Page 75 of Beautiful Chaos

“What are you talking about, Charlene?” Kade asks, rubbing his hand over the scruff on his cheeks.

“Kindergarten!” she exclaims dramatically and all of the air is sucked out of the room.

There ain’t no way in hell it’s time for our baby girl to go to kindergarten.

“No.”

Charlene rolls her eyes. “You can’t say no, Luca,” she chastises, smacking me over the head with yet another stack of papers. There’s no way kindergarten requires this much fucking paperwork. We could save an entire forest with all the fucking paper in this kitchen right now.

“I enrolled all four kids into the top three private schools in Southern California, as well as the several public schools closest to us here. But some of those schools start next week and we need to prepare.”

Scar rubs her face with her hands. “Why can’t she stay at the preschool?” she whines.

“Yeah,” Jade agrees. “I thought they did Kindergarten there.”

Holden sighs, looking through the paperwork with a gleam of guilt in his eyes. “They do, but not first grade.”

Ah. It all clicks. Trevor is a year ahead of the other kids in school. He’s already been through the Kindergarten program and will be entering first grade.

“I completely forgot to even get him enrolled somewhere else.” Holden’s shoulders slump forward and a heavy sense of parental guilt coats the room. None of us have been the best parents as this whole mess has gone on. It’s been out of a sense of love and protection, but I don’t really know if that’s enough to justify the balls we’ve let drop.

Jade squeezes Holden’s thigh in comfort and he rests his hand over hers as Charlene kisses his cheek. “This is why you all have me. Don’t feel guilty for making this town a safer place for your kids.”

Easier said than done.

Declan stands from where he was sitting at the counter, leaning over Scar to grab some of the papers. “We can’t change the past, so instead of wallowing, let’s move on to the next step.” He pins his attention on Charlene. “What are our options, Char?”

She claps her hands together in excitement as she gives us a rundown on all the schools she picked out. It’s instantly clear she’s already done all of the leg work, putting a lot of time and effort into looking at each option for our kids. There’s no bad choice, but I instantly don’t like the options that take the kids far out of the city. Even if they are the best schools on this coast.

Based on the dour expressions on everyone’s faces, I’m not alone in the sentiment.

Letty clicks her tongue. “We’re making this city our own, are we not?”

Joe nods. “We sure are. Ain’t no one in this town who will think to cross a Rose.”

She shrugs as she throws the papers back down on the counter. “Then there’s nowhere safer for a child of a Rose to be. The kids don’t need the glitz and gore that comes with the price tag of these private schools.” The second half is said with a derisive sneer.

Declan tilts his head as he reads something on the papers. “Scarlett is right. There’s nothing these private schools can give the kids that we wouldn’t be able to provide. I vote keeping it closer to home.”

Ian folds his hands, pushing away the papers as he does, stopping only to trade looks with an overwhelmed Jade. Secretly, I think we all feel the same as her, but are better at hiding it. “You said you chose several public schools?” he asks.

Charlene nods her head. “I wanted to make sure not to rule any out in case you all liked a certain one.”

Panic flashes over every face in the room except for Joe and Charlene, the former looking openly amused at the rest of our options.

Declan clears his throat. “Do we all agree to stay in St Graves?” he asks carefully.

Everyone in the room nods eagerly, almost too much so. I add my own quick affirmation and Declan sighs in relief. “At least that’s the first step.”

Charlene starts to launch into the pros and cons of each of the elementary schools in our neighborhood but more than one adult in the room looks like they’re going to be sick. Ryder stands and walks over to Charlene, patting her on the shoulders.

“What if we let the expert choose?”

Sighs of relief come from every corner of the room as the bobbing of heads starts all over again. Chalrene looks around confused, opening her mouth to question but Ry cuts her off. “We trust you more than ourselves with the kids,” he explains simply. Pulling a wry chuckle from not only me. Truer words have never been spoken.

“You know far more about this than we do and have already done all the work. We trust you.”

Charlene beams. “Well, good. Cause I was really going to push for Bayview Elementary school. They get good funding, are known to have a very active PTA with a lot of parent involvement in the school activities, and lower student to teacher ratios. They even implemented some new teaching programs to really help the outlier students succeed as well. I was very impressed with what they’ve managed to do as a public school.”

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