The Naughtier Chronicles

Chapter 7

(Previous Chapters)

“Yes?” Jason said, not bothering to look up from the essays that he was grading.

“Why am I here?” Cole asked with a long-suffering sigh that had the teenage girl sitting on the other side of the room glaring at him.

“Why do you think you’re here?” Jason drawled, looking over at Chloe, who looked like she was seconds away from giving into the urge to beat the shit out of Cole with the thick textbook that she had in a death grip.

Not that Jason could blame her, because he really couldn’t.

“Because Adam Henderson is a homewrecker,” Cole said with a firm nod as he folded his arms over his chest as a muscle beneath Chloe’s eye began to twitch.

“Is that why you felt the need to make him cry?” Jason drawled, glancing between the girl that was in way over her head on this one to his son, who was trying to use his sweatshirt as a pillow.

“Yes,” Cole murmured sleepily as he closed his eyes and settled in for a nap.

“You got me sent to detention, you jerk face!” Chloe bit out angrily, looking so close to saying the hell with it and give into all those violent fantasies that had no doubt been playing through her head since lunch when she made the mistake of trying to help Adam.

“You got yourself sent here. Nobody told you to jump on my back,” Cole murmured, not really sounding all that concerned that his best friend was contemplating killing him.

“Adam did when you decided to take him down with that chokehold!”

“First off,” Cole murmured, shifting to get more comfortable, “he was screaming for mercy. At no point did he mention your name.”

“It was implied,” Chloe bit out.

“Secondly, he knew better than to come between us,” Cole finished with a satisfied sigh.

“There is no us,” Chloe said evenly as her grip around that thick book tightened as she started to stand up only to think better of it and forced herself to sit back down. “I already told Mrs. Tompkins that I wanted a new partner.”

“And I already took care of that,” Cole said, shrugging it off around a yawn.

Jason watched as Chloe’s eyes narrowed dangerously on his son as she demanded, “What did you do?”

“Made sure that you couldn’t ditch me,” Cole said and-

Had Jason sighing as he watched the normally composed teenage girl jump over two desks and start beating the crap out of his son. He should probably do something about this, Jason thought as he reached for his coffee and took a sip just as Chloe took Cole down with an impressive headlock only to decide against it since he didn’t want to interfere.

“It’s twenty-five percent of my grade!” Cole yelled as he turned over and tried to crawl away, but Chloe wasn’t done yet.

As she released a tirade of choice words for his son, she grabbed hold of Cole’s abandoned sweatshirt and began beating the shit out of him with it as movement from the doorway drew Jason’s attention. When he spotted Katie standing in the doorway, narrowing her eyes accusingly on her sister, Jason knew that it was about to go downhill from here.

That was confirmed seconds later when she raced across the room and hurled herself onto Cole’s back as she yelled, “No one came to walk me home!” which somehow managed to piss Chloe off even more and Cole crawling beneath a desk in an attempt to get away from the pissed off sisters.

“Why aren’t you helping me?” Cole demanding, sending him an accusing glare like this was somehow his fault.

“Because you brought this on yourself,” Jason drawled as he glanced down at his watch and debated ending detention early so that he could get home to spend some time with his wife.

“I am not working with you!” Chloe snapped as she grabbed hold of his right leg while Katie grabbed hold of his other leg and pulled.

“Crap!” Cole yelped as he was forced to grab hold of the desk just as Jason decided that it was definitely time to call it a night.

With that in mind, Jason stacked the essays that he needed to finish grading on the corner of his desk, grabbed his bag and headed for the door where he waited for the girls to finish what they were doing as he sent a test message to his wife, asking her if she needed him to pick up anything on the way home only to end up grabbing onto the wall when his legs threatened to give out as he read the two words guaranteed to knock him on his ass.

Buttercream Frosting.