Page 144 of Broken Vows

He hesitates for half a second, then nods and heads back inside.

I’ll tell him later. On the way home. Not the whole story, but enough.

Principal Grover appears so suddenly I almost flinch. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line.

“Mr. James,” she says. “You were asked not to leave your station.” Her gaze moves to my hand. “Is that blood?”

I glance down at my knuckles. “Yeah. Some asshole hurt himself.”

Her expression hardens.

“I helped him up.”

“Do not insult me,” she says.

Fair.

She steps closer, keeping her voice low, which somehow makes it worse. “Putting your hands on someone on school grounds is completely unacceptable. I do not care what the circumstances were.”

“I know.”

She blinks, like she expected a fight. I don’t have one in me right now.

“I’m sorry,” I say. The words scrape on the way out. “It won’t happen again.”

“No,” she says. “It won’t because you are no longer permitted on school property.”

“Don’t do that.”

Her eyes sharpen. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t do that,” I say again, quieter this time. “Please.”

That word costs more than I want it to.

Grover goes still.

I look toward the gym doors, where Theo has disappeared back into the noise and lights and normal kid bullshit he deserves to keep. “I need your help with him.”

Her face shifts, just a little.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” I say. “I’m trying, but I’m always getting it wrong.”

For a moment, neither of us speaks.

Finally, she exhales. “We can arrange a meeting.”

“I’ll come.”

“If anything like this happens again, I won’t have a choice.” She looks at my hand again and grimaces. “Go wash that off. Then sit on the bleachers where I can see you.”

I almost smile.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I wash Maverick’s blood off my hand and head back into the gym, taking my assigned place on the bleachers like I’m some kind of obedient citizen now.

My phone is already buzzing in my pocket.