Right Under My Nose Page 4

  I got to my feet and crouched down so I could look Hunter in the eye.

  “Will you give us a minute?” I asked him, and he nodded, shooting a look at his teacher as though pondering for a second which authority figure he should obey. He went with me. It was the right choice. I watched until he was out of the room and had closed the door behind him, and then I turned to the woman who had caused all this trouble in the first place. Planting my hands on the table, I glared down at her and found her steadily meeting my gaze in return. She didn’t defer, didn’t look away, and somehow that sent anger flaring through me with even more passion than it had been before. She clearly didn’t think she’d done anything at all wrong. Well, I was happy to dissuade her of that. Because nobody got to talk to my son about his mother other than me—and certainly not this schoolteacher who clearly had no idea where the line between appropriate and inappropriate lay.

  6

  Autumn

  As soon as Hunter stepped out of the room, it was as though something had snapped inside Holden. I could see it go, my eyes widening as he turned his attention back to me, rounding on me with an anger I wasn’t sure I had warranted.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him, trying to keep my cool and failing. My voice was high and squeaky, as though someone had pierced me and now I was leaking gas like an old balloon.

  “You cannot speak to my son about those things,” he told me angrily. I furrowed my brow and shook my head.

  “What things?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he told me. “You can’t describe him as some kind of… as some kind of social outcast straight to his face. How do you think that makes him feel?”

  “Holden, we like to include children every step of the way when it comes to their own education and school experience—” I started reciting the words that I had gone over with the head teacher when I had first started work here, but they didn’t seem like enough. Even coming out of my mouth then and there, they sounded insincere, fake.

  “Don’t start with that.” Holden shook his head again. He pushed his hand through his hair, agitated, and I wondered if he was right. Should I have kept this between us? Well, whatever, it was far too late for that now, and we had to run with what we had.

  “I didn’t mean to make you or your son feel uncomfortable,” I told him. “I understand that this kind of thing can be difficult to hear, especially if you’re not aware of the problem, but we hoped that Hunter would be able to help us resolve the issue and move forward.”

  “What issue?” he snapped back. “He’s just quiet, that’s all, and you’re acting like he’s a pariah.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to confirm to this man that his son had been existing on the outside edges of this place for a long time now, longer than even I would have cared to think about. He seemed to be able to read it written on my face, and something between anger and upset twisted his face. Well, I had been wrong about one thing. This man certainly did give a shit about his son, even if I was the one getting chewed out for trying to help.

  “It’s not like that,” I offered in return. I had never been the most socially smooth person I knew, and this high-pressure situation was exactly the time that I would have liked to make a silly joke or thrown in a little gag to break the tension. I knew that was the last thing this situation needed. I had to hold myself together, act professional, and get rid of this guy.

  “So what is it like, then?” he demanded. “My son doesn’t have a lot of friends, so you drag him in here to make him feel like a freak for it?”

  I hated the way he was talking to me. This was my classroom, and I was meant to be the one in charge, and yet here he was coming at me like I was another errant child he had to take in hand. I wanted to remind him of that fact, but it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Best to sit back, try to detach, and hope for the best.

  “Hunter is a sweet boy,” I told him. “You’ve done a good job raising him. But he needs people around him who are his own age, people he can relate to at a contemporary level. Not just you and your friends.”

  I shouldn’t have added in the last bit. I knew that as soon as it came out of my mouth. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “Maybe he’s too mature for all the kids in this place,” he remarked. “Maybe he’s too adult, and that’s why they don’t want to spend time with him.”

  I fell silent. I wanted to point out that this guy was hardly acting mature right now, throwing a tantrum because things weren’t going his way, but I figured it was only going to make things worse. If there was one thing I understood well from my time working as a teacher, it was that to treat adults and kids the same was to invite a deep and abiding hatred from adults who hated being talked down to. And right now, I needed to quell this situation before it got any further out of hand.

  “Maybe that’s the case,” I agreed diplomatically, hoping that would be enough to calm him down. “I was simply concerned and wished to make sure there was nothing more going on that I could help the two of you address.”

  “Why are you talking like that? You sound like a robot.” He shook his head. And he was right, I did. It was the only way for me to keep my cool right then and there, the only hope in hell I had of not losing my shit in his general direction. If I could convince myself I was cool and calm and far removed from this, I wouldn’t freak out and kick him out of my classroom before we had a chance to resolve this issue with Hunter. Because that was what this was all about at the end of the day, making sure that little boy got the best of this situation, no matter what that looked like for him.

  “And another thing,” Holden was pacing back and forth across the carpeted section of the floor. “You don’t bring up Hunter’s mother with him ever again, all right?”

  I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to elaborate. That wasn’t the kind of statement people had a habit of dumping into the middle of conversations. It needed a little context.

  “All right?” he pressed me again. I glanced down at his hand and saw no wedding ring, so if he and Hunter’s mother had ever been married, they certainly weren’t any longer. That was interesting. I wondered what her deal was. Where she had gone to, and why had even referencing her been enough to send Holden shooting through the roof? Whatever it was, if it was going to cool the situation, then I was happy to give him what he wanted.

  “All right.” I held my hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was overstepping any mark. I’ll bear it in mind for the future.”

  “Thank you,” he sighed, and he rubbed his hands over his face. I could tell this meeting wasn’t going to get anywhere further. He was stubborn, stuck in the ground, and anything that even hinted at the notion his son might not be perfectly happy and well-developed seemed like it was enough to set him off. Maybe because he was a single father who had received enough of that criticism to last a lifetime? I knew how cruel people could be to those around them raising their children differently, even in a place as allegedly progressive as Portland.

  “Perhaps we could reschedule this meeting,” I suggested to him, pulling out my calendar, “The two of us could talk without Hunter if it makes you more comfortable. Or—”

  “No, I’m not coming in here again if this is the only issue.” He shook his head firmly. “I thought my son was beating up other kids or something like that. He’s fine, everyone around him is fine, and I don’t see the issue here.”

  “The issue is that his social development isn’t keeping up with that of the kids around him,” I argued back. “As a parent, you should be looking for ways to address that.”

  I saw something inside him give as soon as those words came out of my mouth, and I had a feeling that I’d said the wrong thing. Then he stalked away from my table, as though he couldn’t even bear to look at me.

  “And you’re his teacher,” he reminded me. “That means you teach him. And that’s it.”

  I fell silent. I realized my hands were clenched to fists
at my sides, which was utterly ridiculous. What was I going to do, throw myself across the room and start beating on his chest like I was the heroine of a Regency novel? I crossed my arms over my chest and took a few long, deep breaths to calm myself, to remind myself that this was my place and that I was the one in control here, no question about it, no doubt.

  “Fine,” I told him, not giving a shit about the petulance in my voice. “I’ll just teach him.”

  He turned to look at me, and I was suddenly taken aback by the look on his face. It wasn’t anger, not this time, but something else entirely, something I was quite sure he had been trying to smother and hide from me this whole time. Exhaustion, maybe, or something that went a little deeper than that. A sadness at something we had been talking about. Maybe Hunter’s mother, maybe the way he was developing, but he looked as though he wanted to crawl into bed and stay there for a good long while.

  “Thank you.” He said, and just like that, the expression dropped, and he was back to being that carefully curated, aloof dude who had walked in here in the first place. The one who didn’t seem to give much of a shit about his son’s wellbeing. He headed out of the room and left me standing there, and I took a good long while to get my breathing back to normal, feeling like I had wasted my time and his.

  “Hey.” I heard a familiar voice and turned to find Zoe poking her head around the door.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted, and she shrugged.

  “Needed to pick up some papers that I left on Friday, and I remembered you had that meeting today,” she told me. “Was that him walking out of here? He looked pissed.”

  “Yeah, that was him,” I sighed, and I leaned back against the table. “It didn’t exactly go the way I wanted it to.”

  “No, I could see that from his expression.” Zoe raised her eyebrows. “What the hell happened in here? What was so bad?”

  “He was defensive.” I shook my head. “Didn’t want to hear about anything wrong with his son and when I brought up Hunter’s mother, he lost it.”

  Zoe fell silent for a moment, and she scanned my face. I could tell she was reading me, the way she had always been able to.

  “I think you should just leave it, Autumn,” she told me firmly. I glanced up at her.

  “Just one more email,” I suggested. “Just to make sure we didn’t get off on the wrong foot—”

  “You got off on the whole wrong damn leg judging by the look on his face when he walked out of here,” she pointed out. “Don’t make it any worse than it already is, Autumn. You don’t want Hunter to feel like he can’t come to you with shit, and if his dad hates you, that’s going to be the case.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I slumped back against the desk once more. “I just… maybe I could do more.”

  “I’m giving you permission to leave it all the way alone,” Zoe told me. “No, I’m ordering you to. Give it a rest. The last thing you need is to be juggling bullshit from someone who won’t even listen to you with everything else.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed. “I’ll leave it alone. I will.”

  But in the back of my mind, something was ticking, and I wasn’t sure it was going to be quite that easy.

  7

  Holden

  “Hi, is this Holden?”

  “Yes, it is!” I replied, and I instantly cringed at how overly perky my voice sounded. Did I really have to say it like that? I hated the way I sounded. But I figured it was better to sound a little too keen than a little too removed, so I would roll with it.

  “Great to hear from you,” Andrea, the CFO of the company that I had canceled the meeting with earlier in the week, greeted me warmly. She had a calm, relaxed voice, and I tried to tap into some of that peacefulness for myself. I was coming to this interview on the back foot, no two ways about it, but I had to convince them that I was worth it no matter how much of an inconvenience I was to them. Which was harder than it sounded.

  “I’m so sorry I had to cancel our meeting earlier in the week,” I told her. “I had an emergency that had to do with my son, and I couldn’t get out of it.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes when I thought back to what that emergency had been. The way she had been talking in the email, I had been sure Hunter was building tiny little shivs out of sticks and leaves and using them to shank other schoolchildren. As it turned out, he was a little quiet, and she was worried he wasn’t spending enough time with people his own age. Which was crazy, because he went to school, didn’t he? He was surrounded by kids his own age all the time. She was just talking out of her ass, trying to interfere in his life to seem like she was a good teacher when she really wanted to exert some power and stir the pot a little. Maybe she wanted to delve into my son’s personal life for her own gossipy interest.

  “I completely understand,” Andrea replied, and she sounded sincere. “I have two of my own, six and nine, and they’re constantly making it nearly impossible to run a business.”

  “Oh, what do you have?” I asked conversationally.

  “Boy and a girl,” she replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. “Boy’s older, though he doesn’t act it.”

  “My son is that exact age right now,” I remarked. “They’re starting to turn into little people, aren’t they?”

  “For better or for worse,” she agreed, and I chuckled.

  “So, I want to discuss the proposed contract,” I told her, moving on to the task at hand now that I had papered over the cracks that had been left by my cancelation of the meeting. “I understand that it might be easier to do this in person, but if you have your computer there, I can send you everything I think you need to see.”

  “Honestly, Holden, we’re quite impressed with the proposal you put forward,” she told me. “We don’t need too many more details. Just a time frame and a budget, and then we can get started with the details of the contract for you.”

  I closed my eyes and punched the air. She couldn’t see me, so it was fine.

  “That sounds great,” I agreed. “Let me run through everything again, so we know that we’re both on the same page.”

  “Never hurts,” she agreed, and I launched into my rundown of everything the project was going to be from my perspective. I hadn’t half-assed this, knowing I had a point to prove and that I needed to convince them that wherever I was in the world, I could take on this project and do it better than anyone else they could hire. Thank God, they seemed to actually believe me, and after an hour, Andrea was making approving noises down the phone and agreeing with everything that was coming out of my mouth.

  “Honestly, Holden, that sounds perfect,” she agreed. “I’ll pass all this along to the legal department and get them to draw up a contract, and hopefully we can start sooner rather than later, huh?”

  “Hopefully,” I agreed. We finished up the call, and I switched off the phone and dumped it into my pocket, closing my eyes and collapsing into my seat. It hadn’t been as bad as doing the presentation in person might have been, but I still felt as though that had taken it out of me. Working on the project was one thing—I could pull that off, no question, no problem—but hashing out all the details was the hard part.

  Especially when my mind was lingering over that meeting I’d had with the teacher. I shouldn’t have been letting it get to me. I had given her a piece of my mind, and I stood by that, genuinely believing everything that had come out of my mouth that day. She couldn’t just drag my son in front of her like he’d done something wrong and then speak to him like he was some kind of socially stunted freak. And she couldn’t expect me to stand by and take it. And she for sure couldn’t bring up his waste-of-space mother in front of him, not when I had fought so hard to make sure he never felt like anything other than a complete, loved person despite the absence of the woman who birthed him. That was what had seriously pissed me off. She had swung straight into our personal space without a second thought, and I didn’t put up so well with that. She was going to learn to
keep her nose out of our business. God willing, that would be the last time I ever heard from her.

  I headed downstairs, where Raymond was waiting with his daughter and Hunter. I had offered to babysit for the evening so that he and Olivia could go out, provided he was able to keep an eye on Hunter while I was making this call. I grinned when I saw him. She was asleep in his arms, peaceful and pretty, and I could see the relief painted all over his face.

  “She’s sleeping, so we’re being quiet,” Hunter told me, lifting a finger to his lips. I mimicked the same motion and nodded in agreement.

  “Right.” I headed up to them. “You want to hand her over, or you want to wait a little longer?”

  “I’ll wait a little longer,” Raymond remarked, a little gruffly, and I could tell he was trying to play the big tough father but was enchanted by his little girl so much that he could hardly keep a straight face.

  “Can I go upstairs and read for a bit?” Hunter tapped my arm, and I ruffled his hair.

  “Yeah. Be down for dinner,” I told him. “An hour at the most.”

  “Okay!” he called back down the stairs, and both Raymond and I winced and checked to see if the baby had woken, but she was still passed out.

  “What did you do, take her for a six-mile hike?” I remarked. “She’s really out for the count.”

  “I know, thank God,” he agreed. “How did your call go?”

  “Yeah, pretty well.” I shrugged, taking a bottle of water from the fridge and cracking it open. “How about you? How are you doing?”

  “Looking forward to getting out from underneath this papoose for a while.” He grinned. “Was that call the meeting you skipped in New York?”

  “Yeah.” I grimaced. “Though now that I look back on it, I don’t think I needed to cancel that meeting at all.”