She shared that Lexi would be here tonight. While it was a little cumbersome that my PA lived in LA, I missed Lexi taking care of me. I liked having her around. Besides, I’d gotten used to having someone nearby to deal with my schedule and keep me in line. Kendal had spoiled me when she was my go-to person.
◊◊◊
Okay. That’s it. Mr. Happy needed to be put into time-out, just like my niece and nephews, and go sit in a corner by himself. Seriously.
After school, Cassidy and Ms. Marshall had made it their mission to kill me. I noticed that they didn’t seem to work anyone else as hard. I think they had it in for me.
The problem was Ms. Marshall. Today she wore a little pair of exercise shorts and one of those sports bras. She had her hair up in a ponytail, and it swung from side to side with that jaunty little walk of hers. Damn! I imagined her hair down, flowing over her shoulders. I bet it would feel amazing with my fingers running through it. The problem was that Mr. Happy agreed with me and wanted to come out and play.
“Someone needs an ice bath,” Cassidy observed.
What the hell? She looked me in the eye and dared me to say something. Joey—aka the cause of the problem—looked confused. I wasn’t about to explain it to her.
“Yeah, I may be getting a little stiff,” I said as my eyes dared Cassidy to comment.
“After you get out of the ice bath, I should rub you down,” Joey said with a little worry in her voice.
“Yes, rubbing would help,” Cassidy offered with a straight face.
She was so going to die. I jumped off the machine I was on, and Cassidy bolted. Joey just shook her head when Cassidy shrieked as I caught her. I made her walk in front of me to the locker room so I could take a quick shower before I used the ice bath. I was sore, so it was a good plan.
“You’re going to get into so much trouble if you do anything with Ms. Marshall,” Cassidy warned.
I grunted my agreement. She stopped me at the locker-room door.
“I’m serious, David. She works for the school, and she would get fired.”
I nodded and pushed past my friend. Cassidy’s reminder took all the fun out of it, and Mr. Happy lost interest. At least I wouldn’t be on display in the showers.
◊◊◊
Instrument flight rules (IFR) training was going well. They’d set Cassidy and me up on an accelerated course schedule, and Roy Tyro was teaching us. He kept asking, “What’s the next thing you do?” He wanted to hammer home that there was a general flowchart, plan, or procedure for every IFR flight. Roy kept telling us that when the items in the basic flowchart were memorized, mistakes were minimized.
We’d touched on a lot of what we were covering today way back when we’d obtained our initial pilot’s licenses. Now, we were drilling down and learning things like how to make different approaches. There were a ton of acronyms like GPS, ILS, and VOR, to name a few. Each acronym had its own set of rules on how to fly the plane, and we had to learn them all.
I liked that Roy thought the best way to learn was in the cockpit. Today, we’d been practicing approaches and landings. Because we both now had our first pilot’s licenses, he let each of us ride along while he taught the other. When we would land, we would switch seats to fly the plane.
◊◊◊
Once we got home, I noticed several cars parked on the street. I came in to find the usual chaos a large family generates. Our added guests were Tim, Wolf, and their parents. Along with them were Tracy, Frank Ingram, and Lexi. Mom had ordered Monical’s pizza, which put a smile on my face.
Lexi bounced out of her chair over to me and gave me a hug. I held her in my arms and looked her in the eye.
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Kent had me doing gofer work around the office. When you called about the Academy Awards, and your dad called about college signing day, I realized I would rather be here. Even if it is in the middle of nowhere, I’d rather be your PA because what you have me doing is a lot more interesting. So, I’ll stay even if it is only to help you through Wednesday, and after that, I’ll stay or travel as needed.”
“You could always stay longer,” I suggested.
“There is the middle-of-nowhere problem, though, and the Oscars to get through. I’m an LA woman, after all.”
“Then I guess I’ll take you as long as you’re here and count my blessings,” I said.
“Grab some pizza. Everyone’s been waiting for you,” Lexi said, pulling away from me.
I turned and saw my mom had taken Lexi’s and my interaction in and had an unreadable expression on her face. I knew without a doubt that she had picked up on our attraction and suspected that we were more than we probably should be.
Ignoring that for the moment, I made myself a plate of pizza and salad and joined the group. They were talking about the signing announcement.
“We should do the whole hat routine,” Wolf said.
“What’s that?” his dad asked.
“You have hats from all the schools you’re considering, and then you put on the one that you pick,” Tim explained.
