Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)(61)

As they’d pulled up outside, a truck I’d never seen before arrived, and out got a giant, a real life giant whose name was Jarrod. He was as handsome and breathtaking as his voice, with dark skin and green-hazel eyes, taller than Dave by at least six inches and made all the men look like they were built like teenagers. After Dave introduced us, I’d just stood still staring at him with my mouth open, trying to put the pieces together in my brain, canceling out the mental picture I’d painted of him, and replacing it with the reality. It wasn’t until I heard his voice that it finally clicked together for me, and I’d snapped out of it. Since then, we’d become close friends, and the man had gone from awesome to awesome-er-er. And don’t even get me started about how my niece used her as her own moving jungle gym – seeing it would make any woman’s ovaries scream.

Things with Katy and Dave hadn’t gotten better, but I’d had her neutered after getting the advice from Sonya, and she’d calmed down a bit since. Not completely, but she only attacked when you got in the way of what she wanted. Law had grown and was an adorable wrinkly little boy, who loved Olivia too who’d also grown at a crazy rate. Ellis was still a huge part of her life, but Jose had seemed even more distant from him since her ex and Rita Slutita had gone to trial. Time was a healer though, and those two belonged together, so it would happen.

The trial had happened two months ago, and the impact statements, the video footage, the witness statements, and some things a man called Ben had found out about her had convinced the DA that she definitely deserved a decent sentence. Larry was screwed, they’d found drugs and paraphernalia proving that he was selling them in the room he’d been staying in. They also found a lot of the items that had been taken from the houses that had been broken into by the two friends of Rita’s. Apparently, they weren’t stupid – in case you could get caught before you made a run for it, a good thief and burglar stashed their findings in someone else’s room. And without proof to confirm otherwise, seeing as how the men were denying it, some of the responsibility was placed on Larry adding to his charges.

The trial itself had dragged out over three weeks and it all happened back to back, starting with Rita’s. Jose had found out a lot of things no ex-wife deserved to, and it had left its mark on her, meaning that she was now wary of ever trusting a man again. In time she’d get there once she’d straightened it all out, but like I said for now she was keeping Ellis at a distance from her, but not from Olivia who loved him and vice versa.

I think it was all compounded by the move Larry made after it all too, one that shocked all of us and proved how big of an asshole he truly was. Jose had been summoned into her lawyer’s office and handed an envelope with a letter from him in it, and an official document in which Larry had signed over any and all parental rights to Olivia. In his letter, he’d told her to take ‘it’ and do whatever she wanted, because he’d never wanted her. He didn’t even want to be on her birth certificate and didn’t give a shit what she ended up doing with ‘it’. Just when we’d thought he’d reached his maximum asshole potential, he’d done that and had proven that he had much more left inside him. It was a blow, but everyone, and I mean everyone, had gathered around and helped her through it. Olivia now had an honorary grandad in Alex, another one in Hurst, a million aunts and uncles from the Townsend family, an uncle who thought the sun shone out of her ass, and a mom and an aunt who loved her hugely. And then there was Ellis – that man would give both balls for her and not even mourn the loss. So, not having Larry in her life had worked out as a good thing.

I still loved my job at the school, and every day brought something different with the various age ranges I taught. I’d thought I was just going to get the high schoolers, but I was relieved now that it wasn’t just limited to them. Which brought me to now, watching ninth graders interpret and paint their own version of Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory piece. I’d told them to look at it and the description I’d given them of what it meant and why he’d painted it like that and then create their own versions of it. And so far I was really impressed.

Which was why it pissed me off when two minutes later the fire alarm started wailing, meaning that we had to leave the building and head to the far side of the football field.

Making my way through the chaos that followed it (even though every school will tell you that every single alarm was done in a calm and controlled manner), I led them out of the back doors and stopped short when I saw the Townsend men, Alex, Ellis, Logan, Raoul, and Dave all standing there with their arms crossed over their chests. In this day and age, with everything the world was going through, no town was immune to the threat of terrorism, so seeing them like this immediately made me worry that the school had been targeted.

Giving Dave a smile, I walked past them, even more determined to get the kids away from the building now. It wasn’t until I was halfway across the field that the noise of a siren started wailing, sounding like it was being blasted through speakers – which it turned out that it was.

“Keep going, kids,” I ordered, watching as Dave made his way toward me with the others following behind. “Go and stand in your lines and wait for Mrs. Hepburn to call your names.”

Not once did I look away from the determined strides of the man I woke up with every morning and fell asleep with every night, unless he was working. As he reached me, he put his hands in his pockets, his face set almost in a frown as he looked down at me.