Page 127 of Clean Slade
“Is that even legal?”
My silence was answer enough.
She watched me for a moment that turned to three before biting her lip.
“You’re a scary man, you know. In a…sexy way,” she said, and I wiggled my eyebrows in appreciation.
“Love you too, sweetheart.”
Autumn laughed.
“Why do I always have to hear what I’ve always wanted to hear from the wrong lips?”
She let out a dramatic sigh, and I almost spit my coffee out.
“Why? Whose lips do you want to hear it from?”
She shrugged and rushed to her feet as if I’d asked her to hand me her journal so I could read her deepest thoughts.
“N-no one. A man. Any man. Any eligible man.” I didn’t even open my mouth when she snatched the coffee jug from the table. “Shut up. Get back to work.”
And with that Southern charm, she left my table to refill other cups.
I clicked a button to test the sequence I’d been working on when I glanced at the time.
“Shit.”
Without much fanfare, I shut the laptop, picked up my jacket, and rushed back to my car.
Please, no traffic today. Please, no traffic.
I raced through town to get to the school, and when I parked in the assigned space, I breathed a sigh of relief as the school day had just ended, and the students had started coming out to meet their parents.
I quickly scrolled my phone for a recipe I could pick up the ingredients for on our way home when Wesley tapped on my window.
“Hey, Wesley, everything okay?”
Mac’s teacher smiled and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
“Very well, thanks. What are you doing here?”
I squinted and stared with a pout at the man who was quickly becoming a friend.
“Um…remember Mac? About yay high, laughs a lot, too smart for her own good? Yeah, I’m picking her up like I do every day.”
Wesley tilted his head, and his brows furrowed.
“But her grandma picked her up today.”
It was like someone took a bucket of ice-cold water and poured it all over me. Even my fingers went immediately numb.
Grams was picking Mac up? Since when?
“Wh-what?”
“Yeah, she came by maybe ten minutes ago? What? Why do you look like that? What’s happening?” Wesley put his hand over the window and raised an eyebrow.
Had King told me she was doing that? Had I forgotten? I was sure I’d remember.
