Chapter 9

My nap was rudely interrupted around noon as someone ran in and flicked on the light. I groaned in protest and threw an arm across my eyes. “No fair!”

I felt the blanket jerked off of my rudely, leaving me nowhere to hide. Dawn, the traitor, bounded off the bed, barking and yipping happily, ready to play.

I rolled onto my back, expecting Patty. Instead, Lana was standing there with the blanket in her hands.

“What?” I demanded groggily.

“Why aren’t you up yet?” Lana wanted to know. “It’s lunch time.”

“I was up earlier,” I said thickly. “Took Dawn for a walk. My leg hurt so I took something and came back to bed.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned. I nodded.

“Just meant to take her to the back yard, but it was sunrise so I took her for her walk. Forgot my cane inside,” I told her groggily.

She nodded. “You should get up and get a shower,” she told me. “We’re not doing the rest of the presents until later, but you still need to have lunch before they close the kitchen.”

I nodded and rolled out of bed, grabbing my cane and limping across the hall to the bathroom.

“Damn! You are in rough shape,” she commented. “You need a hand?”

“I’ll manage,” I said tiredly. “Thanks though. There’s a letter on my desk. Go read it. We’ll talk about it when I’m done in the shower.”

I got in the shower and washed relatively quickly. I’d had the rest of my hair shaved after finding out that they’d shaved a good chunk of it for the stitches on my head, so it didn’t require much work to take care of. When I was done, I shut off the water and dried off before I hobbled back to my room.

Lana was still wiping her eyes. “What are you gonna do?” she asked.

“It’s already been done. As soon as I read that, Emma and I cried a lot and then I called her. When the baby is born, she’s listing me as the father.”

“What?” she asked, shocked. “You’re going to raise the baby with her?”

I nodded. “Emma and I agreed. I don’t think anyone who reads that letter could call that a mistake.” I started to dress and sat down on the bed to put on socks, sighing with relief. Even with the painkillers, I was still feeling uncomfortable. “I know you warned me about throwing around money to pay for any pregnancies from that weekend, but I don’t feel like she’s after the money. She talks too much about how much more loved she’d have been if she’d come here that night instead.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “She’s kind of a sweet girl. This kind of hurt a lot of people, but she was pretty innocent when this all happened.”

I finished getting dressed and got back to my feet with a groan as I settled my weight onto my leg. “Today’s not going to be a good day,” I predicted. “I mean it’s Christmas and it’ll be fantastic, but I’m already fucked.”

“Just stay off your feet and let other people do the running around,” she said lightly.

“Speaking of other people, where’s Beck? I kind of expected her to be here with you when I got out of the shower.”

“She’s home. She wanted to sleep in since we were opening presents here. She’s probably just getting through in the shower now.”

She settled me in the living room and took off home to gather everyone up. While she was gone, I got a call from Emma.

“You miserable shit!” she told me, giggling the whole time. “I just opened your mystery gift in front of my parents. You could have warned me that it was gonna make me cry.”

“That was never my intention,” I told her. “I take it they were happy tears?”

“Of course. A pinkie ring with your birthstone and an inscription that says ‘proof you have me wrapped around your little finger’? My mother and my sister are both gushing about how sweet it is. The others have the same rings?”

“Absolutely. Different styles. It would be extremely tacky for me to buy in bulk. All the notes are identical though.”

“I told you not to spend money on us. You are in so much trouble when I get back!” she growled, but she was laughing and sniffling at the same time. It had been perfect.

“I love you Bride-to-Be,” I told her.

“You’re not getting off that easy, Husband-in-Training,” she warned me. “You’re getting spoiled whether you like it or not. Don’t be surprised if I come back with something else for you.”

I chuckled. “You spoil me every time you smile,” I assured her.

“I’m hanging up before you make me cry again. I’ll talk to you after you get your mystery gift. Just ... you ... wait!” she warned me and then hung up.

I chuckled and Mom came out of the kitchen with a sandwich and a bottle of Coke for me. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“She opened the gift I got her to take with her,” I explained. “It’s kind of sappy.”

“Dare I ask?”

“I got a similar gift for Tricia and Gina,” I told her. “You’ll see them later. For now, Patty is the only one who knows.”

She nodded and returned to the kitchen. Lilly was helping next door and Patty was bouncing back and forth, as I found out a few minutes later as she bustled in and started directly for the kitchen with a wave. Twenty minutes later, she was able to spare a minute to chat.

“How’re you doing, Champ?” she asked. “Lana said you were in rough shape today.”

“I forgot my cane when walking Dawn this morning,” I explained. “I’ll live, but I’m feeling a little run down.”

She nodded. “Well, we don’t need extra hands, so just stick it out here. Collie and Tabby will be along shortly and Becky’s finally up and dressed so they’ll be around to pick up any slack as needed.”

I nodded and smirked. “Emma called. She opened her last present.”

“Oh?” she asked with a smile. “How’d that go?”

“She called me a lot of names and threatened to go shopping for something to spoil me with to get back at me, but I think she spoils me all the time.”

“It’s a pretty cute gift. I can’t wait ‘til the other girls see theirs.”

She had to leave after that to go make sure that everything was going smoothly in the other kitchen.

Lana and Beck arrived a little while later and were carrying travel cases of sweets. I secretly thought there was enough there to feed half of Boston, but I remembered that we had a lot of people and there were bound to be some visitors in the next few days.

I led the two of them back down to my room and let Beck read Cheryl’s letter. She was as emotional as the rest of us had been. When I told her that I’d agreed to be listed as the father, she came and hugged me fiercely, but careful about putting too much pressure on my scars.

“I’m so sorry I ever believed you wouldn’t do the right thing,” she said to me sincerely.

I hugged her back just as tightly, ignoring the twinges in my right shoulder for a moment. I kissed her cheek. “Long since forgiven,” I told them both.

She gave me another squeeze and seemed really happy. Both of them did. I chalked that up to the holiday and smiled.

We sat around chatting for a while after that and I told Lana that she’d been right. Most of the gifts had been very naughty. She wanted to see them, but I told her that I hadn’t even looked through most of them.

“What was in them?” she asked.

“Lingerie with promises to fill it if returned, lovers coupon books, a lot of SD cards, flash drives and DVDs and a couple of letters.”

“That’s about what I expected. I know the cheerleaders have talked some about how they’re going to haze you,” she informed me.

“I heard. Have they come to a decision or are they still planning?” I asked worriedly.

“Nothing concrete,” she admitted.

“Good. I asked Gina to make sure they didn’t come up with anything that crossed lines. Between you and her, I know you’ll make sure I don’t end up in over my head.”

She nodded in agreement.

“You’re already in over your head,” Beck said with a laugh. “You just don’t know how deep yet.”

I arched an eyebrow questioningly. “Meaning?”

Lana looked stricken, but Beck shrugged. “You’re agreeing to be a dad to a child that half the girls in the school know isn’t yours,” she said casually. “You think they’re in love with you now? Just wait. You’ll need a body guard and a chastity belt.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “I’m sure I can get a couple of trustworthy people to escort me around the school. I do intend to talk to the girls though. I was thinking about having them stop by tomorrow to talk about Patrick Waterman and to ask for their help with Cheryl’s baby.”

“What sort of help?” Beck wanted to know.

“They all know how Cheryl got pregnant,” I said. “I want them to keep that a secret. Anyone not in the circle should believe that I actually AM the father.”

“That might cause you some issues with some of the super-religious people around the school. There’s a few of them,” Lana warned me.

“Do they already treat you girls like crap?” I asked.

She and Beck both nodded. “Yeah. They keep telling me I’m going to Hell for fornication,” Beck said.

“Then we don’t give a shit about them,” I said. “I personally can’t wait until they come bearing venom to me. I imagine they’ll turn rather less enthusiastic when I remind them that the Commandment I most spectacularly broke was ‘thou shalt not kill’.”

Lana winced. “Yeah. I know a couple of them like to talk about taking action against sinners. That’s gonna go badly.”

I shrugged. “They could surprise us all and find some true compassion over the holiday or whatever cult they’re part of could drink poison thinking it’s the Rapture or some idiot thing.”

“You really don’t like religion, do you,” Beck said. “I didn’t think you hated God that much.”

I shrugged. “I don’t hate God. I don’t even hate religion so long as it’s sane, but so few of them are sane. I prefer spirituality. More of a sense of doing the right thing rather than asking a book to spit out the moral code for you to follow. The fact that the book is over two thousand years old, is edited heavily to say what the early church founders wanted it to say and several of the stories are stolen from older religious stories only compounds how ridiculous it is to use it as a yard-stick for today’s world. Then you add in the fact that it’s been so heavily translated that the original meaning could have been anything and we’re kind of better off praying to Lord of the Rings.”

“There’s still truth to be had in the Bible, though,” Lana said.

“There is,” I agreed. “I don’t mean to be insulting about it. I just find that there’s too many people that find the worst parts of the Bible and ignore the rest. Take Sodom and Gomorrah. Everyone says that it’s about the sin of homosexuality because the angels were male. I look at the tale and think the sin is rape. They were offered Lot’s two virgin daughters instead. The crowd lost interest because there was consent. They wanted to take, not be given. It’s as valid an argument as the gay angle, but we still make excuses for rapists and condemn the gay.”

They looked like they were considering that and I decided I’d made my point. “Let’s just let that topic lay for the day,” I suggested. “I don’t hate God. I just hate what small-minded men have done with the word of God.”

They nodded and seemed a little more relaxed with that explanation. I made a note that I’d likely have some problems with the few deeply religious people in the school and wondered whether I should just wait it out or tackle it head-on.

I put the thoughts aside and we went back upstairs where Tabby was helping Mom in the kitchen. I went and hugged her carefully and she kissed my cheek. “Collie’s next door,” she told us.

We decided to go and see how things were going in the other kitchen. We took Dawn out to the back yard and then walked next door, with me grumbling slightly about not putting in the gate like we were going to.

When we got inside, Dan was staying out of the way and wished me a Merry Christmas, which I returned to him with a grin. We peeked our heads in the kitchen at the organized chaos. Patty was still dashing around and Collie and Lilly were moving like they were used to working together.

That reminded me of how much time I’d lost with my family. I still had a great deal of difficulty trusting Lilly because of her consistent pattern of making things worse with secrets and lies. Collie and Tabby and I had made up to the point that we were here. We’d sat in the hospital and talked out everything that had happened. I guessed they were at about the same point as Lana and Beck. I trusted them again. I knew that they’d suffered and that they wanted us all to get back to where we were. I honestly felt the same way. I wanted them to feel like this was home. I hated that it wasn’t, but the distance between us was what created that divide. They wouldn’t feel right about coming back while there was a chance I was uncomfortable.