Page 39 of Oh, Hell No

There was her morning text to Marley with a,Good morning! Kick ass and take names today.

I smirked. She always sent the woman something similar around seven on the weekdays and a little after eight on the weekends.

Marley would respond with a,Good morning!Then tell her what she was doing that day.

Marley had sent another one at noon, but it wasn’t any topic that concerned me since Winslet wasn’t involved.

The teachers group text was alive and kicking again. I was often tempted to pay a visit to this Anya bitch in the group. From what I’d learned via reading her texts, she was a fifth-grade teacher who thought she was in charge. She was also jealous of Winslet. That shit came through loud and clear.

I’d gone as far as looking up the staff on the school’s website to see what she looked like. Before Winslet had started working there, Anya had been the hottest teacher there.

Women and their need to be the prettiest girl in the room seemed to get the ones who were just attractive enough to stand out. Some were much worse than others. This one was the president of that club.

She was always handing out jobs and telling the others what to do as if they were her minions, then adding a smiley face or pink heart to it, as if that made it all better. Anya made sure Winslet had the worst jobs, the ones no one else wanted. Theothers called Winslet a godsend when she would not only agree, but do whatever the bitch had told her to do to the best of her ability. She was complimented and praised, which only made Anya more agitated. She would agree with a damn emoji of some sort, then list at least three things that could have been done better that she knew Winslet hadn’t meant to overlook.

I had already given her new, shiny silver Mini Cooper a flat tire, which had been slashed and would require she buy a new tire, not just patch it. Seemed I needed to leave a long, jagged scratch down it this weekend.

Meg, Holly, and Mary Beth—other teachers at the school—had all sent her separate texts, saying to ignore Anya, that she was a perfectionist, a type A personality.

Then, there had been Meg’s text, which I agreed with.She’s jealous of you. Shake it off. You rocked that book fair display. It had never looked so good.

Finally, there was fucking Toby, who I liked about as much as I did Anya, although I hadn’t slashed his tires…yet. He’d sent one text this afternoon and three more this evening, which she had ignored. Not even read them. That was one reason I’d left him alone; she wasn’t going to give him the time of day. He was shooting so far out of his league with her.

Toby

Really looking forward to tomorrow. I’ll stop and get us some breakfast sandwiches and coffee on my way to pick you up.

Okay, what? I reread that to make sure I had read it correctly. I had.

Toby

Any preferences? Bacon, egg, and cheese? Sausage? Do you like bagel sandwiches?

He was bringing her breakfast. She was letting him. I’d missed something today.

What have you agreed to, darlin’?

Toby

Or would you rather have something sweet? I can get doughnuts or muffins.

Stop being so fucking desperate. She didn’t even respond to your last text. And she loves chocolate at any time. Why don’t you know that, stalker boy?

Toby

I’ll just grab some of everything, and you can choose. You’re probably asleep already. When you get these though, let me know how you like your coffee. We can eat lunch at the festival. I heard that they’re having two new food vendors this year. One has cheeseburger egg rolls. Sounds like a must-try.

She drinks it with a yellow packet of that Splenda crap—which I wish she’d stop using because that shit is poison—andtwo creams, dumbass.

He wasn’t paying enough attention to know what she liked, but then he was pursuing her so damn hard that he didn’t have time for anything else.

Looks like I have a festival to attend tomorrow.

Madison wasn’t that big. I should be able to figure out what festival this was.

I made sure the texts were marked as unread, then did a quick check to see who she’d spoken to on the phone. Marley, around the time she had gotten home from work. A missed call from Toby. Yeah, he had passed the annoying part and walked right into being on my shit list. I turned off her phone and put it back in the same place it had been, then gave myself a few more minutes of simply watching her.

Eighteen

---