I’d made it halfway down the drive when the front door burst open, and I suddenly had my little ninja in my arms.
“Thank you.”
I chuckled. For as bad as this day had been, at least something good had come out of it.
“You’re welcome. Now you better get back inside before your dad decides he needs to track me down.”
“Daddy would never hurt you,” she said, and then bounded back into the house.
I knew he was about to change his dating rules for her. There was no way he could say ‘no’ now. No father could when they saw how happy their little girl was.
◊◊◊
Chapter 16 – Aftershock Wednesday February 15
I was mindful of Frank’s tenets of getting out in front of the news and preparing for the worst. So, I got the bodycam video of the previous night’s fight from my security and emailed it to him. I accompanied that with a message to call me once he’d had a chance to review it. Luckily, he was still asleep, Los Angeles being two hours behind our time.
The events of last night had already reached my parent’s ears by the time I came downstairs. That was something I hated about growing up in a small town: trouble always beat you home. I told them I’d sent the bodycam video to Frank, “just in case.”
I was saved from having to talk about it further because my dad had his morning workout with Joey. Mom had started to go with them to make sure Greg and my dad took this seriously. Both men had some weight to lose, and there was the specter of my dad’s heart issues to contend with.
Joey had talked to my dad’s doctors and gotten the dos and don’ts of his rehabilitation. She’d worked with athletes to help them recover from injuries but had never before dealt with someone with a heart condition. She had him riding a stationary bike and walking on a treadmill for now so he could build up his stamina while not overdoing it.
As my parents walked out to go to the gym, they informed me that we would talk tonight. Great, I had that to look forward to all day.
◊◊◊
The Lincoln High grapevine proved itself in fine form as the various versions of last night’s massacre made their way through the student body. Dare filled me in on what he’d been told.
“Did you really fight both Luke and Mike Herndon last night?” he asked.
“Why? What did you hear?” I asked.
“That it was payback for what they did to Phil and Jill. You made Luke get on his knees and acknowledge you as the Alpha Male, and then you beat Mike bloody. Luke had to take him to the hospital after you were done exacting your vengeance,” Dare gushed.
Crud! It sounded like I was some kind of comic-book werewolf or something that had come to life and decimated the Herndon clan.
“Did you really pass on Chloe Larkin and give her to Tim and Wolf as a reward for being your loyal servants? Could you get Brook for me? I promise to be a loyal servant,” Dare babbled on.
“Settle down. I didn’t give them anything. You’re aware that they lost their girlfriends last night, right?” I asked.
“But it was totally worth it. They got to have sex with Chloe Larkin,” Dare pressed.
“So, you’re willing to lose Chrissy as a girlfriend if I snap my fingers and give you Brook Davis for a night?” I asked.
This was something that teenage boys did. You asked, ‘Would you give up your left nut if you could have sex with {insert random name}?’ I didn’t expect Dare had ever played before because his brain finally caught up with his motormouth, and he didn’t catch on that I was teasing him.
This chattiness was a new side of Dare that I found both amusing and irritating. Next, he would be like Alan and never shut up.
“No,” he said dejectedly. “I don’t want to lose Chrissy.”
A couple clever retorts came to mind, but let it slide because it was Dare.
“I guess there’s no talk about Dumpster Girl?” I asked.
“Oh, there is, but you finding a new girl is no big news. Everyone says that they seem to throw themselves at you. She does get high marks for getting your attention by jumping into a dumpster,” Dare said, looking at his shoes, and then he looked up and smiled. “We all thought it was funny that Paul stole her from you.”
I put him in a headlock and rubbed the top of his head, which made him squeal. My little ninja appeared and made me let him go. Dare was giggling like a little girl. It pleased me to see that he could now take something like that and know I wasn’t trying to hurt him. The kid had come a long way from the introvert that arrived at Lincoln High. He still didn’t talk to many people, but he’d opened up to Cassidy and me since Brook left. He’d even become brave enough to make comments at lunch.
“You’re not hurting him?” she asked.
“No. Dare was being a smartass,” I said.
“I pointed out that David lost his dumpster find to Paul,” Dare said to fill her in.
“Are you going to try to fix things with Don?” I asked to change the focus from me to Cassidy.
“As if. Not after he walked out like that. He should have taken us home at the very least,” Cassidy concluded.
