Page 49 of Single Dad Problems
That evening auditorium was its usual windowless, climate-confused self, too warm in the corners and freezing under the one working vent, smelling like dust and the inside of a student’s recorder. But the kids were up onstage in various states of snowflake-pageant chaos, and the dads were there, and I stood at the foot of the stage looking at the whole glittery disaster I'd somehow built and felt my chest go embarrassingly full.
Luke had a clipboard and a labeled diagram of where each kid was supposed to stand, which he was trying to enforce against a herd of children who treated stage directions as a polite suggestion. Cole was crouched at the edge of the stage gluing the runners back onto a cardboard sleigh some kid had karate-kicked apart, his big tattooed forearms covered in glitter glue, looking like a hit man sentenced to community service at an elementary school. And Ben was at the back wall painting a snowy backdrop, sleeves shoved up, getting more paint on himself than the canvas.
"Professional opinion." He held up his brush. "Does this tree look emotionally available?"
"It looks like a tree that's going through some things."
"So, relatable." He added a branch. "Method painting."
"Mom." Oliver appeared at my elbow with his own clipboard he'd requested after seeing Luke's, and I had never been prouder. "We have three issues. Jessica says she's the lead snowflake, but there is no lead snowflake, snowflakes are a collective with no hierarchy. Tommy is eating fake snow. And Noah asked me to be his partner for the mitten song." He paused, his cheeks turning rosy. "I said yes. I'm just informing you of the change."
My heart did a jump that had nothing to do with three handsome men and everything to do with the small seriousperson in front of me who had a friend, who'd said yes to a friend, who was standing here and pretending it wasn't the best thing that had happened to him all year.
"Noted on all three," I said. "I'll inform Jessica that snowflakes are a leaderless society. I'll get the fake snow away from Tommy. And the mitten partnership is approved and frankly the strongest casting decision anyone's made on this production."
He nodded, satisfied, and went to inform Jessica about the leaderless society, which was going to go great.
"He's got a clipboard." Luke had appeared beside me, watching Oliver go with something soft on his face. "You know what that does to me. I'm not okay."
"He filled out a request. Officially."
"Stop." Luke pressed a hand to his chest. "I will adopt that child. I will simply take him."
Luke’s words spread through me like spilled tea, because this was my dream… the glitter and the leaderless snowflakes and Ben's emotionally unavailable tree and Cole on his knees gluing a sleigh back together and Luke threatening to adopt my kid, this felt like a life. The kind I'd stopped letting myself want around the time Oliver's father packed a bag. I stood in the middle of my chaotic auditorium and let myself think the dangerous thought.
This feels great. This could actually be mine.
I should've known better. The universe has a documented allergy to me being happy. It dispatched antibodies immediately, and the antibodies were wearing too much cologne.
"Miss Morgan." Darren's voice came from the wings. "A word?"
I plastered on the smile, the one that had kept me employed all year, and followed him into the prop hallway off the side of the stage, because what else was I supposed to do when the man who was responsible for my livelihood had a request.
The hallway was narrow and dim and stacked with old set pieces, a plywood castle and a sun with a chipped face, and the second the wall cut off the sightline to the stage, his smile changed.
"You've been in a good mood lately." Darren stepped closer than required. The cologne arrived a full second before he did, like an opening act. "It's nice. You're prettier when you're not so stressed. You know you should let me help with that."
"I'm okay, thank you. The kids are doing great, so…" I shifted to step around him. "I should get back. The snowflakes are unionizing."
But then the cologne-soaked son of a bitch blocked me, one arm coming up to rest on a stack of plywood, boxing me into the corner between the castle and the wall. Up close his pecs strained at his polo like two dinner rolls fighting their way out of a bag.
"I've been more than patient with you, Callie." First name. He never used my first name. He leaned in even closer. "I've looked the other way on the chaos, the complaints, the way you let those fathers hang all over you. Because I see something in you. I think you and I could understand each other, if you'd stop being difficult about it."
"Principal Beauford." Every alarm I owned was going off at once. "This isn't appropriate. I'd like to get back to the kids."
"Don't be like that. You need a man like me in your life and you know it." And then he dropped in, one hand landing on my waist, his face moving toward mine, cologne and breath and hell fucking no.
I wasn’t taking this bullshit anymore. I turned my face hard to the side so his mouth caught my cheekbone, planted both hands flat on those ridiculous pecs, and shoved.
"No." Louder than I meant, steadier than I'd ever managed. "Don't you ever touch me again. I have spent all year smilingat you and apologizing to you and folding myself up small so you could feel like the big man with the whistle, and I am done. You're not powerful, Darren. You're a sad, soggy little tyrant with a god complex and too much body spray, who thinks cornering a woman by a cardboard castle makes him a man. It makes you the most pathetic thing in this building, and that includes the sleigh a seven-year-old just murdered. So no. Not in this life, not in any other one. Choke on it."
I realized what I had just said could have cost me my job but at that point I didn’t fucking care. I was so sick of letting controlling men get away with their bullshit. But when Darren’s perfect principled mask came off, I was terrified. He looked absolutely furious, like he couldn’t wait to destroy my life.
"You're going to want to think very carefully," he said in a threatening whisper, "about how you talk to the person who signs your contract."
Then he rearranged his face back into Principal Darren and walked out toward the stage like he'd been getting a drink of water, leaving me alone with a plywood castle, a chipped-face sun, and my heartbeat going like a snare drum.
I made it three steps before my body decided it was done being brave.
