“Okay,” Peggy said and then pinched her lips. “I’m going on record that I don’t like this, but I see why we need to do it. If I get serious enough about a guy, I’ll make sure you check him out.”
“What’s next with all this?” Dad asked to get us back on track.
“A couple of things. First, the police need to figure out who Lucas really is. Second, we have to find out what he was trying to do. That means we’ll need to get you a new home-office computer while we examine your old one,” Paul said.
“There is a gaming PC I have had my eye on,” I said helpfully.
When I finally got back to having time to play my video games, I wanted a kick-butt system to give me an advantage.
“I’ll talk to Caryn and have her look into it,” Dad said.
That was code for I was screwed … unless … yes! I would talk to her directly before my dad could poison her mind, and we ended up with something that could only do Office and emails. I shudder to think about how bad the graphics and sound cards would be. Dad wouldn’t even know about solid-state drives and how much faster they were. I couldn’t allow him to mess up this opportunity for an upgrade.
My only fear was that Caryn would pull the fiscal responsibility card on me. As much as I gamed right now, I couldn’t justify it, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want it. I’d been good until our trip to LA, where I’d treated my friends to a great dinner. Now I was spending money on Duke’s campaign. I was certain she didn’t consider that a necessary business expense. Then I was also sure that three extra little ones would need funds of some kind.
Wait until Caryn saw what it cost when I actually started to fly. From what I’d heard from Brook, aviation fuel and plane rental weren’t cheap. My goal was to finish up the ground classes this week and start flying next.
◊◊◊
Everyone left the conference room except Peggy and the boys. She stopped me before we walked out. I looked up when Brook stuck her head in, but I put up a finger to tell her I needed a moment to talk to Peggy.
“What really happened? Why wasn’t I told about Lucas?” Peggy asked.
I was rather disturbed that my mother had dropped the ball on this. Most likely every guy thinks his mom can do almost nothing wrong. Yes, I knew she wasn’t perfect, but I would never have guessed she would mess up this bad. I was torn between protecting my mom and knowing that I had to come clean if I wanted to keep Peggy in my life. I just wished my uncle was around so I could get a read on what was the best option.
“Mom dropped the ball.”
So much for protecting my mom.
“What do you mean?”
“Last Sunday, Fritz told us about the problem with not finding any background on Lucas. At first, I thought that meant everything was fine, but Fritz told us it was unusual to find absolutely nothing. For him, that was more disturbing than finding out Lucas had a juvie record. People normally have some sort of electronic trail. For example, I could Google you and find all your social media accounts. Even my grandmother has a Facebook account.”
I could see the wheels turning, and it seemed Peggy got it.
“What was the plan once you found that out?”
“Fritz was going to keep digging. He has sources that you or I would never have. While he figured it out, I was told my mom would let you know. To be honest, I was chicken. I didn’t want to seem like an overprotective jerk.”
“That would never happen,” Peggy said, setting off my sarcasm detector.
“Well, I won’t be chicken in the future. I care too much for you to risk you getting taken advantage of.”
“I can tell you’re not happy with your mom. Are you okay?” Peggy asked.
“Honestly, I’m not okay. Between Mom potentially putting you and the boys in danger and Brook not being sure if she wants to date me anymore, I’ve had a bad day.”
“I could make so much money right now,” Peggy said with an evil grin.
“Financially, your best bet would be to call Halle. Then again, she might have the same issue Brook has when she hears about three more rug-rats,” I said, pulling out my phone. “They are cute.”
I showed her the pictures.
“I’m still not sure how you managed to knock up three girls in the span of a few months.”
“Says the girl who got herself knocked up,” I mumbled.
“Hey, be nice.”
“There’s a saying about tossing rocks when you live in a glass house,” I shot back.
“It is funny, though. If you were anyone else, I would want to watch you on Jerry Springer, explaining to each of the baby mamas what the deal was.”
