Trust in Me - Quinn Ward Page 0,12
was on the latter, because Tom was one of the few teachers who didn’t have a ton of behavioral issues with his classes.
“Have you gotten in touch with him?” Tom asked as he plopped onto the hard-plastic chair across the desk.
“No.” I continued typing the report, still hopeful I’d get out the door before a migraine had time to set in. With any luck, a heavy dose of fresh air and a long walk would reverse the tension of this week.
“Are you going to see him this weekend?” Tom pried. In some ways, he was worse now that he and Ben had been together a year, than he had been when he’d been miserably single.
“Probably not.” I massaged my forehead and closed my eyes, trying to remember what in the hell it was we’d discussed in the meeting. I wasn’t proud of the fact, but I’d tuned a lot of it out because there were some kids who simply didn’t want to be helped. My first few years at the school, those had been the students I pushed harder than anyone else, but now I was jaded. What I needed was to get away from this place for a while and remember why I’d wanted to be a school administrator in the first place.
“But you want to,” he pushed. I shoved in the keyboard tray with more force than was absolutely necessary and glared at him. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m right.”
He was, but at the same time I couldn’t get William’s warning out of my head. I’d been trying for almost three weeks to figure out what skeletons could be in Sam’s closet that had William so protective of him.
If you’re not willing to stick by him once you learn who he is, walk away. Now.
My knee-jerk reaction had been to point out William knew me better than to think I was a shallow asshole, but the fact he did know me gave me pause. There was definitely something deeper in that warning and it was driving me nuts.
“See! That look right there says it all.” Tom waved his finger around, pointing at me like a little kid picking out which puppy he wanted to take home, complete with the shit-eating grin. “You want to get to know this kid better, so what in the hell’s stopping you? I’ve never seen you tentative before. It’s a little disconcerting.”
“What if I can’t deal with whatever William wasn’t telling me?” I wasn’t worried so much about what William or anyone else at the club might think of me, but I worried about what it would do to my self-esteem if I promised there was nothing that could turn me off and I wound up hurting him. The one thing William and I could agree on was that Sam was special; I’d never forgive myself if I played a role in damaging his already fragile sense of self.
“You won’t know until you talk to him. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep, but if you’re still thinking about him going on a month later, your curiosity isn’t going to go away.” This was payback for when I’d pushed Tom to go after his boy last year. He swiped my phone off the desk and handed it to me. “At the very least, call William and see if the kid’s working tonight.”
“His name is Sam,” I ground out. Yes, Sam was young, and he radiated boy vibes, but I wasn’t a fan of Tom repeatedly calling him kid.
The bastard chuckled. “My, aren’t we protective already? Make the call.”
Tom stood, holding out my phone. When I took it from him, he turned toward the door. “If you want moral support, give me a call. Ben’s been asking to go down and check out the playroom.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Some other night, maybe, but I didn’t need my best friend there to see me crash and burn if things didn’t go well.
I stared at the door, as if expecting Tom to come back for round two of badgering me into calling William. When I turned back to the report I was supposed to be writing, it didn’t take long to concede it was a lost cause; I’d have to finish the paperwork over the weekend. I quickly packed up my laptop, turned out the lights, and locked my office.
“Goodnight, Mr. Walker,” the school secretary called out. I gave her a quick wave, not wanting to get sucked into her typical recap