“Mr. Houston!”
Kids yell and whoop, and I have to curve my hands around my mouth to make a megaphone and try again.
“Mr. Houston!” I repeat, finally catching his attention. “Can I speak with you for a moment, please?”
Every student’s head whips in my direction, but I only have eyes for one man—the menace. Mack Houston.
His smile is so big it’s almost lopsided, and two big dimples crater into the center of his cheeks. His sun-highlighted brown hair curls haphazardly around his ears, and his green eyes shine big and bright. If it weren’t for the manly, muscular body that sits beneath his far-too-casual attire, I’d think he was less than half of his actual age. As it is, the only real explanation I can think of is some kind of Tom Hanks in Big situation.
I sigh as Mack jogs my way, his cheesy smile aging so much it might as well be cheddar from Wisconsin. He holds up a hand to his class, tossing a pair of cymbals to the boy behind him just beforehand, remarking, “Make yourselves busy, guys. I’ll be right back.”
His ruffled hair bounces as he quickly closes the last few feet between us, and I have to actively work not to roll my eyes. Him telling his class to work without him is an absolute joke—the man doesn’t have them work while he’s there.
“What can I do for you, Katy?” he asks informally upon arrival in front of me at the doorway. I glance away as he pushes forward to pull me into the hall, leaning against the wall and crossing his khaki pant-clad legs at the ankle. Red Chuck Taylors stick out from the bottom.
“Do you have any idea how loud you’re being right now?” I question back.
He tilts his head to the side, and a smirk crests one corner of his mouth. “Well, that depends. What kind of scale are we working with?”
I shake my head in frustration. I don’t have time for him to be playful. The period is already half over, and I designed this test to take around twenty minutes. I have zero time to waste. “We’re trying to take a test next door. A little deference to my students would be nice.”
“A test?” he retorts with a laugh. “On the Thursday before Good Friday, which also happens to be April Fools’ Day?” He shakes his head. “I think I found your first mistake, Katy Cat.”
Katy Cat? Sheesh.
If I had a nickel for every time this guy has made me roll my eyes, I’d be a lot richer than I am right now. As it is, all I can look forward to is the upcoming long weekend, which, thankfully, includes three full days without his classroom making my ears bleed and my nerves frazzle.
Just get through today, Katy. Just get through today, and then it’s rest and relaxation time.
“Can you keep the volume down or not?” I ask, cutting straight to point.
“Sure,” he agrees easily enough, drawing a wrinkle of suspicion between my eyebrows. “We were just about to head out to the parking lot for our first water balloon fight of the year anyway.”
Water balloon fight? Is he for real?
It’s situations like this that make me wonder how he’s still drawing a paycheck as a flipping educator. I get the motivation to keep learning fun for your students, but his version of mixing fun and education is on another level. A level that always appears to include very little educating.
“What exactly do water balloons have to do with music?”
“Ah!” he hems, shaking a dramatic finger between our faces. “What don’t they have to do with it, Katy Cat?”
I sigh at both his riddle-like answer and the ridiculously annoying nickname he gave me a year and a half ago and shake my head. “Never mind. I better get back to my classroom so my students have enough time to finish.”
“Gotcha,” Mack taunts with a wink, strolling back in through his classroom door, only to lean back out into the hallway dramatically, not quite done with me yet. “We’ll be outside in the south parking lot if you get done with time to spare. Bring your kids out to play. We’ve got plenty of balloons.”
I shake my head again and smile sarcastically, enhancing the expression with an over-the-top thumbs-up. A deep, throaty laugh jumps from his lungs and makes the strong cords of his neck flex, and my chest tightens.
I don’t know how on earth someone so annoying can be so attractive, but I know one thing with certainty—I can’t wait to be free of work, and him—and on the beach for three whole days.
I just have to make it through the rest of today, and then it’s sunny Florida, here I come.
1
Katy
Friday, April 2nd
I gently kick the condo door shut behind me and walk straight to the kitchen area to set down my bags of groceries on top of the counters.
My long, relaxing weekend has officially started.
No class. No students. No late-night marathons of grading papers.
I am a free woman ready to enjoy my mini vacay.
Hallelujah!
Cute, beachy, Florida-themed décor dots the kitchen of my rental. Seashells and plastic flowers intermingle with a teal table runner that showcases ivory-colored napkins and gives way to wicker and glass beneath them.
Everything may be a bit kitschy, but I can’t deny it’s all perfectly designed to frame the floor-to-ceiling windows on the back side of the condo.
Outside of those windows? Heaven—otherwise known as miles and miles of crisp white sand and bright-blue Gulf water that makes my heart skip atop itself in my chest.
I can’t believe I’m finally here. Man, I really needed this.
While all my students and their families went away on vacation a couple of weeks ago for Spring Break, I was home, helping my mom take care of my dad as he recovered from knee surgery.
You might assume that he injured himself doing something simple like yard work or cleaning out gutters. You know, normal things that a parent of an almost thirty-year-old woman might be doing, but I guarantee that any and all of your guesses would be wrong.
My dad, Kai Dayton, is one of the craziest SOBs you’ll ever meet. He’s lived his life in the fast lane, and wherever he’s gone, my mom hasn’t been far behind. But I suppose that’s bound to happen sometimes when you get pregnant with your only kiddo at sixteen.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of both of my parents for making something out of our lives. But I cannot say in good conscience that we escaped without any consequences. See, my dad was a professional motocross rider up until five years ago, and he hasn’t lost an ounce of craziness in his retirement.
He goes hard all the time, and occasionally, that means he has to go home…and sit his butt on the couch because he shattered his patella after gunning a huge jump on his backyard course.
And since my mom Melissa is squeamish about injuries, it left me to take on the temporary caregiver role. A role that I stepped into a lot while growing up in a house with two wild and crazy parents. But it’s not just that—out of the three of us, I’ve always had the oldest soul. Hell, in high school and college, rather than partying with friends and getting drunk, I was my parents’ designated driver.
Needless to say, these three days to myself are about as essential as air to breathe. And I’m grateful fellow teacher Kimmie Ward’s parents decided to rent out their Florida beachfront condo this year.