She moved close enough to kiss him again but only said, “My legs are a little shaky,
but I will be okay once I cool down some.”
Leaning his forehead against hers he smiled. “Mean…you’re just plain mean.”
Laughing, she pulled away from him, stood up slowly and made her way to the stairs.
She watched Buck the whole way, until she disappeared up the steps. She really was
terrified of dogs.
“I’ve gotta hand it to you. I’ve
never
received
that
kind of a reaction from a woman before. You are the
man,
Buck,” he said to the dog.
Buck cocked his head as though curious about what he’d done. Ronnie pulled himself
up on the sofa and sat back. Buck got up from the rug and familiarized himself with
this new environment by sniffing everything, then lay back down on the rug.
Kayla was a woman in need of a few days of uninterrupted loving. Ronnie burned for
her
beyond
being turned on. He was an inch away from following her up those stairs.
She had been
naked
under that robe. In his arms and one article of clothing away from being completely
naked.
Damn it!
How long he sat there attempting to get himself under control he wasn’t sure, but
soon enough she came back down the stairs again looking at Buck the entire time. She
was obviously back to normal Kayla mode, rushed and frantic. She grabbed her purse
off the table near the front door and began digging around in the bottom of it.
“Dang it.” She sighed, glancing nervously at Buck.
“Problems?” Ronnie asked.
“I can’t find my keys again,” she said in frustration.
“Promise not to freak out when Buck moves?” Ronnie asked her. At her silent agreement
he said, “Buck, find keys.”
Buck raised his head up off of his paws and then got up, lumbering down the hallway
into the kitchen. Less than a minute later he came trotting back in the room with
Kayla’s keys dangling from his mouth. Buck stopped right next to where Ronnie sat.
“Give,” he said.
Buck dropped the keys by Ronnie’s feet and sat down on his haunches. Reaching down,
Ronnie scooped the keys up and then gave the dog a rub on his head. “Down.” Buck again
stretched out on the expensive-looking rug and watched as Ronnie stood up and headed
to where Kayla stood staring in disbelief.
Stopping in front of her, he held her keys out and said, “See it’s not
him
you should be worried about.”
She took her keys and gave Ronnie a sheepish smile before heading toward the door.
“Bye, Kayla,” he said.
She stopped in her tracks and looked back over her shoulder at him. Her gaze slowly
left his eyes and landed on his mouth.
He knew they were walking a dangerous line. She was a
mom,
with responsibilities. He typically didn’t go after moms, but he was ready to make
an exception for Kayla.
The brutal verbal punishment he would receive from his sisters for messing with a
single mother would be worth it! Besides, he
wasn’t
simply playing with Kayla, he really
liked
her—and Addie, too, for that matter. So maybe his sisters wouldn’t give him a speech
about not getting involved with a single mother unless he was serious. Maybe he
was
serious about Kayla. Maybe he
did
want more from her than just the fling his siblings were always warning him against.
Then she was out the door and gone and he was left with Buck…and a houseful of teenage
girls who would be wanting breakfast soon. Sighing, he headed into the kitchen with
Buck right beside him.
The past couple of weeks had been kind of nice. Addie reminded him of his younger
sisters when he’d lived at home. Teasing Addie was fun because she would squeal and
laugh all at the same time. It made him a little homesick, though, and he’d called
his oldest sister last weekend just to check in.
The kids at Addie’s high school were good stuff. He had started taking Buck with him
every day to pick her up, and the kids enjoyed the old dog almost as much as Buck
enjoyed them. Every time a kid saluted the dog Ronnie could barely keep from laughing.
By the second week he had begun to wonder if they were doing it out of respect. It
was almost like the kids hung around waiting for him and Buck each day. Even the principal
would at least nod his head in acknowledgment.
Addie must have mentioned to the rest of the girls that they were seriously out of
sync with each other, after his original assessment of them, because they had steadily
improved over the past couple of weeks despite their coach, almost as if they were
seeking his approval.
It was too bad they hadn’t mentioned being clueless about the very sport they were
cheering for
prior
to the game. At least the crowd had approved during the second half of last night’s
game. They were good kids and deserved the crowd’s positive vibes. They didn’t deserve
to be frowned upon or, even worse, ignored.
He cut up some potatoes to fry and then mixed up a batch of pancakes and found some
sausage patties, as well. Then, opening the door to the basement, he looked at Buck.
“Go rouse the troops,” he said.
The dog slowly headed down the steps to the basement and Ronnie left the door cracked
open while he went back to finish breakfast preparations. Soon enough, Buck entered
the kitchen followed by three girls. More of them could be heard giggling down the
hallway. The teens gathered around the table, a few of them pulling over barstools
as they all tried to squeeze in.
“That smells amazing,” one said.
After he set out everything they would need, he made himself a plate and leaned against
the counter to eat while they started in on the food. The girls were apparently trying
to pick a song for some dance or cheer competition that was coming up and talked excitedly
among themselves. After finishing his plate and dishing out a little bit of food for
Buck along with filling another china dish with water, Ronnie began cleaning up.
“We need something different. Every other team there will be using that song. It’s
been on the charts for weeks!” Addie’s friend Kaitlyn exclaimed.
They argued for a little longer until Addie asked, “What kind of music do you like,
Ronnie?”
“Stuff you’ve never heard of and probably wouldn’t appreciate anyway,” he replied
as he rinsed dishes and lined them up in the dishwasher.
“Come on. Who’s your favorite singer?” Addie asked with a laugh.
The other girls gathered around the counter and proceeded to give him imploring looks.
Ignoring them, he dished up what was left of the breakfast into a container for Kayla
and popped it in the fridge.
“Okay, how about a favorite song then, Sergeant Brown,” Kaitlyn said.
Didn’t they have something better to do than annoy him?
They should be gossiping, talking about the football player at school they all thought
was so cute. That was a conversation he wished he hadn’t overheard. It kind of gave
him the same feeling he’d had when he’d realized his
parents
did in fact have sex. He was planning on doing a little work in the garage in an
effort to steer clear of the group of giggling girls.
Closing the refrigerator door, he turned to the group, who continued to stare at him.
Sighing, he said, “Ever heard Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary”? Look it up on
the internet.
That
is a classic.”
They looked at each other and then back at him. “Never heard of it,” Addie supplied.
“Let’s go look it up on your laptop, Addie,” Kaitlyn said with a giggle.
After the girls piled out of the kitchen, with Buck following close behind them, Ronnie
finished straightening up. Heading out to the garage, he couldn’t help but chuckle
when he heard the song blasting from the living room.
That should keep them entertained for a while.
He had not yet tackled the garage in all the chores he’d done for Kayla. It appeared
to be some form of storage shed for them rather than a place to park vehicles. This
was one of the last areas he needed to organize and clean.
He started with locating the few tools she had and grouping them with some other home
improvement items like paint. He put them on top of a shelf that ran the length of
the far wall. Then, eyeing a dust-covered table in the corner that looked like it
was missing one of the extender boards in the middle, he went over to inspect it.
He could clean it up, sand it down and then refinish it. They could use a real table
at the apartment, too, rather than the fold-up card table they were using now. He
began to rummage around looking for the chairs and was thrilled to find four matching
ones, though a couple had loose spindles on the back.
After he’d dug a couple of them out from one end of the garage, the door opened and
Buck came to check on his progress. Addie was right behind him.
“Hey, Ronnie, can you come in here for a minute? We need your opinion,” Addie said.
She stood looking at him and after a moment he realized she was waiting for him to
come inside right then.
Couldn’t they just wait for Kayla?
He was not a teenager, not a cheerleader and
certainly
not a girl. What could they possibly need with his opinion? Addie truly was like
a repeat of his younger sisters. Sighing, he set the chair aside and followed her
and Buck into the house and into the living room, which the girls had rearranged to
clear out space in the middle.
Great.
One of the girls pushed a button on the laptop and then forwarded to the middle of
the song. She quickly got in line with the other girls and they began doing what he
could only guess was supposed to be synchronized dance moves.
What felt like a year and a half later, the song finally ended and he turned to head
back out to the garage.
“Ronnie! Wait!” Addie said. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
The kid was like a lawyer asking him questions he really didn’t want to answer, especially
with a jury of her peers standing around looking at him.
“Did you watch a video of Tina Turner performing the song?” he asked.
“No, we looked for videos of other cheer routines that have been done to the song,”
she replied.
“If you are going to copy someone, at least copy the master,” he said.
After seeing the look on her face, he moved to the laptop, did a search and played
a video for her. He stepped back as the girls crowded around to watch. He tried to
slowly back away from the group, hoping they wouldn’t notice. Just as he’d almost
made it clear of the girls, Addie grabbed his arm, effectively killing his attempts
at escape.
“Don’t go. We need your help,” she said to him.
“Oh, no,” he said adamantly.
“What do you mean, no?” Addie asked him with a laugh.
“I mean
hell
no,” he replied.
“You don’t have to dance
with
us—just tell us what we are doing wrong,” she coaxed.
“Watch the video three times, then try to copy the dancers three times and
then
come and get me and I’ll tell you what you are doing wrong. Oh, and learn how to
get into formation. Standing in a straight line with an equal distance between you
is a great place to start,” he said, attempting to pry her fingers off his arm.
“Come on, Ronnie. Our coach sucks. You saw her,” Addie whined.
“What makes you think I’d be any better than her? I’m a
dude,
the last I checked,” he said.
Smiling up at him, she said matter-of-factly, “One for offense, two for defense.”
Looking into her freckled face, he couldn’t say no. At least no one was around to
see him being goaded into participating in this charade. Sighing, he said, “Put the
furniture back where it belongs, download the song and meet me outside in twenty minutes
after
you’ve watched the video at least three times.”
He headed back out to the garage to dig out the other two chairs. Being ready in twenty
minutes was a way to see if they were serious or not. What the hell did he know about
cheerleading,
let alone
coaching
cheerleading? Next to nothing, that was what. He would humor them, though, until
they figured that out for themselves. Then maybe they would find something else to
do.
Damn, it wasn’t even lunchtime.
Come on, Kayla, get home.
After pulling the other two chairs out from under a stack of boxes, he checked over
the table and found it wasn’t missing a board after all—the two ends were just stuck
open. Glancing at his watch to check the girls’ time, he went to work fixing the sliding
bar in the middle of the table that allowed the two ends to slide together. He was
able to push it tight. It was a sweet table and would fit their little kitchen at
the apartment perfectly.
Looking at his watch again, he realized twenty minutes had passed, so he opened up
the overhead garage door and was shocked to see the girls lined up in two rows of
four girls each. Buck sat facing the group.
Damn it
. He had hoped they wouldn’t be ready so he could bow out of this stupidity.
Eyeing Addie, who had a self-satisfied grin on her face, he said, “Two laps around
the block.”
They looked at him for a minute before one of the girls said, “Come on, let’s go.”
When they started to run, he yelled, “No, no, no. In formation.”
He watched them try to line back up and after he let them struggle for a minute he
went over and showed them how to line up correctly. Once they were back in line he
said, “Okay, go, but together.”
They took off down the sidewalk at a slow jog, with Buck bringing up the rear. Ronnie
walked to the end of the driveway and watched them attempt to stay in the perfect
lines he’d helped them form. By the time they hit the end of the block they had figured
out how to run in sync.
It was a start.
He was rather impressed that they had figured it out so quickly. Once they were out
of sight, he headed back into the garage and looked for anything he could use to fix
the chairs. Finding nothing, he called Rusty.