“Now that you’re finally going to get into your trust fund, it doesn’t mean I’ll stop supporting you financially if and when you need it. Nor that you and the little ones aren’t going to be getting tons of presents now and in the future,” I said.
“You already do enough. After all, you found us jobs that pay well enough for us to cover our bills. You pay for daycare and hired both Peggy and Ms. Lawrie to help watch the boys and Carol. Your mom and family are always there to help. And you set up trust funds for all the kids. I can’t see asking for you to pony up more money. The agreement was that you would help out until we got our trust-fund money,” Ashley said.
“Plus, we’ve learned that if we need money for anything, we can just ask you. It might be different if you’d been a jerk about all this. When you invited me home with you, even when you weren’t a hundred percent sure that Carol was yours, that meant a great deal to me. It made Ash and me realize everything would be okay,” Scarlet said.
“I’m not going to force money on you,” I said with a little smile.
“Melanie! You can come back,” Ashley called out.
As she walked back into the room, I winked at Ashley and Scarlet.
“Maybe you two can help Melanie out. She was unsure about how I would go about satisfying more than one woman at a time.”
Melanie picked up a wooden spoon, raised it over her head, and started advancing on me. I decided I needed to go see little ones before she used it.
◊◊◊
I was playing with the kids, ‘getting them all wound up,’ according to my mom, when Tami came in and took our picture.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“I want to remember you having fun like this. From what Brook tells me, you’ve become a workaholic.”
“Anything for the art,” I said.
“Hey, I have a funny Mike story for you.”
“Did Harper finally get smart and break up with him?” I asked.
“Yes, but that isn’t what this story is about.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that next,” I said so she wouldn’t forget I wanted dirt on the breakup.
“After the Christmas dance, some of the crowd had gone out into the parking lot to drink. Tim, Wolf, Sarah, and I decided to go grab pancakes, so we were able to see it.”
“You totally suck at telling stories,” I teased.
“Bite me, ‘stupid boy,’” she said, and then continued the story. “Janet Hill was walking by to join her date at his car. He was a real gentleman and had gone out to warm it up for her.”
I snorted. It sounded like Tim was past all that stuff and made Tami get into a cold car. Maybe I could train Brook to warm my car up in the winter so I wouldn’t freeze my butt off.
“Sounds like you’re still training your boyfriend.”
“Again, bite me. So, Mike looks over at Janet and says, ‘Hey, you forgot your panties in my front seat last night.’ Janet flipped him off and shot back, ‘In your dreams, Dirtbag.’”
“Good for her,” I said.
“Wait, it gets better. Janet must have told her date. You have to imagine this. Her date was all of five-seven and probably weighed 150 pounds. You know how big Mike is. Anyway, Mike thought he would kick the kid’s ass. Turns out, Janet’s date is a wrestler, and he must be pretty good because he kicked the stuffing out of Mike,” Tami shared.
“Tell me you have video,” I begged.
“It happened so fast, none of us thought to grab our cameras.”
“I can’t believe I spent time with both Tim and Wolf, and neither one told me about this,” I complained.
“That’s because I made them promise to let me tell you. I knew it would make your day.”
“Was there any permanent damage?” I asked, hopefully.
“A split lip and a black eye. Mike’s teammates broke it up when it became obvious that Mike was about to take a serious beating. They didn’t help Mike with Janet’s date, and they didn’t rough her date up as a part of stopping the fight, either. I thought it said something about what his teammates really feel about Mike.”
“Tim and Wolf didn’t try to stop it, did they?” I asked with a scowl.
“No. They were happy to sit back and watch him get what he deserved.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t want to have to find new friends.”
“No, you’re good,” Tami assured me.
“What about Harper?” I asked.
“They were on the rocks after his public comments at the Championship Game. Then she heard about what he said to Janet. She decided to cut her losses and broke up with him. We invited her out for pancakes as her reward for doing it right after he got his ass handed to him.”
“Classic!”
One of the twins held his arms up for Tami to pick him up.
“Which one are you?” she asked.
I felt like a horrible father because I had to take a closer look.
“That’s Dawson,” I finally announced. “If Coby wasn’t bigger, they could be triplets.”
