Page 81 of More, Daddy
“She lied.”
And I know it isn’t a good sign in the least that I need to say it aloud to remind myself.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
“Fuck,”I groan, swiping at the dark spots marring my pressed white dress shirt.
“I’m really sorry West,” Denae says quietly. I look over at her, finding her eyes wide and Leah lingering in the door.
“You’re not being a grouchy asshole to Denae, are you?” Leah asks, and my eyes slide to Denae, who gives me an awkward smile.
I return it with as much energy as I can muster. “I’m sorry Denae. It’s not the coffee—I’m sorry,” I apologize and look up, over her head, to where Leah lingers. “Wecollided and–”
“I spilled my coffee on him,” Denae says, reaching past me to grab her empty mug off the top of the copy machine.
Leah crosses the room. “Bummer.” She looks between me and Denae. “But look at it this way, now you have a reason for Starbucks.”
I swipe hastily at the dark stain that is not at all budging. “I thought you were concerned for my white shirt and,” I lift my boot, looking at the ground. “The old carpet.”
She wrinkles her nose as Denae collects her things. “Sorry again West.” She slips out, leaving just me and Leah.
Leah looks at the spill between my feet. “Last time I checked, this was a functional copy room at a high school, not my grandma’s living room. The district needed to put tile in here ages ago.” She steps on the spill, pushing her foot down until coffee bubbles up around the shiny patent of her pump. “Gross.”
I take my papers from the machine. “I have a spare shirt in my office.”
“Ah,” Leah says, on my heels. “So you didn’t need my concern anyway.” She plops down in the chair across from my desk. I think she’s sat there more often than anyone else combined. “Ready for the staff meeting?”
My hands make a vertical line down my shirt, opening each button. My white T-shirt underneath is stained, too, so I pull open my drawer and dig for my spare. Working with sweaty athletes is something that has you storing clean outfits everywhere. You only drive home covered in a fifteen year old’s nosebleed once to remember the importance of spare clothes.
I nod toward my office door. “Close it.”
She kicks it closed with her purple heel. Reaching behind me, I tug off my T-shirt by the neck, and fish my arms through the new one. Next, I feed each arm through the cleandress shirt, then work on the buttons. Leah files her nails, analyzing her cuticles as I dress.
“You know, I was gonna call these things off. Switch it to quarterly. But when I floated the idea, it got squashed,” Leah says of the staff meeting, which we all know is 90% gossip and 10% talking about the cafeteria menu. I tuck in my shirt and shrug back into my blazer, then swipe my hand over my hair, opting to leave my hat at my desk.
Leah gets up and pulls open the door, and I follow her into the large conference room where we hold our staff meetings. I nearly cause a pile up at the door when I stop in my tracks. I grab Leah by the elbow and drag her back to me, hissing quietly into her ear, “Why are junior coaches here?”
She yanks her arm from my grasp and scowls at me. “They’re staff members, too. The only reason they didn’t come to the last few is because they were running class for other staff to be here.” She smiles. “Now we just put the students in an assembly. Makes more sense.”
Leah walks away, moving to the head of the table where she always sits. Though I’m certain she thinks of me as her consigliere, and I know she wants me to sit near her, today I decide to sit somewhere else.
“Hey, Mr. Dupont,” Dallas nods, giving me an ear to ear grin. He seems excited for the staff meeting and truth be told? Today? I am, too. I take a seat next to Sarah Vicks, the oldest of the junior coaches and new teachers. She is the women’s water polo junior coach. Sarah’s blonde hair is always slightly purple from her chlorine-fighting shampoo, and she definitely smells like a pool. Still, I sit next to her, angle my chair toward her, hold her eyes with mine and greet, “Good morning, Sarah. How have you been?”
The room fills in around me, teachers coming in, chatting, some yawning, most of them with tumblers of coffee fromhome. I pretend to listen to Sarah tell me all about whatever it is she’s talking about, all the while tracking Briar’s movements. Initially, she was sitting across from us.
Now, though, she’s moved to sit next to Austin Reeves. Leah calls for our attention and starts the meeting, and when I finally let myself fullyglanceat Briar, I find her eyes already on mine, gaze narrowed, a defiant, bratty expression twisting up her face.
“Now, I’ll pass these out. Everyone give it a thorough read. If there are any mistakes, email me by the end of the day. Otherwise, these are what’s going in the SAT prep course packets. Speak now, people, or forever hold your peace,” she says, shifting her readers to the top of her head as she passes Denae a stack of green papers to pass out. Chatter begins quietly, as people wait for their handout.
I refuse to look at Briar. She wants me to look. She wants me to be jealous.
What? The same way you wanted her to be jealous of Sarah? Because you sat by Sarah and not her?
I ball my hands into fists in my lap as I stare at Leah, tuning her out completely.
Briar says none of it was a lie. That the only thing that wasn’t true was her being Cadence.
