“I just realized that I’m a little too full of myself. I never thought you wouldn’t be interested in all this,” I said with my best smile to try to deflect the hurt I felt.
“Sorry, but even with ‘all that,’ not every girl is going to fall for your charms,” Joey assured me.
“Wow! You’re harsh. Give me a minute while I wrap my brain around that,” I said and gave her my drowned-puppy look.
She didn’t buy it.
“It’s just that I had a good time meeting everyone and want to come back for dinner. If you think I would ever change my mind, I’ll pass,” Joey explained.
“No worries. I’ll put on my big-boy pants and move on,” I said and huffed. Then I had an idea. “You know my brother thinks you’re hot, too.”
“Do I need to talk to Phil?”
“Not him, Greg.”
Joey just blinked at me. Suddenly, I realized that she liked my brother.
“But he’s married. I would never agree to be the other woman,” she confided.
“Good. There are times I would be willing to swap out Angie, but for some reason, my brother loves her,” I said.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s okay. She does get on my last nerve sometimes,” I said.
“Oh.”
“The reason I bring Greg up is that he needs to get in shape. My family has a history of heart issues. I lost my grandfather that way, and my dad was recently in the hospital for it. I worry about them.”
“If you want, I’m sure I can help them.”
“What would work best for you?” I asked.
“If they can come to the high school before my day starts, I’d be willing to get them in shape,” Joey said.
“Do you need to get permission from the school to let them work out here?” I asked.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted.
“No worries. If we have to go somewhere else, I have a gym membership I never use. I bet they’d let me do some kind of package deal for my family,” I said, and then realized something. “Let me know how much it is for you to train them, and I’ll have Scarlet get you set up on our payroll.”
“I could use the extra money. They aren’t paying me what I’m worth here,” Joey said.
“They never do, do they?”
“No, probably not for your first job.”
Well, our conversation wasn’t a complete loss, even though I’d been dumped before we even went out. I figured my debt to my brother for teaching Dare about girls was probably repaid in full. He would be secretly excited that I’d gotten Joey to agree to train him. I would bet he’d actually put the effort in to get into shape if she were there to watch over him.
I also knew that all I had to do was tell my mom, and she would make sure both my dad and Greg showed up. She was handy like that, sometimes.
◊◊◊
At lunch, Cassidy looked pleased with herself. She also looked like she was dying to tell me something, so I ignored her. Tim and Wolf followed my lead, which caused Cassidy to glare at us.
“What’s up, Cassidy?” Darius asked.
I think I liked him better when he was broken and afraid to talk.
“I have video from this morning,” she announced. “David, get your tablet out so everyone can see.”
She pulled her phone out and tapped at the screen for a second, and my tablet dinged to let me know I had an email. I opened the attachment so it would download. Once it had, I put the tablet on the table so everyone could see and hit play.
“Is that from your drone?” Wolf asked.
Sometimes I wished I carried around a sign like that comedian talked about for when someone asked a stupid question.
“Seriously? That’s your question about this morning?” Gina asked.
“You need to figure out how to make her nicer,” Tim said of Gina.
“I read that when women are like that, they’re either having their period or need sex,” Dare said.
I was impressed when Chrissy blocked Gina from her intended target, Chrissy’s boyfriend.
“Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to him,” Chrissy said when Dare didn’t understand why Gina might want to do him harm for speaking the truth.
“Maybe we should buy her a BOB,” I suggested.
“Who’s Bob?” Phil asked.
“Battery Operated Boyfriend,” Jill said to fill my half brother in.
Darius looked confused.
“A vibrator,” I supplied.
While our side conversation had been going on, I watched the drone video. Paul must have launched it when Cassidy and I got out of the car.
I hated to admit it, but Destiny was right. It came off too much like a bad after-school-special production. Still, my inner actor liked it.
I would work with Marshal and Curtis and incorporate the drone footage. It would help with an establishment shot and be good for cutaways from a different perspective. The three of us would put it together and see what Chubby thought.
The Bickersons—my new nickname for Wolf and Gina—were about to start round two when Sun came to the table.
“You figure out what we’re doing tonight?” I asked.
“I thought you would take me to dinner, and then we do an escape room. They recently opened one over by State.”
“What’s that?” Cassidy asked.
“They lock you into a room with a bunch of clues that you solve in order to escape. Their website says it’s a fun way to get to know people. You can either join a group or bring your own,” Sun explained.
