Page 7 of Please, Sir

He sighs as he rests his elbows on his knees. “Oh, good. I’m real good. Tired as all hell but good.”

I don’t want to look because knowing about another man's intimate life with his partner is not something I’m innately interested in. But the teeth marks on Hudson’s neck are kind of hard to ignore. He rubs his hand along his neck self consciously, his cheeks flaming beneath his dark beard as he quietly explains, “Dolly. She’s ovulating.”

I recall seeing his young wife Dolly at the farmers market a couple weeks ago. “Isn’t she already pregnant?”

Hudson chuckles. “That’s what I said but…” he shrugs, then diverts our attention away from his love life, for which I’m grateful. “Jo Jo cheerin’ now?”

I nod. “Yeah, she is. Trying out soon.”

Hudson looks around for a second. “Where is she?”

“Sitting in the truck because she didn’t want to come in.”

He clucks his tongue. “I am not looking forward to Honey and Mabel becoming teenagers.”

My brows furrow. “Hey–Bear and the girls are young. What’re you doing here?”

He smiles, ear to ear. “I’m giving the team a booth at the market to fundraise. The entire season, every weekend.” He leans in. “It’s not as benevolent as it seems. They agreed to doing milk deliveries after practice for the entire season,” he swipes his hands along his thighs. “How could I say no to that?”

I shake my head. “An offer you couldn’t refuse.”

“Indeed.” He scratches the back of his neck, quietly adding, “Jo Jo will be a great addition to cheer. But with cheer practice being every day of the week, when are y’all riding together?”

In that moment, I’m jealous of Hudson, and not because of the teeth marks down his neck but because his kids are little. Most of them are still babies. He’s got years left to be the apple of their eyes, to impress them and teach them, to love on them and easily feel their love in return. Biggest problem little kids have is the juice not tasting juicy enough, or the cartoon making them angry. At the end of the day, his kids always talk to him, and love him. And right now, I’d give it all up to have Jo Jo back in that way.

“We aren’t, not until she’s done with cheer at least,” I tell him, shrugging my shoulders as if not riding together anymore doesn’t feel like a knife dragging through my insides. “We’ll pick it back up when she’s ready.”

I feel his thoughtful eyes on me as the athletic director saunters into the gymnasium, adjusting the microphone. “Well, at least you two still have the farmers market. You’ll always have that between ya,” he says, patting me on the back before he quietly says goodbye and heads to the table of volunteers near the door.

At least you two still have the farmers market.

He’s so busy at the markets, he doesn’t realize. Jo Jo and I haven’t run the Turner Saddlery booth together in over a month. Hudson’s words loop in my brain, colliding with Jo Jo’s from just a few minutes earlier.I don’t even like milk, Dad. I’m not going to the market, Dad.

A familiar ache rolls through my chest, and I bring my closed fist to my sternum, hoping to knead it away. It stays, and so do I, sitting through an hour long meeting about what’s expected from my kid if she makes the team. I learn the rules, find out how much of my money they want and then I drive my sulking teenager home. She goes to her room and slams the door, and I take a beer to the garage and pull out a new piece of soft, fawn leather. Laying out the pieceacross my cutting board, I grab my X-Acto and start cutting thin stripes. During the day, I make what I sell to Bluebell, mostly saddles, but bags and belts, too. I have a decent line of riding crops for barrel racers, also, but anything that spans beyond a rodeo gets made here.

In myprivateworkshop.

I measure and cut until the beer is empty, and then keep going. By the time I'm done wrapping the braided rawhide around the handle, leaving the lash at the bottom free, it's nearly eleven. After everything is tied off, I hold the quirt beneath the lamp on my work desk, turning it over in my palm.

This one isn’t meant for horses. With more lashes than the usual quirt,this is a flogger.Boots to the floor, I move over to the metal cupboard lining the back wall, one tucked behind my parked truck. Using the keys on my belt, I open the cupboard and hang the flogger on an empty hook, next to the other things I’ve made.

I’m not sure what using these would feel like, but I know I like to dream. Imagining the supple leather of one of my crops marking the skin of a woman who trusts me enough to let me do it? I adjust myself quickly before closing and relocking the cabinet. Maybe one day, and maybe not.

Until then, all my frustrations and heartache come out in these designs, only to be locked away, along with the rest of my feelings.

CHAPTER

THREE

I knowmost teachers probably say that their first few days in the classroom are the worst, and once they get to know their students, things are relatively cool.

Those are the same teachers that teach lovely things like geometry and language arts. The teachers who pass out packets of papers stapled together with book titles and due dates. Of course their biggest hurdles are figuringout who the class clown is going to be, or finding the perfect desk layout.

Put me in coach, because I can handle that.

Three months into the school year, I’m well aware that I’m about to have a few trying weeks. Why? Because I’m thehealthteacher, and this month we start the reproduction unit.

Today? We’re going over the female reproductive system, then male, then what happens when those systems merge.

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