I never expected to be driving to Parker’s school on his second day to meet his teacher.

That's one of the perks of being a parent, right? I'd figured dealing with Parker wouldn't be easy, that he'd have issues adjusting to his new environment and whatever else was going on with him, but I never expected him to bring home a note saying he'd taken a swing at another student.

Now I understood why Charlaine had passed him off to me. Parker didn’t seem like the type, but given his size, it didn't surprise me he'd decided to try to use it. If he was anything like his good ol' Dad, he had a temper to boot, which no doubt led to the situation.

“What the hell is wrong with you, boy? I still can’t believe you decided to take a swing at a kid on your first day,” I said, staring through the windshield as I drove back to school with Parker. Personally, I thought it would’ve been a better idea for me to meet the teacher alone, but Mr. Johnson had insisted I bring Parker along in his note. He said he wanted to talk to me, see how things were going, and if there was anything we could work on together to get Parker better adjusted.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was a fool's errand, but it felt that way.

“What did you expect? He called me names. I wasn’t just going to sit there and let him get away with it,” Parker said, his arms crossed over his chest while he stared out the window. He'd barely spoken to me since he’d gotten home from school—I was amazed they hadn’t expelled the kid—so even attitude was a good sign. At least he still felt like he could talk to me. I wasn’t mad at him, so much as I was confused about the whole thing.

“What the hell did he say to you? It couldn’t have been that bad,” I said, knowing all the while it probably was pretty damn bad. Beauclaire wasn’t known for having excellent schools, much less great kids, so I could only imagine the type of trash that came out of their mouths at the high school level.

“That’s easy for you to say, you weren’t there. You wouldn’t understand anyway,” Parker said.

“And how the hell can you know that if you don’t even give me a shot? Seriously, Parker, if this is gonna work, we have to talk to each other. You can’t just clam up on me like this,” I said, slamming my fists against the steering wheel of the truck.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“Fine, if you don’t want to tell me anything, I’m sure your teacher will tell me all about it, so your choice,” I said.

“Now you sound just like mom,” Parker said.

“Well, newsflash, I am your dad, so big surprise I sound like a parent more than your best friend,” I said. Parker rolled his eyes and fell silent again, staring out the window while he slumped against it.

The high school wasn’t far from my place, maybe ten minutes, so we got there pretty quickly. When we arrived in the parking lot I was overcome with a sense of nostalgia. It was the same high school I'd gone to, though many many years prior, and I had a lot of great memories tied up in the school—and some bad ones. Who didn’t?

“Let’s get this over with,” I said and stepped out of the truck. Parker took a few minutes but eventually climbed out and came to stand beside me. “I swear, if you pull some shit like this ever again, I’m sending you right back to Atlanta.” Parker didn’t say anything, instead just stomped off toward the school. I had no idea where we were supposed to be going, much less who we were supposed to be talking to, so I followed his lead.

We entered through the main doors; Parker waved at the secretary, who I assumed he already knew thanks to the little orientation session they no doubt gave him after enrollment. She seemed like a nice enough lady, as did the rest of the staff. I had to sign in, leave my name and phone number and have my picture taken just to get beyond the office.

We wound through the school, turning this way and that. It'd been a long time since I’d set foot inside the school, and it didn’t look anything like the high school I remembered—but maybe that was for a good reason.

At the very back of the school, right before a door that led outside, there was another on the left that stood wide open. It was a double door, and no noise came from inside. Parker went in and didn’t wait for me. I followed and found myself in the old band room. This room, unlike the rest of the school, looked almost exactly like I remembered it. I was never a music person myself, but I'd been in the room enough times to be familiar with it.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Smith,” a voice called from the other side of the room. My heart caught in my throat when I saw the teacher. He was a good-looking man, and definitely not Southern. He stood tall, his brown hair parted in the middle, and he had the kind of high, sharp cheekbones I'd only ever seen on New York runway models. He started over at me, his hand extended, a giant smile on his face.

As much as I noticed his looks—and they were damn nice looks—I noticed his age more than anything else. He was young, like stupid young, maybe not even ten years older than Parker. What the hell was somebody like that doing in a school and town like this?

I took his hand in mine, gave it a gentle shake, and quickly withdrew it. Something burned at the back of my throat—and inside my jeans—long after our hands separated. I hadn't felt that way after looking at another guy in a long time, and it made my skin crawl.

OK, fine, the guy was hot as hell, but he was also Parker’s teacher, so it didn’t matter one iota what I thought of him.

“That's me, for better or worse," I joked, and the teacher chuckled. "But please, call me George."

“Then call me Clay,” the teacher said, looking me up and down with a smirk. Was he checking me out? Or was I just imagining things? I often got the elevator like that, but it was never in an interested sort of way, it was usually in an “I can’t believe they let this guy inside the building” kind of way. At least this time I'd cleaned up enough to not have booze and peanut shavings all over my clothes from the bar.

“Will do,” I said.

“Parker, why don’t you go and check out some of the drums in the closet up at the top of the stage? There are all kinds of things in there for you to play with, I’m sure you’ll like it,” Clay said to Parker with a smile. Parker seemed overjoyed to have an excuse to get away from the two of us and didn’t hesitate to go running up the tiered seating toward the closet. I watched as he disappeared into it and heard the banging and clanging of drums and cymbals coming from outside not long after.

“He seems to like percussion,” Clay said.

“Yeah, I think that’s just another one of the ways he takes after his good old man. We both like to beat on things,” I said and groaned when I realized how what I'd said could be misinterpreted. Shit.

"Uh, I didn't mean it like that," I said, but Clay laughed and shook his head.

"I didn't take it that way, no worries," he said.

“Look, Clay, Mr. Johnson, whatever. I appreciate you having me in here, but I’d really like to know what’s going on. You can probably guess why Parker hasn’t been real open with me about why you asked me to come,” I said, and Clay chuckled.

“Oh, yeah, I can venture a few guesses,” he said. “Why don’t we go into my office? It’ll be quieter in there,” he said, and without waiting for my answer, he led me into the office. It was small, with just a desk, a computer, and a large file cabinet along the wall. He sat down and pulled out a folding chair for me to take a seat in myself.

I wasn’t thrilled to be in a tight space with this good-looking young man by myself. All kinds of bad things ran through my mind, the kinds of things I hadn’t had run through my mind since the last time I'd set foot in the high school.

“I'll cut right to the chase. There was a slur of sorts thrown at Parker in class yesterday by another student,” Clay said, staring down at the floor. It was apparently as uncomfortable for him as it was for me. Parker told me he was a new teacher, so this almost certainly didn’t make him look good. I felt sorry for Clay, though I didn’t really know the guy.

“What kind of slur?” I asked. Parker was as white as cotton and didn’t have anything that stuck out about him that I could tell, so what could anyone have called him that would set them off?

“Since one of the other students called him gay,” Clay said, and I chuckled. That was all this hullabaloo was over? Somebody called Parker gay, and he'd gone off the edge about it? What guy in high school didn’t get called that, even if it wasn’t true?

“Seriously? That’s all?” I asked, unable to believe my ears.

“I don’t think it’s anything to be nonchalant about,” Clay said, finally meeting my eyes. His gaze was piercing, and it gave me goosebumps. As friendly and gregarious as he seemed on the outside, he was intense on the inside, and I didn’t know what to make of him.

“Look, they're teenaged boys, this is kinda what they do,” I said. “Didn’t you ever get this kind of thing when you were in high school? I mean, I know that was probably not even five years ago, but still,” I said, and Clay laughed.

“It was definitely more than five years ago, but no, I never got that kind of treatment. I grew up in New York,” Clay said. Well, that explained his good looks.

“Look, I’m not trying to bust your balls or anything, but this ain’t New York. We have a different way of doing things down here, though I do have to say I’m surprised that that kind of word even gets thrown around in this town anymore. Believe it or not, Beauclaire isn't as backward as it seems,” I said. It wasn’t entirely untrue. Even Jason and Dan, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, had never really come across that sort of thing. I mean, for God's sake, they were about to get married in my bar, and no one seemed to care.

“It’s possible that it’s just boys being boys, but regardless, I’m really not okay with this happening in my classroom, and I'm especially not okay with Parker attacking another one of my students,” Clay said. “It seems like he’s got a lot of anger brewing under the surface. Do you know anything about that?”

“I can take a few guesses, sure. Parker's mom and I got divorced a long time ago, and I haven’t really seen much of him since then. He was acting up in Atlanta, where he was living with his mom, so she had me take him in for a while,” I said. “It hasn’t been an easy adjustment for any of us, but I can imagine how hard it must be for him.” More than anything, I felt guilty for not talking to Parker, for not trying to help him ease into everything. If I had, maybe he wouldn't have decided to try to punch somebody.

“In my experience, people who react to words like that in the way Parker did typically do so because there’s some truth to it,” Clay said, measuring his words and eyeing me as he spoke. “Has Parker ever expressed any struggles with his sexuality to you?” Clay asked and immediately my body tensed.

Charlaine had said something about it before I brought Parker back to Beauclaire, but I didn’t dare believe her, and I didn’t really believe Clay either. There was nothing about Parker that screamed he might be anything other than an awkward straight teenager, but then again, there was nothing about me that screamed I might be anything other than a rough-and-tumble straight man.

Maybe Charlaine was right—about both of us.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Clay said. “Well, in any case, it might be worth talking to Parker about it. During all this transition, it might be necessary for him to have some extra attention for a while. You know, I’m starting up an after-school music program, and I think it might be good for him. It would keep him out of trouble, and give him something to do, help him make some friends,” Clay said.

“That sounds like a great idea,” I said, and I meant it. Parker needed direction, someone and something to give him focus, and though I'd just met Clay, I could already tell he had Parker’s best interests at heart.

But that only made me like him more.

“Good. We meet twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, right after school. You'll need to pick him up afterward, but I don’t imagine that’s a problem, right?” Clay asked.

“No, of course not. I'll make some adjustments to my schedule at the bar so we can make this happen,” I said.

“You work at a bar?”

“I own one, actually,” I said. “It’s nothing special.”

“Alright. Well, don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on Parker for you while he’s here,” Clay said.

“Thanks, I really appreciate that. You don’t know how much it means to me,” I said. “I don’t really know what I’m doing with all this.” I couldn't explain it, but there was something about Clay that drew me out and made me feel comfortable expressing myself. Maybe that’s what Parker felt with him too.

“Of course. We new kids on the block have to stick together,” he said with a smirk. We shook hands again, and my entire body vibrated, alight with a strange feeling I didn't recognize.

I left Clay Johnson’s office feeling all kinds of frazzled.