No, it was something else.
Perhaps her teacher was aware of it. Perhaps not.
But I’d lay money, a good deal of it, on the fact that her teacher was not conventionally attractive. She might be young. She might be old.
However, she saw the beauty and promise of Celeste Bohannan, and even if there was no excuse to single any child out in class for ridicule or to be made an example of, the fact it was Celeste was maliciously conceived.
And as such, I was livid.
Consumed by it to the point I was unable to move.
“Ms.…uh, Larue?” Celeste called.
I turned to her with a jerk.
She blinked.
“I’d like you to call me Delphine,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said shyly.
There was a time I’d been shy.
I was that no longer.
Including right then.
“There are occasions, Celeste, in anyone’s lives where we have to make decisions. Decisions about situations that it was not our choice to be in, but regardless, it’s up to us to make those decisions. It seems now the decision you made to curse at your teacher was a faulty one. But I can assure you, in the future, when you realize you found the courage to stand up for yourself, you will understand that the consequences you face, which arguably you should not be facing, were entirely worth it.”
Now she was staring at me.
“Of course, a school will need to have zero tolerance for that behavior,” I continued. “There are many lessons you learn in high school, and they need to do their best to blanket them so the same rules apply to everyone. And sadly, for the most part, that has to be no matter the extenuating circumstances, which is totally unfair, but it’s a way to teach a lesson. But this particular one, what was happening to you and how you refused to accept it, is precious because it’s yours and yours alone. And I hope you will stand on that decision many times in the future. Stand on it as your foundation so that you allow no one, not one single soul, to shit on you again.”
She was still staring at me, now understandably astonished.
“You’re helping me immensely,” I told her. “The kitchen is done, so this is the biggest job that’s left.” Not including my closet, of course, but she didn’t have to know that. “It was blocking me psychologically. I’m glad you came up to—”
I didn’t finish that.
A knock sounded on the door.
Not any knock.
A cop’s knock.
And I watched with grim fascination as the color drained from Celeste’s face.
Four
Alice
I did not know, until I discovered the ID Channel, what a cop’s knock was.
Retired detective Joe Kenda explained it to me.
It was loud.
Authoritarian.
And brooked no argument.
You were to open the door.
Now.
No one should be at my door without Mo, or someone else on Hawk Delgado’s team calling.
No one.
“That’s Dad,” Celeste said, a tremble in her voice.
Thoughts cascaded through my mind, too many of them, and none of them nice.
“Why are you afraid of your father?” I rapped out before I could stop myself.
“Because I’m suspended. I’m supposed to be home, cleaning the house and considering my actions.”
Her final three words penetrated, being so normally parental, rather than scarily abusive, I found it in me to temper my reaction, which had been poor and would not be conducive to her sharing.
In my defense, she was putting me on edge, not her fault, but it was the case nevertheless.
However, I needed to pull myself together so she would confide in me.
“And since you’re not, what’s going to happen to you?” I asked far more gently.
She appeared confused.
“Well, he’s gonna get mad.” Her expression shifted to one I’d seen many times in the raising of two teenage girls. A mixture of frustrated, rebellious and guilty. “And I might be grounded for another day or something.”
Grounded.
If that was her greatest fear from her father…
The knock came again.
I moved to the door and opened it.
And my world went into a tailspin.
First impression, he was taller than me.
Second, he was broad at the shoulders, lean at the hips.
Third, his hair was dark, but strands of silver threaded through it. Long hair that brushed his shoulders but was held back at the top and the sides, probably in a tail at the back of his head. His beard was full. It also was dark with silver in it.
After that, I noted he was wearing sunglasses. Completely black lenses that gave you no entry to what might be discovered behind them.
Onward, he was wearing a heavy, tan button-up shirt under a navy quilted vest, faded jeans and brown boots. He was also wearing a medallion hanging from a leather strap at his throat.
He was tanned.
He was weathered.
He was mildly unkempt.
He had features that were a mixture of sharp (his cheekbones, his nose) and broad (his full lips and deep forehead).
With this information presented to me, I made a snap, but very informed decision.
I wanted to fuck him.
I wanted to know every inch of his body, and I wanted to expose every inch of mine to his touch and taste.
I wanted him in every room in my house.
I wanted a solid week of having his cock buried inside me or his face shoved deep up my cunt, or my mouth filled with him, and my every movement, every moment dominated by him.
And then we’d be done, and he could go.
I hadn’t had that feeling in a very long time.
But I couldn’t have any of that.
Because he was my neighbor.
And Celeste’s father.
He tipped his chin to me, and then his sunglasses moved in the direction of his girl.
He said not a word and didn’t walk into my house, even after I shifted to the side as a silent indication he was welcome.
Nevertheless, Celeste spoke.
Fast.
And whiny.
“But I was bored, Dad.”
Those sunglasses swung my way for naught but a second before he took one step over my threshold.
Another step.
Still silent.
He stopped.
I closed the door.
Celeste spoke.
“I was going crazy. I told you. It’s been a week.”
A week?
She’d been suspended an entire week for saying, “Fuck you” to her teacher?
That seemed excessive.
“I had to get out of there,” Celeste continued.
“She’s helped me a great deal,” I put in.
The sunglasses again focused on me.
It was, by the way, a misty, gray and dreary day.
The Terminator.
Those glasses reminded me of the Terminator.
I felt it.
I tried not to feel it.
But it was there.
Swirling.
Forming.
But not coming together.
I needed to ignore it.
I wasn’t going to be able to ignore it.
“I have a lot of books. She’s helped me unpack at least thirty boxes,” I went on.
“I mean,” Celeste caught his attention, “she’s nice. Delphine.”
He made some movement, and Celeste quickly spoke on.