Chapter 18

I get back to the apartment; it’s a nice morning and I’m already in my sweats so I go do my exercises. I’m back in an hour; I see Jill taking out the trash and give her a hand, and tell her Kelly is planning on bringing Irene to her this afternoon to get her hair done. Jill knows about it; while I’ve got her attention I ask about the spare room in the apartment, and all the stuff in it.

“I don’t know what’s up there anymore,” she tells me. “It was first setup as a small bedroom, but I don’t think anyone ever used it for that. I had some of my girl’s old stuff stored up there, but we went through that a couple years ago. I know Jack put stuff renters left behind in there, but that’s all I know.”

“Well, I mentioned it to Kelly; and now she’d like to clear it out and see what’s in there. She’s probably going to ask you about it this afternoon.”

Jill starts laughing; “You know what she’s thinking, don’t you?”

“Yes; I’m pretty sure. I don’t mind her moving in; she hasn’t brought it up yet, but I kind of expect it. It’s even more complicated than you think; but I’ll let Kelly talk to you about it. I would like to talk to you and Jack about something, when you have a couple minutes.”

“We’re just having coffee; would you like to come in now?”

“Let me go take a shower and clean up; I just got done exercising. I’ll come back down in 15 minutes.” I finish taking the trash out for her, then head upstairs. I check in the spare room once more; there may be a couple twin beds under all that stuff.

20 minutes later I’m clean and ready; Jill is waiting at the back door when I approach. I follow her into the kitchen; Jack is sitting there smiling at me.

“I wondered how long it would take before Kelly asked to move in with you,” he chuckles.

“She hasn’t asked yet; I’d clear it with you before agreeing. It would solve a small problem I have coming up; and kind of leads to what I’m going to ask. How’s your back?”

“It’s been better. I need to take it easy this winter and hope it heals; the doctor is going to re-evaluate me next spring. What’s up with you?” he asks.

“I’ll be leaving for recruit training in a few months, and need to leave my car somewhere up here; I’m hoping you’ll let me park it in your driveway for those three months. Also; I need to change the address on my driver’s license, registration, and insurance; I want to make sure it’s okay to use your address. I’ll probably be traveling quite a bit for the next couple years; I’d like to use your address as my home address until I settle somewhere permanently. I doubt that you folks are going to move anytime soon; who knows with my family.”

Jack looks at Jill; she nods and smiles, then tells me, “All that’s okay with us; what about Kelly moving in?”

“She would really like to get out of her sister’s house; and she can take over renting the apartment when I leave. At least until I get back from boot camp next summer; then she can decide what she wants to do. Actually, I can cover the rent for her until next summer; that will pay for leaving my car and other stuff until I move on. If she moves in; you should probably be getting more rent, with more than one person living there.”

“Jill and I will talk that over,” Jack tells me; “but at the moment, we don’t have a problem with it. I’ll bet money Kelly will talk to Jill about it; isn’t she bringing a new girl over this afternoon to get her hair done?”

“Kelly is bringing Irene, and maybe another girl from school; we’ll talk about it then,” Jill adds. “School is out next Monday due to the holiday; the third girl may wait until then.”

“Okay; I’ll let you think it over. If there’s anything you need done, let me know. Let your back heal; I’m not really doing anything and can use the exercise.”

“Now that you bring it up; the water valve in the basement is still leaking a little. We’ve got a bucket setup to catch the drip; it needs dumping every day so it’s a little bit of an annoyance. Maybe you can look at it, and see what you think should be done. You’ve done some home repairs; right?” Jack asks.

“Sure; plumbing is not my favorite, but it can’t hurt for me to look. Jill can show me what’s going on; I can check it out right now if you’d like.”

Jill stands up, I stand and follow her to the basement. The leak is right over the washer and dryer, the bucket is sitting on the dryer. I can see where the valve is leaking a little around the handle stem, a drip every few seconds. I try opening and closing the valve a couple times, trying to re-seat the gasket; the drip slows a lot, down to once a minute.

“Well, that certainly helps,” Jill tells me, “At least I won’t have to come down here every day to empty the bucket. Let’s go back up and tell Jack.”

We end up sitting at the kitchen table again; I tell Jack what I did and that the valve could probably be rebuilt with new gaskets and O-rings. I’d have to shut the water off to the entire house for a couple hours to repair it; and I’d probably need to take the valve out and to a hardware store to get the right parts. We decide to let it go for a couple days to see if it gets worse again; I head back to my apartment.

I make myself a bowl of cereal; then decide to look into the spare room a bit more. It takes a bit of moving stuff around, but I eventually get the door all the way open. There’s a bunch of boxes that seem to have clothes in them; plus a bunch of kitchen stuff. There is a pair of single beds in there; they look like they could be stacked to make bunk beds, plus a couple mis-matched dressers and chests of drawers, maybe a couple small tables and chairs too. It’s a mess, but it could be a nice small bedroom again if needed. I decide I don’t need to decide anything right now, it’s probably not going to be my decision anyway; then settle down on the couch to read.

It’s a nice day; I go for a long walk at 2:30 and am back when Irene drives in with Kelly. I get a nice kiss from both girls; they head inside with Jill and I go back up to the apartment to get ready for work. It’s 4:30 before the two girls come into the apartment, Irene carrying a big bag; I forgot it’s Friday. I get two better kisses from them before Kelly drags Irene to check out the spare room; I stay in the kitchen, maybe playing dumb is my best bet.

“I like your hair; what did Jill do to it?” I tell Irene when they come back.

“She trimmed it, and styled it differently; she would like to add some highlights next time. I really like her; she was done in 20 minutes, but we kept talking. We’d like to talk to you too; we’ve got a proposition for you,” Irene smiles at me.

Kelly speaks up; “Just something to think about, we don’t need a decision right away.”

“We’ll discuss you moving in after we clear out the spare room, see how much space there is. Both of you, I’m assuming?” I ask.

“Please?” they ask in unison. “We can make it work; it would make things easier for all of us,” Kelly adds.

“We’ll talk about it, probably Saturday afternoon would be a good time,” I tell them both. “I don’t have a problem with it; but the Miller’s will need to know, and the rent will probably go up a little. I can handle that for now, and until I get back from boot camp next summer; you need to start thinking about what you’ll do then. Meanwhile; we need to get to work, I’m going to head there now. We should take both cars; I don’t know when I’ll get done tonight, you two can ride in together.” I get a couple nods and two more kisses, with lots of giggles; they head to the bedroom to change into their waitress gear as I leave.

There’s been a problem with the supply truck running late again; the restaurant is a mess. I clock in and go to work in the kitchen, I leave it to the others to get stuff put away. Chris winks at me when she comes in; the other two head for her when they arrive, pretty soon they’re all deep in conversation. Gary and I are manning the kitchen for now; the mid-shift guy will join us once the supplies are stored properly. We’re pretty busy; the nice weather has a few more people out, and we’ve got the Friday fish-fry going on. Soon we’re in full swing, everyone busy as hell; it’s going to be a long night. Again it slows at 8 and the extra cook leaves, Gary wins the draw and I head back to the dishwasher to help him get caught up. The kid back there has a couple weeks of experience now, but he’s still moving too slow. I help for 30 minutes, showing him how to speed up the process; then tell him he’s on his own for the rest of the night. He’s here through closing, no school tomorrow; it’s sink or swim time for him.

I go back to the kitchen and chat with Gary for a few minutes; he’s got a big music gig tomorrow night and will be working 11 to 7 tomorrow. I find out the manager is supposed to bring in a cook from one of our other franchise stores; and is going to try to talk him into switching to our restaurant. At least I won’t be alone on a Saturday night.

Chris comes through the kitchen and beckons me to the back; she’s chuckling as we enter the storeroom. “Both of them?” she laughs, “Boy, are you in trouble.” I still get a big hug and kiss; then she’s giggling again. “I’ll have to come by in the afternoons, just to make sure you’re getting some rest.”

“We both know that’s not what’s going to happen when you stop by for a visit,” I tease her; then kiss her again. “I still have to talk about it with both of them; I’m going to try to find a way to limit the sex somehow. Got any suggestions?”

“I’d like to have you every day, and I’ve got an alternative. If you’re lucky maybe you can get them to sleep in their own bed every night; assuming there’s two beds in the spare room.”

“There is; I don’t think they’ve ever been used. We may try to clear it out this weekend; we’re going to talk about this whole thing Saturday afternoon. Enough of that; did you wear stockings again?”