I walked into Honky Tonk through the kitchen, twirling my keys around my finger and whistling.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” Milford, the line cook, observed.
I wondered exactly how big of a dick I usually was that made my good mood breaking news, then decided I didn’t really give a shit.
Making sure to school my expression into my normal scowl, I headed into the bar. There were about a half dozen early birds scattered around the place.
Max and Silver were eating brownies behind the bar and clutching their mid-sections.
Fi came out of the bathroom with her hands on her low back. “God. Why do I have to pee 147 times a day when I’m riding the cotton pony?” She groaned when she spotted me. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s Period Night.”
“I own the place,” I reminded her, scanning the bar.
“Yeah. And you’re also smart enough not to show up when you have three menstruating women on shift.”
“Where’s Naomi?” I asked.
“Don’t you take that tone with me today, Knoxy. I will break your face.”
I had taken no tone with her, but I knew better than to point that out. “I brought you brownies.”
“You brought us brownies so we don’t cry in the kitchen.”
She had a point. Fi knew my secret. Tears were my kryptonite. I couldn’t handle a woman crying. It made me feel desperate and helpless and pissed off.
“Where’s Naomi?” I asked again, trying to modulate my tone.
“I’m fine, Knox. Thanks for asking. Even though I feel like my uterus is being crumpled up inside my body so it can be expelled through my Lady Canal, I’m thrilled to be working tonight.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but she held up a finger. “Uh-uh. I wouldn’t do that,” she advised.
I shut my mouth and tagged Silver at the bar. “Where’s Naomi?”
Her expression stayed carefully blank, but her eyes skated to Fi, who was making an exaggerated slashing motion across her throat.
“Seriously?” I asked.
My business manager rolled her eyes. “Fine. Naomi was here, but there was some trouble with Waylay’s teacher. She went to take care of it and asked us to cover for her.”
“She’s bringing us pretzels afterward,” Max said around the brownie she held between her teeth as she shuffled by with two fresh beers. I was pretty sure that was a health violation but was smart enough not to mention it.
I eyed the women before me. “You thought I’d be pissed that she went to take care of something at the school?”
Fi smirked. “No. But it’s a slow day. Thought it would be more fun this way.”
I closed my eyes and started to count to ten. “Why haven’t I fired you yet?”
“Because I’m amazing!” she sang, spreading her arms wide. She flinched and clutched her stomach. “Fucking periods.”
“Amen,” Silver agreed.
“Strap on one of those damn heat pad things and take turns getting off your feet,” I advised.
“Look who’s Mr. Menstruation,” Fi said.
“Working with the Synched Sisters has educated me in ways I never wanted to be. Who’s the teacher?”
“What teacher?” Max asked as she blew past us again with a couple of empties. The brownie was now gone. I hoped it hadn’t fallen into one of the beers.
“Waylay’s teacher,” I said in exasperation. “Did she say what the problem was?”
“Is there a reason you’re so interested?” Fi asked, looking too damn smug for my liking.
“Yeah. I’m paying her to be here, and she’s not here.”
“Your tone is aggressive, and I don’t react well to aggressive during my Lady Business,” Silver warned.
This was why I didn’t come near Honky Tonk during Code Red, which is how I labeled it in my calendar.
“Mrs. Felch,” Max called from the corner two-top she’d commandeered.
She was sitting on one chair with her feet propped on the second and a damp bar towel draped over her forehead and eyes.
“I’m personally not a fan of Mrs. Felch. One of my kids had her. She gave homework over Christmas,” Fi recalled.
“Fuck.”
Fi and Silver turned to look at me. Max peeked out from under her cold compress.
“Mrs. Felch is married,” I said.
“That is usually what Mrs. means,” Silver said, patronizing me.
“Mrs. Felch is married to Mr. Felch. Nolan Felch.”
Fi got it first. “Oooooh, shit. That’s not good.”
“Wait, didn’t Tina—”
“Yeah. She did. I gotta go. Try not to scare off all the patrons.”
Fi scoffed. “They’re here for the free Bloody Mary shots we give out during Crappy Hour.”
“Whatever. Later.” Heading for the parking lot, I vowed never to come back to Honky Tonk during a Code Red.
I made it almost to my truck when Liza’s Buick rolled up. But it was Naomi’s dad, worry lines carved into his forehead, behind the wheel instead of my grandmother. Amanda was in the passenger seat, looking agitated.
“Everything all right?” I asked, reading the mood.
“Waylay is missing,” Amanda announced, a hand clutched to her heart.
“She walked to the cottage to get her schoolwork together and was supposed to come straight back to Liza’s. We were going to have dinner-and-a-movie night.”
“She didn’t come back, and her bike’s gone,” Lou said gruffly. “We’re hoping Naomi had seen her.”
I swore under my breath. “Naomi’s not here. There was some trouble at the school with Way’s teacher, and she went to handle it.”
“Maybe that’s where Waylay went,” Amanda said, clutching her husband’s arm.
“That’s where I’m headed now,” I said grimly.
“You’re part of a parent-teacher conference?” Lou scoffed.
“No, but I’m sure as hell gonna have your daughter’s back when she walks into an ambush.”
I IGNORED the speed limit and stop signs on the short drive to the elementary school and noticed Lou did the same behind me. We pulled into adjacent parking spaces and stormed the front doors, a united front.
I hadn’t stepped foot in the school since I was a student here. It looked as though not much had changed.
“How do we know where to go?” Amanda wondered when we walked in through the front doors.
I heard raised voices coming from one of the hallways.
“My money’s on that way,” I said.
“Your sister ruined my life!”
I didn’t wait for the Witts. I headed toward the shouting at a dead run. I made it to the open door just in time to see a seething Mrs. Felch fisting her hands at her sides as she leaned into Naomi’s personal space.
I stalked into the room, but neither woman paid me any attention.
“From what you’ve told me, your husband ruined your marriage. An innocent eleven-year-old certainly isn’t to blame,” Naomi said, hands on hips, not giving the woman an inch.
She was wearing another flirty denim skirt. This one had a distressed hem with threads that skimmed her thighs. I both loved the way it looked on her and hated the fact that she was wearing it to serve beer to men who weren’t me.
“She’s got her mother’s blood, doesn’t she? There’s nothing innocent about any of you,” Mrs. Felch hissed, pointing an accusing finger in Naomi’s face.
My plans for Naomi and her tight little skirt would have to wait.
“Bullshit.”
My announcement had both women whirling around to face me.
Mrs. Felch’s eyes got big behind her glasses. I was a scary fucking guy when I wanted to be, and right now, I wanted to be downright terrifying. I took two steps forward, and she backed into her desk like a cornered rat in bifocals.
“Knox,” Naomi said through clenched teeth. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She was tilting her head and subtly pointing toward the floating wall that created a coatroom just inside the doorway.
I glanced in the direction and caught a glimpse of blonde and blue hair.
Waylay, holding a jar of God knows what, gave me an embarrassed finger-wiggle of a wave from her belly on the floor.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered.
“There’s no need for language,” Mrs. Felch barked.
“The fuck there isn’t,” I countered, angling myself to block part of the opening to the coatroom. “And I think Waylay’s grandparents will agree.”
I jerked my head toward Lou who, until that point, had been holding Amanda back with a good grip on her summer sweater.
“Seems we’ve got ourselves a family conference,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Judging from how your daughter turned out, don’t think for a second that I’m falling for this show of familial support,” Mrs. Felch sniffed.
“Waylay Witt is a juvenile delinquent, and her mother is a home-wrecking, pill-popping boil on the bottom of society.”
“Thought you said there’s no need for language.”
“Crap on a cracker,” Amanda whispered, and I guessed she’d just spotted her granddaughter’s hiding place.
“Huh?” Lou was a little slower on the uptake until his wife pointed out the situation. “Ah, hell,” he muttered under his breath. He stepped up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me. Amanda moved to his right. Together, we created a wall between Waylay and her shitty teacher.
Naomi looked relieved, then turned back to face the kraken. “Mrs. Felch,”
she snapped, bringing the woman’s attention back to her.
I snapped my fingers at Waylay and pointed to the door. She started to belly-crawl her way toward the door.
Naomi waved her arms and paced toward the opposite side of the classroom like she was throwing a fit. “I have empathy for your situation. I really do. You certainly didn’t deserve what your husband and my sister did to you. However, you are responsible for not just teaching these students but for making them feel safe in your classroom. And I have it on good authority that you are failing in spectacular fashion when it comes to that duty.”
Waylay’s sneakers disappeared into the hallway.
“Tina took my husband into her bed and—”
“Enough.” I bit out the word, and the woman’s lip trembled.
“Yeah. What he said,” Amanda agreed, backing toward the door. “Oh, dear! I just remembered. I left my purse in the hallway.” She hustled out the door…holding her purse.
Naomi returned to stand in front of me. “I’ll give you the weekend to decide whether you’re going to modify your behavior so that all your students, including my niece, feel safe in your classroom. If you refuse, then I’ll not only have Waylay removed from your class, I’ll go to the school board and I will raise hell.”
I reached an arm around her chest and pulled her back to my front. Naomi the Spitfire could be just a little terrifying when she wasn’t screaming her frustrations into a pillow.
“She’ll do it too,” Lou cut in proudly. “She won’t stop until you’re out of the classroom. And the rest of us will be there to back her up every step of the way.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Mrs. Felch whispered. She sank wearily into the desk chair. “We were supposed to retire together. We were going to drive the RV cross-country. Now I can’t even look at him. The only reason he stayed is because she dropped him as quick as she picked him up.”
I guessed it couldn’t be easy for Lou to hear this about one of his daughters. But the man hid it well.
I felt Naomi’s anger drain out of her.
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you,” Naomi said again, her voice softer now. “But neither does Waylay. And I’m not going to let anyone make her feel like she’s responsible for the decisions adults make. You and Waylay both deserve better than the hands you were dealt.”
Mrs. Felch flinched, then sagged back in her chair.
I gave Naomi an approving squeeze.
“We’ll leave you to your weekend,” she said. “Feel free to email me your decision. Otherwise, I’ll see you Monday morning.”
Apparently Naomi wasn’t done yelling when we returned to the parking lot, where Amanda and Waylay stood next to my grandmother’s car.
“Now, Naomi,” Amanda began.
“Don’t you ‘now, Naomi’ me, Mom. Someone under five feet with blue streaks in her hair had better start explaining why I came down to discuss a situation with her teacher only to find my niece hiding in the coatroom with a jar of mice! You’re supposed to be at Liza’s with your grandparents.”
Waylay looked at the toes of her sneakers. They were the pink ones I’d bought her. She’d added a heart charm to the laces. There were two mice nestled on a cushion of dried grass in the jar at her feet.
“Mrs. Felch was bein’ a pain in the a—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” Naomi said. “You’re already in trouble.”
Waylay’s face went mutinous. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I showed up to school on the first day, and she was mean to me. Like really mean. She yelled at me in front of everyone in the cafeteria when I spilled my chocolate milk. She took recess time away from everyone and said it was my fault for not respecting what belonged to other people. Then, when she was handing out papers about some dumb bake sale to take home to our parents, she said I didn’t need one since my mom was too busy in the bedroom to find the kitchen.”
Naomi looked like she was about to have an aneurysm. “Get it together,”
I warned her, tucking her behind my back.
I put my hand on Waylay’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Look, kid. I think we all get that you’re not used to havin’ an adult around who has your back. But you need to get used to it. Naomi’s not goin’
anywhere. You’ve got your grandparents too. And you’ve got me and Liza J and Nash. But you scared the shit out of all of us running off like that.”
She scuffed her foot on the asphalt. “Sorry,” she said sullenly.
“What I’m sayin’ is you have a lot of people in your corner now. You don’t need to go it alone. And your Aunt Naomi can do a hell of a lot more than leave some mice in a teacher’s desk drawer.”
“I was also gonna give her computer a virus. One of those annoying ones that adds extra letters and numbers when you’re typing,” she said, her cheeks pink with indignation.
I hid my grin by biting the inside of my cheek. “Okay. That’s pretty good,” I admitted. “But it’s not a long-term solution. Your teacher is a problem that you can’t solve on your own. You need to tell your aunt this shit so she can deal with it like she just did in there.”
“Mrs. Felch looked scared,” Waylay said, chancing a glance behind me at Naomi.
“Your aunt can be real scary when she stops taking her screaming into pillows.”
“Am I in trouble?” Waylay asked.
“Yes,” Naomi said firmly.
Just as Amanda insisted, “Of course not, sweetheart.”
“Mom!”
“What?” Amanda asked, wide-eyed. “She’s been through a traumatic few days at school, Naomi.”
“Your mother is right,” Lou said. “We should call an emergency appointment with the principal and the superintendent. Maybe they can convene a special school board meeting tonight.”
“This is so embarrassing,” Waylay groaned.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing wading into a family disagreement, but I did anyway. “Why don’t we let Mrs. Felch stew for the weekend? Naomi already laid it out for her real clear. We’ll deal with whatever needs dealt with Monday morning,” I said.
“Why are you even here?” Lou demanded, turning his anger on me.
“Dad!” It looked like it was Naomi’s turn to be embarrassed as she stepped to my side.
“Waylay, go let the mice out over there on the tree line,” I ordered.
She shot me a wary look before scampering off toward the skinny strip of woods between the school and Knockemout Pretzels. I waited until she was out of earshot before turning back to Lou.
“I’m here because Naomi was walking into a situation she didn’t know anything about. Felch has had a hard-on for Tina ever since her husband banged Tina this summer. The whole town was talking about it. Now, once again, Naomi’s cleaning up a mess that Tina left behind. Something I get the feeling she’s spent her whole life doing. So maybe you can cut her some slack or, better yet, help her out with the clean-up this time around.”
Lou looked like he wanted to take a shot at me, but I saw my words had landed with Amanda. She put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Knox is right, Lou. Us second-guessing Naomi isn’t helping anyone.”
Naomi took a breath and blew it out slowly. I ran my hand up her back, then down again.
“I need to get back to work,” she said. “I’ve already missed an hour of my shift. Will you two please take Waylay home and try to keep her from running off again?”
“Of course, sweetheart. And now that we know that she’s sneaky, we’ll keep a closer watch on her.”
“I’ll take the front tire off her bike,” Lou decided.
“I need to skip ahead to the chapter on discipline in my library book,”
Naomi decided. “Damn it! I hate reading out of chronological order.”
“Judith’s daughter changes the Wi-Fi password on her kids and doesn’t change it back until they’re ungrounded,” Amanda suggested helpfully.
Waylay returned with a now empty jar, and I felt Naomi take another deep breath.
“Mrs. Felch is in way more trouble than you are, Waylay. But Knox is right. You have to come to me with this stuff. Don’t tell me everything’s fine when it’s not fine. I’m here to help. You can’t be sneaking out and exacting revenge on everyone who wrongs you. Especially not with innocent little field mice.”
“I brought food and I was going to put water in the drawer with them,”
Waylay explained.
“We’ll talk about this in the morning,” Naomi said. “Your grandparents are going to take you home. It’s up to them whether you have to scrub floors or if you still get to watch movies tonight.”
“It’ll definitely be movies,” Lou whispered.
“But you have to do all the dinner dishes,” Amanda added.
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Waylay said quietly. She lifted her eyes to look at Naomi. “And I’m sorry for not telling you.”
“Apology accepted,” Naomi said. She swooped down and gave the girl a quick hug. “Now, I have to get back to work.”
“I’ll drive you,” I volunteered.
“Thank you. I’ll see everyone in the morning,” she said wearily.
There was a chorus of good-byes, and Naomi headed for the truck.
I waited until she opened the passenger door, then interrupted Amanda, who was making plans to stop for ice cream on their way home. “Can you two do me a favor and swing by Honky Tonk to pick up your Explorer? I’ll drive Naomi home tonight.”
I had plans for her.
