Page 25 of Sabre’s Guard

“Come on, bug. You can tell me,” I say encouragingly.

He finally blurts out, “Because every time you come to the school and complain, it makes it worse.”

“I… I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I stammer, glancing up at Sabre. “I just thought that sometimes it takes multiple complaints to resolve a situation like that.”

Sabre interjects smoothly, “Don’t worry about it. We stopped to gas up my bike, grabbed a soda, and had a little talk before we headed home.”

Noah perks up again. “Yeah, and it is a good plan too.” Without prompting, he launches into it. “First, I’m gonna respect Braden whether he respects me or not. Sabre says he might not know how to act. If that’s his problem, I’ll show him how to be fuckin’ polite.”

I freeze for a second, and my mouth falls open. I know Sabre curses a lot. I just never thought Noah would pick up on it. Before I can say anything, Sabre does.

“Look, I shouldn’t be cursing around you, and when I mess up, I don’t want you picking up my bad language. That’s just gonna get you in all kinds of trouble, ya know?”

“Yeah, I’ll remember,” he promises before continuing to talk about his plan. “Then I’m going to tell him that being rude is weak behavior. Decent men don’t have to put others down to feel good about themselves.”

As my son talks about his new arsenal to fight bullying, I’m a little bewildered. My thought was to report it and let the teachers take care of it. Sabre seems to have a more direct approach, and Noah is apparently a hundred percent on board with it.

“We don’t fight fire with fire,” Noah says excitedly. “That’s how the world burns. You have to stand up for yourself, stop letting their words get to you, and tell it like it is.” He stops long enough to rake his hand through his hair, like I’ve seen Sabre do. “If that doesn’t work, we pay a visit to his dad.”

Noah sounds like he’s directly quoting his new protector. I shoot Sabre a questioning look, but he gives me a slight shake of his head. “Don’t worry, Chef. We’ve got this.”

They both sound so confident that I decide to hold off on commenting and give their plan a try.

Chapter 8

Linsey

The days have been slowly rolling past since Sabre kissed me and started taking Noah to school and picking him up. So far, it’s been great. He smiles at me, flirts his ass off, and he’s stolen kisses several more times.

Every school morning, he idles at my curb while Noah runs out to meet him. I go to work and come home to find my son safe and sound in Aunt Carol’s care. She’s more rested and relaxed now that she’s not doing Noah’s transport herself. I feel a little guilty about not seeing how taxing that was for her.

Every few days, Zen texts me an update on Dylan’s whereabouts. So far, he hasn’t left Billings and hasn’t violated his parole. I’ve come to rely upon those reports to take the edge off my anxiety.

Tonight is the seafood class, the one he signed up for that got us talking after the first class he attended. I’ve reserved the very first station for him, right at the head of the class, because something tells me he’s going to be an expert with that filleting knife.

He shows up ten minutes early wearing what I’ve come to think of as his uniform—black jeans, black T-shirt, black lace-up boots, and his Legion cut. Sabre is a handsome man, and he cleans up well. We’ve got a brand-new face tonight, a thirty-something bleach-blonde who makes a beeline to him to introduce herself. Sabre is polite but not all smiley like he is with me.

The rest of the class filters in behind him. There’s the couple who take every class I teach. I welcome the roommates who wear our restaurant-branded shirts. This time, they’ve ordered our chef’s whites. Even the influencer is back with his little setup. All in all, there are thirteen students.

“Tonight is seafood. The hands-on portion will be salmon, and I have instructions for other types of seafood that you can download from my website using the code you got when you registered.” I hold up a beautiful salmon in one hand. Everyone immediately starts whispering excitedly.

Wasting no time, I launch right into my lecture. “Breaking down a salmon is not difficult as long as you follow a few basic rules. We’re going to start with an intact salmon rather than one that’s already been gutted and descaled because I know you all want the full experience.”

They each pick up their salmon and look it over. Some seem more experienced at handling a whole fish than others.

I begin walking the stations again, but my class isn’t digging into their salmon the way I expected them to. They’re all looking at station number one. They’re fascinated by how Sabre takes his salmon apart in six strokes. Clean entry behind the collar, smooth run down the backbone, two fillets. Even the couple stops bickering long enough to watch.

I ask, “Where did you learn that?”

“An old man named Gus taught me. He taught me about knives when I was a kid. He was a fisherman, and that’s all he wanted to do when he retired. He was nifty with a knife, too.” He hands the fillets across for inspection, not even trying to hide how proud he is of his knifework.

“I know more about fish than you thought, right, Chef?”

“Yeah, but no one likes a braggart,” I tell him lightly. “Not even a handsome one.”

Several people chuckle and dig into their salmon. When they’ve all got their two fillets and we’ve cleaned up a bit, I announce, “It’s time for the fun part, searing our fillets.”

The influencer adjusts his phone to capture an image of the pan, mumbling, “This is what I’m talking about. Fresh salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids.”