Dream of You (35 page)

             
“No,” Jo breathed as the boys scrambled up, her startled, almost frightened gaze colliding with his. She gathered the halves of her long sweater over the small bump of her stomach. “I should do it.”

             
Scraping together all his meager acting skills, Tam flashed her a smile, reached a hand across the table, over the smoking embers of her demonstration, palm open, willing her to stay seated. “It’s fine. I got it.” He kept it light. No big. Just playing Uncle Tam.

             
“But Walt - ”

             
“It’s cool.”

             
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

             
Because you said Tommy Parkinson was a shit-weasel; because you sat on the edge of the tub with me; because I may not be worth shit, but I’ve got a baseball bat ready for any motherfucker who wants to hurt my family
. “You’re tired,” he said, gently, instead. “Go warm up the couch for me and I’ll be right back.”

             
Her lack of argument proved just how tired she was. Tam didn’t give her a chance to rethink it, but slipped into his jacket and took the boys out into a night fierce with the bite of early November.

             
Walt was a hulking shadow leaned back against the front fender of his silver Mercedes, a shadow that straightened in sudden alarm when it wasn’t his defenseless, pregnant, tiny sister who rounded the corner.

             
“Bye!” Chase and Logan chirped in unison as they darted past and went straight for the backseat.

             
“Bye, guys.” Tam kept his smile firmly in place until the rear passenger door was shut and all innocent ears were shielded by a layer of expensive-car sound proofing. Then he shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and watched Walt watch him, until the oldest Walker brother decided against saying whatever vitriol he’d been about to spit and started around the nose of his ride.

             
“Walt,” Tam said, and even on a gust of wind, he was proud of the way the word was as focused and sharp-edged as
wait
had been five years ago in Walt’s kitchen. “I didn’t come out here to see your pretty face.”

             
He was in a long wool coat, like he wanted to be in
The Matrix
or some shit, its black tail trailing behind him in the wind as he gave Tam a long-suffering look through the white-blue shafts of his headlights. “What?” His voice dripped aggravation and contempt; he really did, deep down, hate him.

             
Tam thought about the first time he’d been big enough; thought of the clear autumn blue of the sky overhead, the brown grass under his sneakers. The blast of joy that had radiated up his arm when his fist had made contact with his old man’s jaw. It hadn’t been later, but in that moment, hitting and jostling and crashing into each other had been the sweetest thing. He thought of that now, and thought he saw something in Walt’s face change. Thought his feet edged one beside the other on the driveway.

             
“We won’t play pretend here,” Tam said. “You hate me, and I get that. I’m not good enough for your sister; I’m some fucked up piece of shit you wish you could get arrested or killed or gone, somehow. Right? I get that, I do.”

             
Walt’s feet
did
shift, just a quick scratch of the soles on the pavement.

             
“You can hate me all you want. You can make a dartboard out of my picture, get yourself a little voodoo doll of me and stick pins in it. You can black my name in every bar and every office in all of Georgia if that gets you hard.”

             
His square face went wild with frown creases. “You - ”

             
“No,
you
,” Tam bit out, “are gonna listen to me for one goddamn second, because this is the most important thing you ever have to know about me.” He could hear the stress tremors in his voice and didn’t care. “You don’t mess with a man’s family. You can do whatever you want to me – but Jo, and the baby, they’re my family. You can come over here and deck me right now if you want to, but if you say
one more
thing to Jo – if you make her cry or so much as even
look
at her the wrong way again – I’ll wrap one of your fancy-ass golf clubs around your head eighteen times.” He could feel his lips skinning back off his teeth; he was snarling at him. “Do you understand me? I will
hurt
you; I will beat your fucking ass like the trash I am if you get
my wife
upset one more time.”

             
The silence that hung between them spoke volumes: Walt was listening. He understood.

             
“You’re a worthless son of a bitch,” he growled.

             
Tam shrugged. “Coming from the man who likes torturing his baby sister, that doesn’t mean too much.”

             
It wasn’t joy that rushed through him as he turned his back on Walt and went back into the house, but a kind of calm and certainty that felt almost as good. He locked the back door and hung his coat up, toed off his shoes. Jo was in the middle of the sofa, looking very small and very worried about whatever had occurred out on the driveway. He stretched out beside her and pulled her across his lap, tucked her small, soft, coconut shampoo smelling head in under his chin.

             
“What are we watching?”

             
He felt her trying to look at him, her eyes straining, but finally she exhaled and snuggled in closer. “
House Hunters
. These people have ridiculous expectations…”

             
Displays aggressive and antisocial behavior. Refuses to become involved in classroom discussion or group activities.

29

             
H
is students all looked like twitchy, greasy, singed-fingered junkie informant rats on Monday. Jordan knew where to lay the blame for his little Halloween chat with Vaughn, but now they were all suspect. Every watching pair of eyes, every whispered conversation, every checked phone…He had a pen on his desk that he clicked again and again. He never stressed, and now, was ill equipped to deal with the energy humming through his veins. He gave up on lecturing halfway through his first class and put on a video, mined through his staff email, going back over everything Vaughn had ever sent him.

             
His two o’clock class arrived with an extra helping of guilt and anxiety. He didn’t look at Ellie because he didn’t trust himself anymore. He’d made her say it: “Yes,” she’d whispered, and she’d slid down his body till she was on her knees in front of him. She’d slept tucked into him, fingers clinging to his arm when he’d slid from beneath the covers before dawn. His run and all the cold, raw air that scraped in and out of his lungs had done nothing to clear his head.

             
She loved him, and whether he’d forced her admittance or not, it wasn’t a lie; she wasn’t someone who would lie about that.

             
He kept on not looking at her right up until class ended and the room echoed with the rattle and thump of backpacks, the zippers of jackets. “Shanae,” he said in his calmest, most disinterested voice, “could you hang back after class a minute?”

             
“Sure,” she said, and that was when his eyes stole over to Ellie, pulled against their will.

             
Her brows were knitted together under her bangs, mouth a downturned bow of confusion. He didn't know if she was the jealous type – he didn’t think so – but the way she glanced at Shanae was a red flag to anyone who happened to be watching.

             
Tam was perceptive in an uncharacteristic way; his childhood had been a minefield, and he’d been a sensitive kid to boot, so he noticed things. Of Jo’s marital complaints, Tam’s attention to detail and empathy had never been one. “Hey, Coach,” he said, “is it cool if I hang out? I wanted to ask you something.”

             
Jordan would have preferred not to have witnesses to what he was about to do, but Tam didn’t really count, and if it eased Ellie’s concern – he caught the grateful little half-smile she flashed up to Tam before she and Paige left the room – then it was worth it. “Yeah.” He tossed his brother-in-law a meaningful glance. “That’s fine.”

             
Tam slid into a desk over against the wall, his eyes full of questions, but Jordan focused all his attention – and it was a toothy, enraged thing when he brought it all together like he did now – on Shanae.

             
“Go shut the door.”

             
She’d been smiling and expectant, her hoodie on backward, arms thrust through the sleeves, hood dangling against her chest, but the tenor of his voice brought her head up. “Oh…okay,” she said, without any of the raucous volume that usually accompanied her words.

             
He shared a look with Tam while she complied.
What the hell are you doing?
Tam mouthed. Jordan shook his head.

             
“Take a seat.” He motioned to the desk across from his with a pen as Shanae rejoined them, and he took satisfaction in the way her eyes fluttered to the empty chair and then to him. “Sit.” She did, and he got to his feet, paced around his wide teaching desk until he was leaned back against it like when he was lecturing. Casual. Relaxed. At least, that’s what he was going for; but based on the look that had come over Shanae’s face, he guessed he was missing the mark.

             
Oh the fuck well. He had fifteen minutes and he was going to use every one of them.

             
“Shanae, do you know Coach Vaughn?”

             
She was decent-looking, he supposed. Tall, sturdy, with the sort of blunt, nondescript features that could have been made more appealing with cosmetics. She was too masculine for his tastes: one of those girls who’d always been as big as the boys and who terrorized her fellow females because she had no hope of fitting in. She was the girl who men befriended, but didn’t sleep with. The exact kind of girl who’d have an inoperable crush on her pretty boy gym buds and who’d be willing to do their dirty work. She was also a suckup, and Jordan hoped that would prove her downfall. She sat with her head tipped up so she could watch him, wary, breathing through her mouth, legs fidgeting.

             
She reached up to scratch at her nose. “Yeah,” was the slow answer that finally came. “Kinda.”

             
“But you know he’s the head track coach, right?”

             
She blinked. “Yeah.”

             
“So you know I work with him, right?” Jordan folded his arms and braced his feet apart on the industrial carpet, the desk still supporting his weight. He was going to take this slow.

             
She bobbed her head, eyes looking like they wanted to roll. Like
duh
. “You’re both track coaches,” she said as if it were obvious.

             
“Yeah, we are.” He even found a tiny scrap of a smile for her somewhere. “Well, here’s the thing, Shanae. Coach Vaughn had some pretty disturbing news for me last week.”

             
There was a creak over against the wall: Tam sitting up in his chair.

             
Shanae wiped at her nose with the cuff of her sweatshirt. “What do you mean?” Her eyes cut over to the door; she was trying to decide how this had anything to do with her and wondering if she was in trouble.

             
“Well.” He did perplexed with his eyebrows. “He seemed to be under the impression that I’m actually having an affair with one of my students.”

             
Her eyes bugged for one fast moment before she got them under control. “Why-why” -  her voice fluttered with stress - “would he think that? That’s weird.”

             
“Weird.” Jordan shrugged. “Or not so weird. Now, I’m gonna be real straight with you. You’re an adult, you’re in college – I don’t want to play games here. Can you do that too? Can you be straight with me?”

             
Someone else might have been offended by the way he was talking to her like a half-wit, but she nodded, a corner of her sweatshirt cuff finding its way between her teeth. She chewed at it.

             
“Remember how we bumped into each other at the gym last week?”

             
Another nod.

             
“I know you were being polite – you wanted to clear out and give my guys space to workout – but I have a feeling you couldn’t help but overhear what we were talking about, could you?”

             
Her eyes went to the door again and there was more sweatshirt chewing.

             
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jordan pressed, “you were just there. I would have eavesdropped too.”

             
“I didn’t…I wasn’t listening on purpose,” she said around her sleeve, and then bit down on it again, looking like she wished she hadn’t said as much.

             
“Of course not,” he said with another offhand shrug. Casual. No big deal. “But you heard us, didn’t you?”

             
More eye shifting. “Yeah. Some of it.”

             
“Did it sound like the sort of thing worth repeating?”

             
He could see her mind spinning, trying to pull back exact phrases and the culpability of each.

             
“Could you tell me, then,” he said in the most indifferent of voices, “why you repeated it to Coach Vaughn?”

             
“W-what?” She went ramrod straight, her damp sleeve falling to the desktop. “I-I didn’t say anything to him. I swear!”

             
Jordan studied his fingernails. “That’s great and all – I appreciate that you swear – but I don’t know who else could have told him” - he flicked his eyes up to hers from beneath his lashes - “if it wasn’t you. Can you think of anyone?”

             
Her cheeks reddened and she looked at the door again. Her sneakers shuffled on the carpet. “It wasn’t me,” she repeated. “It really wasn’t.”

             
“It wasn’t Lane, was it? Because I’d hate that. If a student is spreading false gossip about me – one of my runners – well, I’m not sure I’d have a spot on the team for him.”

             
Tam cleared his throat. “Jordie.”

             
“In a minute,” he dismissed, still watching Shanae. “Lane’s your friend, right? You would have discouraged him from doing anything so reckless, right?”

             
“I - ”

             
“If he’s your boyfriend, he would have listened to you.”

             
Her blush deepened in an unhappy way. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

             
“Oh.” He feigned surprise. “Oh, well, I just thought…” He let it hang just a moment too long. “Well, Kyle, then? You two are dating?”

             
She wished that were the case, he knew, as her nose scrunched up. “No…look, Coach, I have another class and - ”

             
“I’ll write you a note,” he said coolly. “Because right now, Shanae, I’m not too worried about your next class; I’d like to clear up this little matter of your…imagination…so I can keep my job.”

             
“My…I don’t have any imagination,” she said with an emphatic shake of her head.

             
Like I needed you to tell me that, dumbass
. “Well then who was able to come up with a story about me? Who would even want to? You didn’t want to get me in trouble, did you?”

             
If he was wrong in his estimation, and she didn’t have some kind of pseudo crush on him, then this plan was flawed. But to his relief, she gave another hard head shake. “No! No, way, Coach. But really, I don’t know who did, and I’ve got class…”

             
Time to up the pressure. “Yeah, here’s the thing about
this
class. If I lose my job, they’ll have to take the credits away from all the students who were taking it.”

             
She blinked, face going slack.

             
“If they take away my professor status, then it’ll be like you never took this class.”

             
More blinking.

             
“Now, I looked at your schedule, and not only is this one of the last classes you need to graduate, but you’ve been here a loooong time, Shanae, haven’t you?”

             
Her cheeks colored with embarrassment, head ducking. “Not
that
long.”

             
“Really? I finished college in four years. You’d think that after
seven
, you’d be ready to get the hell outta here already.”

             
Her head came up, eyes flashing defensive. “There

were -
”

             
“Other circumstances. Yeah, I know. You’ve had some trouble harassing other students, haven’t you?”

             
She looked at the door again, throat convulsing as she swallowed. “I’m not a bully. It’s not like you can be a bully in college.”

             
“Somehow I don’t think that girl you shoved down the stairs over in the business building will see it that way.”

             
She chewed at the inside of her cheek.

             
“And somehow, I don’t think the president of the university will see it that way when I tell him. You’ve moved up in the world – from harassing students to professors. Good luck graduating then.”

             
She whipped around to face him, a shocked, stupid look pasted across her splotchy face. “You wouldn’t.”

             
“I’ve never been more serious,” he said levelly. “You ruin me, I’m gonna ruin you. Simple as that.”

             
She fretted the chewed segment of her cuff between thick, masculine fingers and took a series of deep, horse-like breaths that didn’t seem to steady her. She looked completely miserable. “It was Kyle,” she said. “He wanted me to talk to that Ellie girl - ”

             
All of Jordan’s hackles stood at attention.

             
“ – but he was the one who told Coach Vaughn. That chick’s got her little damn nose in the air,” she said, “Kyle just wanted to take her down a notch.”