Page 28 of Bring me Back

“Let her wait.” I looked down at her as she craned her neck to match my stare. “You have to start answering back.”

“No.”

Firm, decisive.

I arched an eyebrow. “If you don’t, I will. And you don’t need a defender.”

“I don’t want one.”

For someone who hid from teenagers, she was quite ok in holding her own against a thirty-six-year-old man.

“But the thing is, Cricket, if I hear that damn Delilah having a fit one more time, I will go off on her. I will say things I shouldn’t and I will call her names I shouldn’t.”

She watched me for half of a second. “You could just give her detention.”

I smiled. Smart-ass.

“So you want me to fight Delilah? A sixteen-years-old?”

“You don’t need to jump her, Cricket, stop being crazy.” I was pleased when I saw her relax a little more. “But I’ll expect you to reply when she starts again. Cut that shit off. Leave no space for argument. You cut me off all the time. What’s the difference?”

She thought for a second. Hallie took her bottom lip in her teeth, rolling it slowly. And I watched because I was insane, following the movement with my eyes, pretending that all my blood hadn’t run to my cock. “It’s different,” she announced, taking me from my dirty thoughts.

“How come?” I asked, cracking my voice.

“Because it doesn’t matter how I am with you; I know you would never be mean.”

I blinked, trying to bring myself back, even though Cricket’s lips were now burned into my eyelids. “But you said it doesn’t matter. Water off a duck’s back.”

“I said I don’t waste my time schooling them. No one likes when people are mean to them.”

“No, they don’t. But we established the Campbells are shit so let’s not worry about them, ok?”

She stood there, a smile on her lips. “You’re late to see Sharon.”

“I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Take one for the team.” She shrugged.

I glanced down at my watch and, of course, I was ten minutes late. I had to go, so I stepped back once, and then again. It became clear that I had to work hard to be removed from Cricket’s orbit. Like a jackass dying to be involved in things I shouldn’t, I pointed to her bag of flowers. “Will you let me help with those?”

She looked down at the bag and then up at me. “If you convince Sharon to let us have a fundraiser.”

I smiled. “Challenge accepted, Cricket.”

The devil wears Prada and all that but they forgot to mention the sweet perfume, bleached locks and long nails as she typed on her phone. Sharon Campbell was right in the middle of my classroom, perched on a bench with her phone glaring on her face like she wasn’t completely there.

My heavy boots on the floor announced my arrival and Sharon looked up at me with a sugary smile that gave me the hives.

“Sorry for making you wait, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Sharon.” She smiled predatorily. It was the same smile of Delilah, which made me dislike the teenager even more.

“Sharon,” I accepted because I wasn’t allowed to start this meeting antagonizing the woman. “I wanted to talk to you about the fundraiser for the play,” I said as I sat down.

“Direct to the subject…” Sharon raised her eyebrows. “But I have to say, Mr. Miller, there’s no fundraiser for the play.”

“Yet.”

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