Page 11 of Guys Can’t Write Romance
Chapter seven
Paybacks Are a Beach
It was the morning after Daisy’s ban from the library, and her anger had continued to boil overnight. She was definitely adding this to the payback she already owed Chad over her Post-Its.
As she hurried down the school’s hallway toward her classroom, she passed the teacher’s lounge. Through the open door, she saw Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Patel look up from their phones. Their eyes widened when they saw her, and Ms. Hernandez covered her mouth to suppress a giggle.
“Good morning,” Daisy said brightly, pretending not to notice.
“Morning, Miss Fields,” Mr. Patel replied with unusual emphasis on her name. “Doing anything... literary today?”
Ms. Hernandez snorted into her coffee.
What was that about? Daisy wondered as she continued down the hallway. Two more teachers glanced up from their phones as she passed, exchanging meaningful looks.
Daisy quickened her pace. Whatever was happening, she didn’t have time for it. She had a roomful of kids to teach about butterflies, and likely gum to extract from at least one girl’s hair.
When she entered her first-grade classroom, she was surprised to find several of her students gathered around Tommy Miller’s desk, giggling in that conspiratorial way only six-year-olds could manage.
“Good morning, everyone!” Daisy called cheerfully as she set her bag on her desk. “Let’s get to our morning stations, please!”
The giggling intensified, but nobody moved.
Daisy’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. She glanced down at it, seeing Chloe’s name on the screen. She opened the text:
‘Buckle up, roomie. You’re trending.’
Beneath that was a link.
With a growing sense of dread, Daisy tapped it. Her phone’s browser opened to Instagram, where a photo filled the screen.
It was the flyer from the library door, the one with her and Chad’s faces on it, emblazoned with the word ‘BANNED’ in bold letters. The caption read: ‘Local teacher gets herself BANNED from public library with mystery man! #BadTeacher #LibraryRebels #WhosTheDude’
The post already had 10,347 likes, and several thousand shares.
“Miss Fields?” came little Cindy’s voice.
Daisy looked up to find Cindy staring at her with wide, curious eyes.
“What does ‘B-A-N-N-E-D’ mean?” Cindy asked, sounding out each letter.
“What do you mean?” Daisy asked.
“It’s on this picture of you and a man,” Cindy said, holding up her phone.
Daisy rose from her desk and headed down the row to Cindy, noticing several other students staring at their phones. They all looked up at her as Cindy handed her the phone and Daisy looked at the screen. Sure enough, there was her infamous flyer in all its glory.
Daisy walked back to her desk and took a deep breath. “Okay, class. Who wants cookies?”
Hands shot up around the room, along with a chorus of ‘me’s’ and ‘I do’s.’
“Good, then. Cookies for everyone who puts their phone away and doesn’t show that picture to anyone.”
“Not even the other teachers?” asked Tommy Miller.
“Especially not the other teachers,” said Daisy.
As Daisy listened to the shuffle of desks and unzipping of backpacks letting her know the kids were taking her up on the bribe, she spotted Principal Warren walking past her classroom door.
He caught her eye, looked pointedly at his phone, then gave her a knowing smile before continuing down the hallway.
Daisy slumped onto her chair and ground her teeth. This was all Chad’s fault. The man was a nuisance, a walking disaster zone who’d managed to get her banned from a public library and turned into a social media spectacle.
He was going to die a slow, painful death.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Daisy stood outside Chad’s apartment, pounding on the door. Just as she was about to unleash another barrage of knocks, the door opened and Rhino stood there, protein drink in one hand and cell phone in the other.
“Where is he?” Daisy growled.
Rhino looked down at the phone, then back at her. “You mean your co-conspirator?” he said, turning the phone to face her so she could see the screen. And of course, it was the ‘BANNED’ flyer, now with 95,689 likes and 21,578 shares.
“I mean, your soon-to-be-deceased roommate,” she frowned.
“He’s not here.”
Daisy did a double-take. “What do you mean he’s not here?”
“He’s on a date with some chick he met at the volleyball tournament. I think her name’s Tammy, or Cindy, or... Vicky? Yeah, Vicky. They all blend together after a while.”
Smoke was practically pouring from Daisy’s ears. “He’s on a date? We’re supposed to be working on our novels tonight. And then I was going to kill him.”
Rhino’s eyes widened. “Oh, uhm... did I say date? I meant to say, he got a flat on his way home.”
Daisy’s face reddened as her temper boiled. “You. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“To my apartment,” she hollered back as she raced off. “Don’t move.”
“If it helps, she’s really hot.”
“It doesn’t!”
Rhino was still standing in the doorway when Daisy returned twenty minutes later. She brought with her a tote bag loaded with a pink lacy bra, cardigan, scarf, yoga pants, and a bottle of perfume.
“What’s all this?” Rhino said, stepping aside to let her in.
“Payback,” Daisy growled as she stalked into the apartment. “Which bedroom’s his?”
“One on the right with the horror movie posters.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “Of course it is.”
Rhino sipped from his protein drink as he followed Daisy into Chad’s bedroom. She stopped near the unmade bed and looked around. The place was already a predictable mess, so this was going to take some strategic placement to make sure her things stood out.
“So, what exactly is the plan here?” Rhino asked.
“Preemptive sabotage,” Daisy said as she walked over to a chair and draped her cardigan across it. “What’s the last thing you would want a girl to find when she came to your apartment?”
Rhino grinned. “Another girl’s stuff.”
“Bingo.”
Rhino almost choked on his drink as he stifled back a laugh. “This is either brilliant, or mildly concerning.”
“Oh, trust me,” Daisy said as she walked over to a lamp and draped her scarf across it. “It’s both.”
Next came the yoga pants, which she draped across the door handle so they could be easily spotted. Rhino grinned like a kid at Disneyland as he stepped back to give her plenty of room to maneuver around.
Daisy’s final touch was her pink bra, which she centered on Chad’s pillow, so Tammy, or Cindy, or Vicky, or whoever could immediately connect the dots.
“Gotta admit,” Rhino said as he took another sip. “You’re scary good at this for someone who alphabetizes her spices.”
Daisy gave a devilish smile as she pulled the perfume from her bag and sprayed down the clothing. “I’m a first-grade teacher,” she said, capping the perfume and stepping back to survey her masterpiece. “I’ve learned from the best.”
“Remind me not to piss you off.”
Chad and Vicky arrived at his apartment a few hours later. As they came in the door, they found Rhino lounging on the couch playing their X-Box. He looked over at Chad, and his face broke into a grin that said, ‘You’re so busted’.
“What’s with the grin?” Chad said. “Was that yoga instructor at the gym again?”
“Nope,” Rhino said, his grin widening. “But something almost as good.”
“What’s that smell?” Vicky said, sniffing the air.
Chad sniffed the air and smelled it too. “Is that perfume?”
“That would be Midnight Rendezvous,” Rhino said, nodding to the perfume bottle on the coffee table next to his propped-up feet.
Vicky spun to Chad. “Chad?”
He threw up his hands. “Don’t look at me.”
Vicky followed the scent like a bloodhound around the corner into Chad’s bedroom. As soon as she disappeared through the door, Chad rushed over to the table.
“What’s that doing here?” he said in a hushed voice.
“It might have gotten dropped off by your writing partner, slash co-conspirator. You know, first-grade teacher, name rhymes with crazy. She stopped by earlier for your writing session, which, apparently, you forgot about.”
Chad’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Crap. Was she pissed?”
“Murderous is a better description. Did you know your guys’ flier’s up to almost 200,000 likes?”
“What the hell is this?!” Vicky’s shout came from Chad’s bedroom.
Chad stepped into his room, where he found Vicky pointing at a pink bra on his pillow.
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Chad said, tripping over his words. “This isn’t what you think.”
“Really? Is this also not what I think?” she growled, pointing at the cardigan. “Or those,” she added, pointing at the yoga pants.
“If you just give me a second, I can explain—“
Before he could finish the sentence, he ducked as his autographed baseball whizzed over his head, thrown by a very pissed-off blond volleyball player.
“Pete Rose signed that,” Chad said.
“Then he can have your cleats too,” Vicky said, snagging a baseball cleat off the floor.
“Oh, crap!” Chad said, bolting from the room just as the cleat nailed the wall behind him.
Chad burst into the living room. “Dude, run!”
“What?” Rhino said, rising from the couch just as a baseball bat sailed from Chad’s bedroom and nailed the far wall. “Wait for me!”
The roommates bolted across the room and out the kitchen door.
Minutes later...
Chad crawled to the edge of the roof and peered down. Far below, Vicky paced the area near the front door like a caged tiger searching for its prey. Chad quietly scooted back to where Rhino lay prone on the roof beside him.
“She still there?” Rhino whispered.
Chad nodded.
“I know you’re around here, McKenzie!” came Vicky’s shout from below. “So, you and your chicken roommate might as well come out now.”
Chad looked at Rhino. “You had to let Daisy in?” he whispered.
“Bro, you stood her up for your writing session. Have you seen her when she’s pissed? She’s scary.”
“I can wait here all night if I have to,” Vicky’s shout came again.
“No, dude,” Chad said. “That’s scary.”