Chapter 66

Tuesday, June 26

A nightcap with Kacie again did the trick. I had a refreshing night’s sleep for the second night in a row.

It was a good thing, too, because another scheduled “day off” during “summer vacation” was already looking pretty full. Running and yardwork to start the day, weight lifting in the evening and I’m sure someone in a position of authority would come up with a way to fill in the blanks.

I didn’t even make it all the way into the kitchen before Dad started in.

“Must be nice to have such a full social calendar that you don’t have time for chores,” he said.

“You know why I couldn’t yesterday morning,” I said, making sure he saw my smile, “or is that the problem? That I spent five hours with Mrs. Jenson?

“Of course, I wouldn’t wish what I went through last night on my own son. Coach Bennett invited himself along on my date. For nearly eight hours. He drove and he wanted to get there for batting practice and wouldn’t leave until the final out.”

“Yeah, I saw on TV,” Dad said. “Nice job with the foul ball, by the way. It must’ve been a slow night because SportsCenter put it on the top plays. Now you’ve got every guy who attends a ballgame for the rest of this week mad at you because their dates are going to expect to get a foul ball.”

“It was cheaper than a diamond ring,” I said as I poured a bowl of cereal. “I saw a guy do that during the seventh-inning stretch. I thought the woman did a good job of acting surprised.”

I made it to the driving range in plenty of time. Erin Bennett greeted me with a shy smile as her dad took out his paternal frustrations on a poor bucket of range balls.

“You made me look bad, Superhero,” Coach Bennett said as he crushed a drive beyond the last yardage sign on the range. “Now I’ve got to do something romantic for the wife. I don’t do romantic very well. I knock people over very well. Or at least used to.”

“Try a fancy restaurant and the new Tom Hanks movie,” I suggested. “I saw it a couple of weeks ago. Lots of talk about feelings. No explosions or car chases.”

“I may just have to do that,” he said.

During a break in our running, I checked with Erin to see if she would be allowed to do anything after weights tonight.

“Maybe we can get some ice cream,” I said. “We can promise to bring your dad some.”

“Probably not,” she said, “but I bet I could get away for the afternoon. We could have lunch.”

“Fair warning,” I said, “I’ve got to do the yard before I can go anywhere. How late are you willing to eat?”

“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Let me handle it.”

She went to talk to her dad while we practiced snaps. I couldn’t get an accurate count of just how many times she wrapped him around her little finger, but I’m sure it was more than once.

As we were breaking up to go our separate ways, Coach Bennett called me over.

“My baby girl says you’d be willing to take me for a spin in that little die-cast model car of yours,” he said.

“Not a problem, Coach,” I said. “I’ve already given rides to parents of a couple of other girls in the gang. I just need to get some yardwork done first, then I probably ought to clean up.”

“How about I come help?” he said. “We can both get stinky. That’ll help get you used to the atmosphere at football practice.”

Not exactly what I was expecting, but the goal was to spend a little time with his daughter.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Do you know the address?”

“Erin does,” he said. “She said she’d come help, too.”

It was shaping up to be a regular party. I wondered if Coach Bennett was going to go on all Erin’s dates this summer.

Erin said she needed her dad to run her home first and they’d be there within half an hour. I hurried to get a start on things and had most of the mowing done when Coach Bennett’s pickup pulled into Dad’s spot on the carport.

With their help, everything was done before 11 a.m. Erin grabbed a little gym bag out of the pickup and said she’d get cleaned up while I entertained her dad.

Carl Bennett is a large man, but managed to squeeze into the passenger seat of the Z4. I told him about Jed’s reaction when he tried to sit in it the night of our first group date.

“That boy is all arms and legs, though,” Coach said. “He’s got a few inches of length on me, but I’ve got more girth.”

That statement conjured up all kinds of uncomfortable images in my mind for some reason.

I took Coach Bennett out of town on the freeway for several miles, just staying with the traffic, then turned off onto a road that headed toward the north shore of the lake. He seemed to like the snakey stretch along the waterfront.

“This is a fun little car,” he said. “Do they make it in a big man’s size?”

Then he hit me with his real reason for taking a ride in my Beemer.

“How fast does this thing go?” he asked.

“According to the BMW website, top speed is 155 miles per hour,” I said. “I have not tried to find out if that’s true or not.”

“And just how fast have you gotten it up to?”

“A little over 80, maybe 82 or 83,” I said. “I drove George Patterson into the city last Monday after he hit with you and Coach Tucker. It was either speed up or get run over.”

That seemed to satisfy him that I was not some kind of speed demon.

We got back to the house about 11:45 and were greeted by Erin holding two plastic cups of iced tea. She was wearing a little halter-necked sundress with a sweetheart neckline and a skirt that came to midthigh with flat sandals. She’d done something with her hair — I suspected Kacie’s curling iron was involved — and had it held back with a hairband. She’d cleaned up quite nicely.

“I’m making Gary take me to lunch to pay for all my hard work,” she said as she handed us the drinks. “You’ve had your fun. I’ll be home by 5 o’clock.”

“You own a dress?” her father asked, sounding surprised.

She just pushed him toward his pickup and ordered me to go clean up.

I raced through a refreshing shower, managing to get a little clean in the process, and selected a bright yellow polo and navy Bermuda shorts that I thought complimented the pattern of her dress. She was waiting on the sofa in the family room when I came out.

She told me she wanted to hit the pizza place again, which was fine with me. Within 20 minutes, we were each munching on a slice.

“Not that you don’t look good all the time, but I like the outfit,” I said. “It really shows off your legs. I think you stunned your dad so much he couldn’t object.”

That earned me a shy smile and a blush.

“Thank you,” she said. “Kacie, Bethany, Callie and Erin Aguilar — all the girly-girls — helped me pick it out last week while you were gone.”

“Tomboy or girly, you’ve got what it takes to pull the look off,” I said. “You’ve got better legs than a lot of the girls I worked with in California last week.”

Bigger smile, darker blush.

Erin then made me tell her about my trip to Malibu, not really understanding its physical distance from Hollywood. Of course, to people from LA, we were just a step away from the Rockies and the Mississippi.

After we’d eaten our fill, Erin played her hole card.

“So, are you going to show me this secret hideaway?” she asked with a naughty grin.

“It can’t be very secret if all you girls seem to know about it,” I said. “How do I know more people won’t find out about it? Like your dad?”

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails.