Page 8 of Salvatore

“Hold up,” I say, lifting my hand. “What do you mean his lack of attendance?”

She frowns. “Mr. Romero?”

“Salvatore or Sal. No mister.”

“Okay, Salvatore then. Apollo has missed nine days of school. If he misses another without a medical excuse, he’ll be suspended.”

Now I’m pissed. “I take it the school’s called? Sent letters home? Shit like that?”

Her eyes widen slightly. “Yes.”

I lean back. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask, lowering my rough voice.

She lets out a small breath. “If you must know, your language is rather startling.”

“You call it startling,” I say carefully, realizing that I’m probably scaring her. “I call it Jersey and honest. It’s who I am. I don’t mean any disrespect.”

“All right,” she answers quietly and in a way that tells me she believes me. “As I was saying, Apollo has been frequently absent. Both the administration and staff have made several attempts to contact you.” She opens the file and points to a spot on the left. “See for yourself.”

I edge close enough to read the communication log. Twenty-two fucking documented calls plus five letters. I hope Apollo’s been having fun. I’m going to kill that kid when he gets home. My eyes trail to a copy of the police report, the one filed the night Ma died. “What else does it say about him?”

Her eyes soften and she moves her purse aside to sit closer to me. “Why don’t we look through it together, so you can see for yourself?”

“Is that legal? You showing me this?”

“It’s not illegal,” she responds. “But it’s not something I typically do.”

Her eyes meet mine with something I’m not used to and can’t quite place. “It’s too easy to lose sight of Apollo, when all you focus on is what’s allegedly wrong with him,” she says by way of an answer. “I want you to see the good things others say about him, so you can recognize his potential and we can work out a plan to help him.”

“We?” I ask, cocking a brow.

She smiles in a way that holds me in place. “I want to find a way to reach him if I can. Will you help me?”

Given that smile, I, more than anything, want to help her out of that dress. Yet, despite what she’s doing to me as a man, I’m not too stupid to see she actually gives a damn about my baby brother. “Fine. Show me what you’ve got.”

She nods and starts on the right side, where the police report is. She hesitates and says, “I’m really sorry about what happened to your mother and father.”

She waits for me to say something. But I don’t. I earned my G.E.D. at sixteen and left home as soon as I could, using every dime I made bussing tables to train with Lionel Edgar’s camp, the UFC’s Middleweight Champion at the time. There were days I went hungry and times I slept at the gym ’cause I didn’t have enough cash to pay for a motel room. I didn’t mind. I was training with the best to be the best, to give my mother and brothers a better life by becoming the next champ. At least that was my intention. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

When I left, my pathetic excuse for a father spiraled out of control. Ma downplayed the shit he was pulling. I should have trusted my instincts and figured out something was wrong. By the time Gianno reached out to me, it was too late. Instead of helping my family like I wanted, I abandoned my future and returned home to bury my mother and raise my brothers.

That’s not the kind of shit you tell a total stranger. It’s not the kind of shit I tell anyone, ever. I bury it deep where it belongs.

Her delicate features soften further, if that’s even possible, like she latched onto something deep beneath my hard expression. I’m ready for her to ask me to “share” and spill my guts. But instead she flips over the police report and thumbs through the school records.

We go through the file. Every teacher starts with basically the same thing: “Apollo is an intelligent student,” but the comments always end with him not applying himself or caring, or mouthing off.

“What about Gianno?” I ask when we’re through.

Aedry finishes off her water. For someone who didn’t initially want it, she seems thirsty. “He needs help academically. But I think his commitment to wrestling keeps him in school.”

“He wants to be in the MMA.”

“Mixed Martial Arts?” she asks. At my nod she adds, “He can do a lot more than that.”

“MMA is the future in sports, lady.”

“It’s Aedry,” she says casually, even though I’m all but glaring at her. “And I’m not trying to put down a career in fighting. If he can get his grades up, he can probably go to college on a wrestling scholarship.”

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