Chapter Nineteen

Wisdom, Compassion and Strength

“Hi Tanner! You here to see Rocky?”

Sharon Reynolds had seen him when he walked in the front doors of the school and she’d hightailed it away from her desk to greet him before he even hit the office door.

Layne smiled at her. “Sharon. Yeah. She free?” he asked but he knew she wasn’t.

“Nope, she’s teaching in the auditorium,” Sharon answered.

“Need to talk to her, it’s kind of important. Can you get a message to her?”

She waved her hand in front of her face. “Oh no, don’t worry about that. I’m sure the kids won’t mind you interrupting.” She leaned in and gave him a wink. “Just go on to the auditorium. You know where it is, don’t you?”

“Yeah, do I need to sign in?”

She smiled big at him. “I’ll do it for you. Just promise to stop by to visit the girls in the office and sign out, okay?”

Layne smiled back at her, just as big and her eyes locked on his mouth.

“Promise. Thanks, Sharon.”

“Right,” she whispered, still staring at his mouth and Layne didn’t hesitate, he turned and walked down the hall.

It was Wednesday and it was To Kill a Mockingbird week. Between working his cases, both paid and unpaid, talking to his mother, keeping an eye on Gabby’s place as well as Stew, hosting two teenaged girls at his house every night and trying to fit in catching up with Rocky, the week had already been staggeringly busy and he hadn’t had time to sneak in and watch Rocky teach.

Luckily, Sharon Reynolds made the sneaking in part easy.

The rest of it hadn’t been so easy.

Layne spoke to her but apparently Vera wasn’t ready to lay down her weapons, but at least now her shots were fired wide rather than Vera gutting Rocky with the bayonet.

Jasper had got Layne the make, model and color of TJ Gaines’s car but no address. As far as Jasper could gather the intel, no one knew where he lived and no one had been there. Layne had cruised the church a dozen times in two and a half days and never saw a blue Honda sedan in the lot in order to stake it out and follow him home. He’d also cruised by the teenage kids’ hangouts and still no go with the Honda. This meant Layne was on duty that night to wait for Gaines to leave Youth Club and follow him from there.

Layne found out that Jasper wasn’t wrong and Keira was a nut and she liked boy bands and Jasper liked her enough to let her play boy band music in the house and do it loud. Layne did not see good things in the future because Tripp didn’t like boy bands, Vera definitely didn’t like boy bands, Devin seriously didn’t like boy bands and Rocky detested them nearly as much as Layne did. Jasper was going to have to shut that shit down soon or there was going to be all out war.

And Monday night Layne discovered Giselle Speakmon was the pretty blonde sitting next to TJ Gaines. She also clearly thought of Raquel Merrick as her idol and her parents did too seeing as Giselle’s younger sister had some kind of very shitty cancer that was far shittier than cancer was on the whole and Roc had done some charity event that made money for a house for parents to stay in close to the hospital. The house was about to be closed down and Rocky’s event had saved it. Giselle’s parents didn’t live far but what amounted to two hour trip every day for months was a burden they couldn’t bear on top of having a really sick kid as well as a healthy one at home. That house was next door to the hospital and one or the other got to stay in it for six months while their daughter had inpatient treatments which made life a whole lot easier and they fully credited Rocky with this saving grace.

The sister was now in remission and the Speakmon family was in awe of Saint Rocky. Therefore, because Rocky was there, their sweet, very quiet, painfully shy daughter was allowed to hang with Tripp at Tripp’s house. The parents dropped her off and Rocky took her home. Monday night, she’d been silent except she spoke a little to Rocky and a little to Keira. She gave Vera a wide berth, probably because Vera was trying too hard with Giselle at the same aiming bullets at Rocky. Jasper, Layne and Devin openly scared the shit out of her. But she seemed at her most comfortable huddled with Tripp and Layne knew why. Tripp made her laugh and there was something about the kid, something that made Layne’s gut get tight, because seeing her laugh he suspected she didn’t do it often, as in, at all. Tuesday night, she started coming out of herself, letting Vera in but Layne knew for the rest of them it was going to be a painful process.

With a house full of kids, his mother and Devin, Layne and Rocky didn’t find much time to connect, at least not the way he wanted to connect. They had zero chance to talk alone and by the time they hit the sack, she was out within minutes. Luckily, his dream Rocky hadn’t abandoned him. She woke him in plenty of time for Layne to turn to his real Rocky and wake her with his hands and mouth. It wasn’t as much as he wanted but it was always great, it kept getting better and it was a whole lot more than nothing so he wasn’t going to complain.

Stew, at least, was keeping his distance and Gabby, at least, was doing what she was told. She’d deposited the two K and she was laying low with her friend Brandy.

Layne turned right at the end of the wide front hall and walked down the corridor to the auditorium. Quietly, he opened the door, entered and kept his hand on it so it would just as quietly close behind him.

Then he stood at the back and watched Rocky do her thing.

She was sitting on the edge of the stage, her ankles crossed, her kids in the auditorium seats in front of her, one of them talking.

“You think Atticus Finch is hot, Ms. Merrick?” the girl asked and Rocky smiled at her and rested back, her palms on the stage.

“Oh yeah,” Rocky answered, Layne grinned, leaned a shoulder against the wall of the entryway to the auditorium, settled in and listened.

“He doesn’t even have a woman,” a boy called out.

“A man doesn’t need to have a woman to be hot, Dylan. He just has to be a man,” Rocky replied.

“Yeah, I can see it,” another boy put in. “He shot that dog. That’s all man.”

“No,” Rocky shook her head. “That wasn’t. But why he shot the dog was.”

The kids were silent, waiting for Roc to impart wisdom and she didn’t disappoint.

“You see, I read this book when I was young. I’d read it before I even had to read it, like I’m making you do,” she told them. “When I read it the first time, it was all about Boo.”