Page 57

Like a whip, that pale hair slaps me across the face as she spins in her seat to face me. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asks in a hushed voice.

I take in her flushed complexion and nervous energy and I know she’s worried about him. “Wildflower, he’s going to be fine. He’s a tough kid, and trust me this will be a fucking cakewalk for him.”

She leans closer, dressed in worn cutoffs and a cropped Bangers tee, just enough fabric to tease a sliver of skin and a peek of cleavage. I swear I forget how to breathe.

I know how she tastes—how she sounds when she falls apart—and finding out she’s had those perky tits pierced?

Yeah, I’m a goner.

Mouth. Fucking. Watering.

But even through the haze of lust, I see it—the way her fingers twitch, how her eyes keep drifting toward the front doors. She’s scared for him. Not that she’ll say it. Not that she knows how. She’ll just remind us both how we’re just playing house just to protect her feelings.

She leans in, elbows on her knees, that nervous energy bleeding through every twitch of her fingers.

“Kids are cruel,” she mutters, eyes scanning the halls like a soldier casing a war zone. “And I hate just sitting here. Makes me feel like I’m in school all over again.”

I grin, leaning back. “That’s because you were bad as hell.”

Lou crosses her arms, ready to argue—mouth already open—when Dallas cuts in from the seat beside her. “I believe it.”

That earns a snort from her and a quick side-eye. “Whatever, I was a little angel I’ll have you know...”

He shrugs, unbothered. “You don’t have to worry, Louis. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

That gets her and she softens. Her spine goes slack, her shoulders fall. That hardass exterior she wears like armor melts at the edges for him—it seems to do that more often for him.

She’d been fussing over him since 5:00 a.m., waking me up with a pillow to the face to make him breakfast—a real breakfast, she’d insisted, despite not knowing how to boil water her damn self—before triple-checking his lunch, arguing over his outfit, and damn near slicking his hair into a helmet. Dallas had almost drawn the line there.

Still, he let her. Sat there and let her mother him like he needed it.

Because Louisiana Wright doesn’t just care—she claims, and when she does, it’s without apology.

But I watched him all morning—just sat back and watched—as he let her fuss over him. The kid barely blinked when she shoved socks at him or tried to tame his hair into something that’d make a church grandma proud.

He let her. Every second of it.

Because that’s what Louisiana Wright does—she storms into your life like a God damn wildfire, and somehow, you don’t mind the burn.

And me? I’d let her burn me to ash if it meant keeping this—them.

“Well, I don’t care if it’s your twentieth rodeo⁠—”

“Sheriff Wilder!”

We turn toward the voice, and here waddles the man of the hour—Principal Wrinkler—already sweating through his collar and looking like he’s seen the ghost of his worst mistake.

Lou stands slowly, casual as a cat stretching in the sun. Wrinkler’s eyes land on her and go wide with something between recognition and panic.

“Ms. Wright,” he croaks, crossing himself like she’s a God damn demon. “I…truly hoped to never see you back in this building.”

Lou just smirks and steps closer, letting her hand trail up my arm like we do this every day. Like she belongs there.

“Actually, it’s soon-to-be Mrs. Wilder.”

She flashes the ring I gave her, and I swear Wrinkler whispers a prayer under his breath before muttering a cheap congratulations.

I lean in just enough for him to hear me and drop my voice. “She’s not here to raise hell, at least not right now.”