When Darci left North Carolina to move into her granparents house in Georgia, she left everything behind that she had ever known. But being impulsive had always who she was. Starting her new life in Maysville, the last thing she is worried about is...
Brantley's POV: "Hey Bray! Are you ready?" shouted from the bottom of the stairs, hoping to hurry my son along. Tonight we had orientation for this school year and we had to go to the school to meet Braydon's teacher. In previous years, the school has sent out letters to parents telling them who their child's teacher is, but this year they haven't. We won't know who he gets until we find his name on the door of the classroom.
"Coming daddy!" I heard him yell back. No sooner had he got the word out of his mouth, I heard him running down the stairs. Mama and Braydon had spent the day shopping for school clothes and supplies while I sorted out some things for my label in preparation for the tour starting back up next week. I was extremely thankful that my label had let me push any dates until after Braydon started school. The fact they did was just one of the many reasons I was happy with the label I was with.
"Boy, I'm going to have to beat the girls off you with a stick." I said when Braydon hit the bottom step. Braydon had picked out a pair of jeans and a black nike tee. He'd even thrown his back hat on that matched my own. I swear, seeing him dressed like me was the equivalent of looking in the mirror and seeing myself at his age and dressed like I do know. To be honest, it was kind of freaky.
"I wanted to dress just like you daddy." said Braydon.
"Sounds good to me." I said. I knew the years of me being his idol were numbered. All too soon he would hate me but then he would come around and realize that I'm hard on him because I don't want him to make the same mistakes I did as a kid. To say I was not ready for those years would be a gross understatement. "Now let's go before we're late."
Darci's POV: Checking my reflection in the mirror of the staff restroom for the millionth time, I fixed my dress and fussed with my hair. I smoothed my belted army green dress that stopped just above my knees and adjusted the short sleeved denim jacket that I had paired with it.
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I knew I was letting my nerves get the best of me but I just wanted everything to be perfect. Okay, maybe I was wanting to look my best because of a student that I was going to have this year. When the principal had sent out the email with the list of names for our students, I had nearly spit my coffee all over my laptop. There was no way that the Braydon Gilbert who was assigned to my class wasn't the son of Brantley Gilbert, the man who had been haunting my dreams for the better part of two weeks.
Ever since he had told me about what happened with his wife, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about him. We had agreed that we would be friends but we hadn't exchanged numbers before he had left that day. There was one thing he had been right about though and that was that Mr. and Mrs. Cochran would want to know why Brantley had been here. He hadn't been gone five minutes before my phone rang and Mrs. Cochran was wanting to know how I knew Brantley to which I had politely told her that it wasn't her business and that I would appreciate her keeping her nose out of my business. Ever since that day, any time she or her husband has seen me out in the yard, they have given me the evil eye.
Exiting the restroom, I went back to my classroom and made sure that everything was laid out for each student that would be coming in. Since I was only going to have about 12 kids in my class this year, I wasn't expecting a huge turn out but still held out hope most of the parents would show. If they didn’t I would just have to send the packets that contained the forms needed for the year home to be filled out. I was just finishing up checking the last packet when I heard a slight tap on the door.
“Come on in.” I said cheerfully as I turned to greet the parent or guardian that was at the door. But when I did, all the air in my lungs left my body in one giant puff. Because standing there in what looked to be well warm jeans, a tight tee that showed off his muscles, and that ever present hat flipped backwards was the man that had been filling my dreams and his mini me.
“Brantley.” I said breathlessly, hating that I was letting him know just how much his appearance affected me. Willing my heart to stop racing, I walked over to him and knelt down in front of him so that I was eye level with his mini me. “Welcome to my classroom. You must be Braydon.”
“Yes ma’am.” said Braydon softly.
“Glad to meet you Braydon. I’m your teacher this year. I’m Ms. Tillet but you can call me Ms. Darci if you want. How about Lets go check out your desk and your cubby? What do you say?” I asked.
“Okay.” replied Braydon.
Taking him by the hand, I began walking him towards the cubby area, showing him where he would place his backpack and coat when they were not needed. Then I showed him his desk. His little face had lit up like a christmas tree when he saw that I had little containers of slime on each desk.
“Go ahead and play with it. Bet you can even get your dad to play with some too.” I said smiling at Braydon and giving Brantley a smirk when I saw that he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of playing with slime. “I’m going to go greet the other parents. If you need me, just holler okay?”
