob laugh. It’s almost as bad as Larry Barry. Almost. “But, yes. Yes to all of it, baby.”

Epilogue One

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