Hayes’ brows rose as he stared at my friend.
“He what?” I gasped. “What did your boss say?”
“My boss said that I need to ‘try to make things work’ because he was ‘very influential’ and that my mom and dad’s name could only get me so far,” she hissed. “I swear to God. I’m going to call my Uncle Max and have him throat punch him. I’d call my mom and dad, but they’re away on a cruise.”
Calloway’s parents went on a month-long cruise around Australia. I was honestly jealous as hell as I heard where they were going. I’d always wanted to go.
That was when Calloway finally realized that I wasn’t alone in my office.
Hell, she hadn’t even taken her pissed-off eyes away from me to notice the large man standing a few feet away. Hayes was really good at blending into the background, though. I’d witnessed him do it a lot over the time that I’d known him.
“What’s going on?” Hayes asked, sounding concerned.
I recounted the last hour with Principal Bailey, causing him to growl. “I want to say I told you so, but that’s just cruel. When’s the soldier coming?”
I looked at my watch. “In about an hour.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do…” Hayes said.
A half hour later there were news crews at the school ready to record the homecoming. Then there were the multiple members of the SWAT team.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Calloway hissed.
I blinked, so surprised by Calloway’s outburst that at first I didn’t know that it was someone I knew who had her hackles raised.
When I turned it was to find Louis sneering at her.
“I’m here because I’m a part of the SWAT team, which you fucking know,” Louis whispered. “What’s wrong, Way? Did you miss me?”
Way. Calloway hated being called Way by him, and Louis knew it.
“What the hell is going on here?” Principal Bailey boomed.
“Just showing our presence, sir,” Ford said. “We heard a soldier was coming home. We’re not technically on school property.”
And they weren’t. They were on the street next to the school. But they might as well have been in the school parking lot with how close they were.
It was actually quite genius on Hayes’ part.
The news crew was parked right next to them, filming from the gas station across the street.
Which was about when the soldier pulled in with his wife who’d called to let me know that they were on their way.
“They’re not coming in here.” Principal Bailey braced his legs and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at me as if this was all my fault.
It was, of course. But he really didn’t know that.
“You can’t stop them from picking their ward up,” Hayes offered his two cents. “Which, from what I’ve heard, is what they’re doing.”
It was.
“It’s not time for school to let out,” he snapped. “It’s only noon.”
“You can’t tell someone when they can and can’t pick their kid up,” Hayes pointed out. “That’s their right as a parent. And you’re not a prison. You’re a school.”
Principal Bailey looked as if he was about to lose his ever-loving mind.
I stepped in just as the soldier got out of his truck and started to head toward us.
That’s when I realized that I knew the kid that I now realized was no longer a kid.
“Boz!” I cried out. “Since when did you start going by Boston?”
Boz was a man that I’d graduated with, and honestly, I was surprised that I hadn’t put two and two together before. But, admittedly, Boston ‘Boz’ Deeds didn’t have the same name as Abilene Scree. Their parents had gotten married in middle school, from what I remembered.
Boz grinned at me, hooking his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulling her into him as he came to a halt next to our half-formed circle.
“Still do,” he admitted. “Except this one calls me Boston.”
I smiled at his wife. “You’re ready to pick Abilene up?”
Boz nodded.
“You can’t enter the school.”
At first I thought he was talking about Boston, but then I realized he was talking about all the other officers who were now forming a half-circle at Boz’s back.
“We won’t,” Ford said salaciously. “We’ll wait right here.”
Principal Bailey looked disgusted as he gestured for Boston to follow him inside, and my eye twitched.
“I hate him,” Calloway hissed. “I wish that he would get a toenail fungus that made him lose his foot.”
“Harsh,” Louis muttered under his breath.
I left them to their bickering and walked inside, feeling Hayes at my back.
I didn’t bother telling him he couldn’t come, because Hayes did what he wanted.
“I’ll inform the teacher that you’re here…” Principal Bailey said.
“I already called her,” I lied. “Thank you, though.”
He curled his lip up at me, causing me to smirk inwardly.
“You just think you’re so smart, don’t you, Daddy’s girl?”
I didn’t bother to ask him what he meant by that.