Page 21 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition

“No. She’s nice.”

“But do you get in trouble?”

“Not yet. Kind of. I don’t know. Are we calling Mom tonight?”

“No, but I’ll help you write an email to her.”

“Okay.”

“Ryder. Why does your teacher say you’re talking too much in class?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her? Can we get pizza for dinner?”

God dammit. He gets the evasiveness from his mother. He gets the talent for driving me nuts from his mother. But he’s still the greatest kid ever.

And now I totally want pizza for dinner.

The phone in my hand vibrates with an incoming call from an unknown number. Normally I’d ignore it, but I now realize I’ve gotten a couple of missed calls from this number recently. I think I know exactly who this is.

“We aren’t done talking about this, buddy.” I stride out of the kitchen and to my home office before answering. “Hello,” I say in a tone that is perhaps a little-to-a lot more gruff than usual.

I can hear air blowing out of the person’s nose, and I swear I can hear eyeballs rolling too. “Mr. Vega?”

Well, I was not expecting such a sexy voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes.”

“This is Miss Stiles. Ryder’s teacher.”

I was definitely not expecting Miss Stiles to sound young and hot.

There’s no photo of her up on the school website, so I’ve been picturing the teacher from that picture book I used to read to Ryder—Miss Nelson is Missing.Viola Swamp. With the creepy witch nails and the potato nose and the mole on her pointy chin.

“Hi. I just got your email. I was going to respond.”

“Great! Are you able to come in after school?”

Now I can hear the distinct sound of a wineglass being placed on a table, followed immediately by the sound of the glass hitting the table and Miss Stiles saying “shhhhhiiiit!” and rustling things around.

“Everything all right over there, Miss Stiles?”

“Yes! Shhhhh—hang on a second, I have to—hang on.”

She drops the phone, and I’m treated to a mumbled monologue that begins with “Fuckingballs!” and ends with “motherfucking cocksucker—Atticus, no! Don’t lick that! No!”

And then for about five seconds, I can hear the unmistakable score toCinema Paradisoin the background before it gets switched off.

There’s a moment when I can just hear her exhaling into her phone. I can’t tell what she’s doing, but she’s moving around and exhaling, and I fucking like what I’m hearing. More than I do when she’s talking.What exactly are you doing over there, Miss Stiles?

“Hi. You still there?” she finally asks.

“Yes. How’s it goin’?”

“Well, I had to wipe something up with my shirt so my dog wouldn’t drink it, but everything’s fine now.”

Does that mean she took her top off to wipe it up? She sounds topless. Exacerbated and topless.

“I hope it was white and not red.”