it was what you meant by it.”
“Am I speaking with Kyle or Scowl right now?” he teased, turning to me once again, and I had to chuckle.
In fact, I hated myself for laughing at it. He seemed to have this power to crack right through all my defenses, every one I’d spent a lifetime building up.
“Smartass,” I muttered, waiting for him to chastise me or remark about that being inappropriate for me to call my teacher, but he grinned, as though proud of himself for earning the nickname.
“You’re not like other teaches, Mr. Warner.” Although, I wondered how much I thought that because of the kindness I’d seen him display, and how much was because he was hot as sin.
Our conversation settled, not in an uneasy way, like I’d assumed such a drive might be after the fucked-up shit that had gone down in town. When he finally made it to my neighborhood, I helped him navigate until he pulled up alongside the curb.
“I can come in and talk to your parents about where you were and what happened.”
“That won’t be necessary. Just go home.”
“Okay. I stand by everything I said about how you should have thought of yourself more before taking action back there, but even still, I appreciate that your heart was in the right place. Thank you.”
Given how annoyed he’d seemed by my jumping into action, his gratitude took me by surprise. And between that and having my eyes locked with his brown irises, I felt warmth in my cheeks.
The hell?
“No prob.” I got out quickly, but before I closed the door, there was one thing I had to say, needed to fucking say. I popped my head back in. “Mr. Warner, you’re a good guy. We don’t need good guys bloodied up in dark alleys, losing them to the very assholes who should be the ones lying there, bloodied up in those dark alleys.”
It was all true. Even during this short trip, all he’d been was kind and as chill as I could have hoped.
He reflected on my comment before smirking. “Very wise words, Mr. Forsythe.”
“Consider that a little Kyle 101 for tonight,” I teased. “End of lesson.”
“That’s fair. Are you sure you don’t need me to come in and talk to your parents?”
I snickered, tucking my face down and shaking my head. This guy really didn’t get it. “This isn’t my parents’ place.” I winked at him. “And we’ll save that for another lesson. Good night.”
He started to ask something, but I closed the car door and headed into the yard, to the front door, trying to wrap my thoughts around everything that happened.
8
James
“And he just happened to be there when this mugger attacked you?” Dr. Henry asked as she reviewed my incident report, skimming more than reading it, it seemed. I’d emailed her the night of the incident, as soon as I got home, figuring Wyachet High’s principal would want to ensure we handled everything by the book. We’d agreed to meet up before school on Monday to follow up about the details. However, aside from having filed a police report, there wasn’t much I could do.
“Excuse me?” I asked, caught off guard by her response, which mirrored Officer Howe’s suspicions toward Kyle. “I’m sorry, Dr. Henry. Maybe I didn’t say something right. He was in the area because of an event I offered as extra credit.”
“Yet he didn’t make it to the event, but knew when it was and where you would be.” Her salt-and-pepper eyebrows pushed closer together as she seemed about as convinced as the officer from the night before.
“He beat this guy up good. I don’t think he would have gotten someone to scare me just so he could hurt them.”
“Kids have done stranger things. Trust me, I’ve been doing this a long time. It could have been a prank. Maybe even fake blood.”
I knew what I’d seen: real punches pounding that mugger, and Kyle’s banged-up hands. He hadn’t staged that. It wasn’t the Kyles of a school you had to watch for that shit. It was those football-playing goons who would work each other up into doing stupid crap like that.
Kyle hadn’t done that. However, it was clear by the skeptical expression on Dr. Henry’s face that she wasn’t interested in being convinced of his innocence, nor did I think it was necessary to her filing this away and us all getting on with our lives.
“James, you never know with a guy like Kyle Forsythe.” She shrugged, setting my