Chapter 20

Friday started early since Dawn wanted out. I carefully disentangled myself from Collie and Cheryl and took her to the back yard and then for her walk. Mercifully, I wasn’t feeling too bad after taking her for her full walk. I even picked up the pace a bit and let her frisk a little more. We got back and I put her out in the yard while I returned to bed, not really ready to be up yet and suspecting that breakfast would be ready sometime later or skipped in favor of lunch.

When I next woke up, I was aware of the bed shifting. A moment later, I saw Lana silhouetted in the door, naked except for a pair of panties as she went to the bathroom. That started a chain reaction and soon we were all up. Tabby, Collie, Tricia and I got dressed while the other girls went to get showered and went upstairs.

Mom was in the kitchen, reading and sipping on coffee as we came in to greet her. Tabby and Collie each wanted coffee, so they went to pour themselves a cup while we started an early lunch. I was famished, but left the kitchen to them long enough to go bring Dawn in. She went to say hello to everyone and then settled down to eat and drink at her water dish.

We ate sandwiches and I noted that we were going to need to plan almost daily trips for groceries if everyone moved back in. A new place was starting to sound more and more like a necessity. I’d have to speak to my owners about it eventually. Just for the sake of a bigger kitchen alone, we were in need of a new house.

For now, I kept it to myself. I wanted Emma’s input before I started going crazy on planning and I had Carl’s mystery property to consider too. It might be ideal for what we needed, but I doubted it. Collie and Tabby were headed back to their apartment after lunch and Tricia was headed home to talk to her father about Louisa coming in to tidy the house. We’d copied her key just in case he’d said yes, but we wanted him to have the option to turn her down in case he wasn’t comfortable.

Cheryl, Lana, Beck, Gina and I bundled up and walked her home, taking Dawn with us just because we were going for a walk. She frisked back and forth as much as forward, coming to us often for affection. She really was getting spoiled on attention. She seemed to bask in it almost as much as the snow.

When we got back, I took Dawn out to the back yard and then went next door to talk to Dan. They were surprised to see me alone since everyone else had gone inside, but I quickly explained what I was looking for.

“Dan, I was wondering if you could find out something for me,” I said lightly. “I want to find out if there’s any rinks that keep ice all summer long. I figured if there was any, someone on the team would know.”

He seemed surprised. “Thinking about staying for the summer after all?” he asked.

“Nope, but I figured that if there was a place that kept ice, then I could get whoever was taking care of Dawn for the summer to take her down to play in the Zamboni shavings a few times a week. It’d keep her cool and happy enough to get through the worst of summer.”

“That’s a pretty good idea,” he admitted. “I’ll ask around. I also asked about vacation for the summer. It’s a pretty slow time for us, so I’ll be able to take a big chunk of time. Maybe not the whole summer, but probably the first half of what you’re planning.”

“That’s great news!” I enthused. I was glad they were gonna get to go even if it was only for part of the summer. “I was thinking about celebrating Independence Day here and then leaving later that week on the 7th so we avoid the holiday travel. Just let me know when you guys want to book return flights and I’ll get it done.”

He took out his phone and looked at the dates, nodding as he checked them. “The 24th looks like the best date then. I’ll book the time off Monday and we’re good.”

“Perfect. Once I hear from Frank and Louisa and Miguel, I can book the flights. Hopefully they can give me an answer next week.”

“So if everyone’s going with you, who’s going to look after Dawn?” Patty asked pointedly.

“I’ve given that some thought,” I admitted. “I think I have two workable options. First, I’m not enough of a moron to invite my father to come on vacation with his ex-wife. That’s the setup for a bad romantic comedy. The other option is to bring her along.”

“Air travel for pets isn’t exactly pleasant,” she warned me. “pets freeze in those compartments.”

“Really?” I asked her flatly, the sarcasm flowing in my voice. “Huskies are bred for the Arctic Circle. I think she can handle the chill. I’m not planning on having her fly that way though.”

“They don’t allow pets in the passenger compartment,” she returned dryly.

“But they DO allow service animals. Who do we know who suffers from anxiety disorders and can qualify for his very own therapy dog?” I asked sweetly. “I already printed the form.”

“Cheeky little bastard,” she laughed. “That’s for seeing-eye dogs.”

I shook my head. “Emotional support animals are legitimate service animals,” I told her. “The form is specifically for emotional support animals. I have to fax it in and contact them at least 48 hours before the flight to confirm. I looked it up. If Emma’s folks are okay with her coming, I’ll get Victoria to fill out the form and she can travel with me.”

“I guess that solves that then,” Dan said before turning to Patty to tease her. “And you thought he’d overlooked something. Ha!”

“Shut up!” she said and hit him with one of the throw pillows from the sofa.

I laughed and left them before they got too playful, letting myself out and returning next door.

“Hey,” Beck said when I came in. “Where’d you go? We looked outside and Dawn was out there, but you weren’t.”

“I wanted to ask Dan about what rinks in the area kept ice down all summer,” I told her.

“Why?” she asked, frowning. “We’re not gonna be here.”

“No, but I figured depending on what we do with Dawn, whoever’s looking after her can take her down to the rink on days when they clean the ice to play in the snow-piles.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Lana said. “She’ll like that.”

“I think so too.”

“Okay, what did you mean by ‘depending on what we do with her’?” Gina asked. The four of them were sitting around the dining room table playing one of the games from last night, but it was mostly forgotten as they looked at me.

“I’ve been thinking about it a little bit,” I admitted. “If your mom and dad decide that they don’t feel comfortable going and don’t want Hector to go without them, then I was gonna let him take care of her for the summer and pay him some to walk her and keep her fed, watered and comfortable. If he’s coming though, I can either get my dad to look after her or we can take her with us.”

“I didn’t think they allowed pets on planes,” Cheryl said, confused.

“There’s paperwork I can get Dr. Spencer to fill out, declaring her to be a service animal so she can travel with me.”

“I thought that was just for blind people,” Gina said.

“There’s actually a type of service animal called an emotional support animal. They help provide comfort and stability for people that suffer from anxiety disorders. As much as I keep my symptoms under control, I do suffer, so she does qualify for the title.”

“I didn’t know it was that serious,” Gina said, concerned. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“You’re already doing it,” I told her. “Some of it is just gonna take time, like the fears I told you about. Others are deeper than that. I still suffer from anxiety attacks after this summer.”

“That’s how you knew I was having one!” Cheryl piped up, her eyes wide in realization. “That sucked! Do you get them a lot?”

“Not as much, lately,” I admitted. “I used to get them a lot though. Almost every day.”

Lana looked up at me, frowning. “Since when?” she asked.

I touched her collar. “Since those came off,” I said softly. That was another admission I’d kept to myself until now.

She looked at me in anguish and I leaned down to kiss her reassuringly. “It’s okay, hon. It’s gotten a lot better.”

“We caused them?” Beck wanted to know.

“Actually, Dr. Collins caused them. They just seemed to get worse after that.”

“Who’s Dr. Collins?” Gina asked.

Lana’s face turned hard and she explained about my first brush with death and the malpractice and surgery.

“Damn!” Gina breathed. “You’ve had some shitty luck this past year.”

“I dunno,” I said lightly. “It hasn’t ALL been bad. We all came together this year. If things had gone differently, that might not have happened. I think what I’ve been through was a small price to pay to have all of you in my life.”

“Do you always look on the bright side?” Cheryl asked curiously.

“Have to,” I told her. “There’s too many dark things in my life to dwell on them. I’d drown in pain if I didn’t cling to the good. I almost did once, but that’s not gonna happen again, so I don’t have to dwell on it.” I smiled at her and then kissed Lana and Beck on the cheek since I knew they were thinking about the day I finally broke under the strain. “Back to the original point though. Dawn qualifies with some minor training to accompany me everywhere. So long as I can get her to sit, stay, come and walk beside me on a leash, she’s good. We can have her curl up in front of my seat and maybe make arrangements to put down a dish for her to drink at some point during the flight.”

“I think we should talk about some of these dark things in your life,” Gina said, fixing me with a look that said that she wasn’t going to let me get off topic. “We need to know the whole thing. ALL of it. Every bad thing that happened to you. Otherwise, how can we help?”

I grimaced at that prospect. No one knew all of it. Not Lana, not even my mother. They all knew pieces, but even if they all compared notes, there were pieces that only I knew. I didn’t want to start the new year with that particular narrative of pain. “I’d rather not go into it all,” I said quietly. “There are some truths that do no good.”

“So you’ll bury them and wait for them to explode like you did with the guilt this summer?” Lana asked pointedly.

I frowned again and put my head down. She had me there. “I just don’t want to spread upset,” I told her. “You and Beck already feel guilty enough about that and we’re all trying to put it in the past. I don’t want YOU to dwell on it.”

“If you’re going through it, we have to know about it,” she argued determinedly, folding her arms over her breasts while she looked at me sternly. It was a posture that told me I was being stubborn and that they were going to get their way the hard way if necessary.

I sighed and had one more card to play that might stave off this discussion. “I thought the four of you would understand why I wouldn’t want to talk about this in particular. Do you feel particularly like telling me all the details of what happened at Marlene’s that weekend? I don’t want to put you through it, so I don’t ask what they did to you.”

I got slightly softer looks from them after that, but the topic wasn’t going to go away that easily. “I can talk about it,” Beck said. She’d gone back and forth between the adventurous girl she’d been and the desperately suicidal wreck she’d become in the wake of the revelations. Today, she was the fearless Beck and my resolve crumbled before that onslaught.

“No, Beck,” I said gently, but firmly. “That’s something for you and Alice to talk about. I’ll listen to anything you need to tell me, but that’s not something I want you to feel compelled to share with me. Sometimes it’s better to let things stay in the past. You know I hate secrets, right? If there’s things I don’t want you to tell me or things I don’t want to tell you, I hope you trust me enough to know I have reasons for that.”

She grimaced at that, but reluctantly nodded. “We just want you to talk about it and not bottle it up,” she assured me.

“I talk to Dr. Spencer all the time. I don’t want to talk about all of it, because I know you’re still recovering too. If I told you something that happened to me at school because of that lie, you’d hold a certain amount of that guilt to heart even though you didn’t have anything to do with that particular day.”

“So there ARE things that happened to you?” Lana wanted to know.

I nodded. I could tell them that much. “Some of them you know, because they were public. I had to replace the contents of my locker several times because people kept pouring stuff into the vents. Sometimes it was piss, sometimes it was worse. Animal blood, vomit and diarrhea were the worst. There were a lot of pranks that happened that I’m sure you had nothing to do with.”

They both looked terribly guilty at the revelations. “Yeah. We saw you cleaning up your locker a few times with the janitor yelling at you,” Lana admitted. “I know who did it a couple of times if you want to get even.”

I shook my head slightly. “Not really. Just do me a favor and tell me if one of them tries to make friends with me down the road. I don’t need specifics of what they did, but if they were doing shit to me, then I probably don’t want them in my life.”

All four of them nodded. “There were a lot of pranks though,” Cheryl pointed out. “Does that mean that anyone that did anything to you is unwelcome?”

I thought about that and shook my head. “I’m sure there’s at least a few pranks that came from some of our girls and I’m not gonna cut them out of my life for that. If they aren’t a friend of mine now, I don’t think I want them being a friend later on unless they own up to what they did.”

They all nodded about that. Each of them knew some of the siege I’d been under at school and we talked about it in vague terms, each of them citing people that they would recommend avoiding as future friends. We broke for lunch and then Gina reluctantly decided to head home for the evening. We all hugged and then spent a quiet afternoon together playing games and talking quietly.

We went next door for dinner and Cheryl ate like a starving woman, much to Patty’s delight. I’d noticed that Patty seemed to have pulled out all the stops since Cheryl moved in. I figured it was a way to let her know she was a welcome addition, but probably also because she knew that Cheryl was pregnant and her appetite would be varied and ravenous.

After dinner, Lana and Beck decided to stay home for tonight, leaving Cheryl and I alone. Mom and Lilly had been suspiciously absent from dinner too and when I asked about it, Mom was having dinner with Frank and Tricia and Lilly had gone to a friend’s place for the night.

I was just putting my boots on when that revelation came out. “Mom went to Frank’s place?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah,” Patty told me. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

“Uh, nothing,” I said, still feeling a little unsettled about it. “It’s just ... she’s Frank’s first girlfriend since he lost his wife. Tricia and I thought it would take him a lot longer to be comfortable having her there.”

She nodded and shrugged. “You’re worried they’re moving too fast?” she asked.

“No, not really,” I said, putting my feelings under the microscope. “I WANT things to be good for them. Hell, if Frank moved in with us next door, I’d be fine with it. It’s just a little unexpected, that’s all. I wasn’t sure they were ready for it.”

“It’s dinner,” she said dryly, “not two weeks in Cancun.”

“Two weeks in Cancun would be a less personal step than inviting her into the house that was his wife’s home,” I pointed out, shrugging into my coat. “That’s like asking for her approval. Maybe he’s ready for that.” I shrugged and zipped up my coat before taking Cheryl’s hand.

She’d been listening to the conversation quietly and squeezed my hand affectionately. “Thank you again for having me, Mrs. Powers,” she said sweetly. “Everything was so delicious.”

Patty beamed back at her and gave her a hug. “You’re welcome any time, dear,” she told her affectionately. “But you’ve been told before to call me Patty.”

We said goodnight to everyone and crossed the lawn. She kept stealing glances at me as we stepped over the fence and I caught on. “I think I’ve been ambushed,” I told her with an amused smile. “Your doing or are people conspiring to leave both of us alone?” I asked.

She blushed. “I, uh, MIGHT have mentioned wanting to, um, try to...” she stammered her way through it, shy and uncertain all of a sudden.

I smiled at her and nodded in understanding and in agreement. “If you’re ready for this step, then I will be THRILLED to make love to you tonight, but only if you’re sure you’re ready.”

She blushed and nodded, looking at me nervously as we stood on the front lawn, gazing at each other. “I want to start the new year off right,” she told me. “I love you Matt. I want you to make love to me tonight. I’m ready.”

Her voice trembled, but her eyes told me that she was telling me the truth when she said she was ready.

I smiled at her and took her hand in mine, strolling the rest of the way to the front door. Once we were inside, I took her coat from her and hung both our coats up while she took off her boots, gloves, hat and scarf that we all insisted she wear to keep her from catching a cold. I took them from her and put them in the closet with the rest before kicking off my own boots and taking her in my arms gently.

“I love you too, Cheryl,” I told her, gazing into her eyes and reaching up to stroke her hair slowly. I kissed her softly, our lips parting unhurriedly as we savored the moment. Our tongues slid against each other, as we embraced more passionately, my hands sliding through her hair while she ran hers across my back lovingly.

When we broke the kiss, we were both a little breathless. I took her hand and led her downstairs to our room, closing the door behind us even though we had the house to ourselves. I turned back toward her and took her into my arms again, both of us taking our time to settle into what we were doing. We kissed more heatedly this time, our tongues playing fiercely as our lips moved against each other, our panted breaths competing with the wet sounds of our kiss.