Chapter 6

“Tommy!” squealed my two girls as they crashed into me, almost knocking me over.

“Wow! You’ve grown!” exclaimed Jennifer.

I looked at the girls. Both were about five and a half feet. I was a fraction shorter than they were yesterday, but today it seemed I was a fraction taller. I guess the pain I was feeling must have been growing pains.

“I guess I have, shorties.”

“We are not short!” giggled Jennifer.

“I know. I’m just teasing,” I grinned.

“There’s the man of the hour,” smiled a man, who I believed to be Mr. Bridges. “Ladies, why don’t you check and see if you can help in the kitchen. I need a quick word with our young hero.”

Uh oh!

Mr. Bridges put his arm around my shoulders and led me downstairs into the den. The space had a similar layout to the Parker’s house’s lower level but the Bridges’ house was significantly bigger. Mr. Bridges had apparently carved out a pretty big office area next to the family room portion. The office part area had autographed pictures of celebrities all over the wall. I saw pictures of Robert Redford and Roberto Clemente. I saw Mario Lanza and Ralph Kiner. There had to be more than a hundred autographed photos. He led me to a desk and sat me in a small chair, while he got behind it. Mr. Bridges wasn’t a tall man, but he had dark hair, dark, intense eyes, a fairly muscular build and more importantly, he had an aura around him that seemed to scream ‘don’t mess with me.’ I was scared as hell.

“Well, Tommy ... I can call you Tommy, right?”

‘Um ... yes, Mr. Bridges.”

“And when we are in private like this, you can call me ‘Nick.’”

“Wouldn’t calling you by your first name be disrespectful?”

“No, Tommy. Being disrespectful would be taking advantage of those young ladies’ hero-worship of you. Now you wouldn’t do that would you, Tommy?”

“No, Sir.”

The man smiled. He actually looked more dangerous when he smiled. “Then it’s ‘Nick’, not ‘Sir’. I like all of my friends to call me ‘Nick’ and I think you and I are going to be great friends.”

“I hope so, Sir ... Uh, Nick.”

“That’s better. Tommy, I don’t mean to scare you,” he paused briefly and chuckled. “Well, not too much, anyway. You seem like a fine young man. My dear wife has known your mother for years and speaks very highly of her and your family.”

“Thank you. I think the world of Jennifer. She was one of the first people I met when I came to town.”

“She’s a delicate soul, Tommy. When we moved to town, Mary Jane ... Janie befriended her and since then Jennifer has flourished. I almost see Janie as another daughter, as I do her sister Emily, who is my other daughter, Margaret’s friend.”

A disgusted look came over his face. “I knew that little slu ... tramp, Lisa was stepping out on Janie and Emily’s dad. But I had no idea how evil that woman was and what a pervert Blanton is. If I had known, I might have taken matters into my own hands. What you did, is what a man would do. If I had a son, I would have expected him to defend his friends as you did. That is what a stand-up guy does. That’s why you are no longer a boy, but a man, capiche?”

I nodded.

“I must confess, Tommy. Have you ever heard of the Battaglia crime family?

I shook my head.

“My grandfather changed his name from Battaglia to Bridges, because he disagreed with what his brothers were doing. He moved to Philadelphia, from New York, and opened up his first Little Italy’s restaurant. My father moved to Pittsburgh and opened his first restaurant there. Since then, it has grown into a family-owned franchise, owned by the Bridges and Battaglia families. It’s completely legit. I’m the college boy of the family and oversee all of the greater Pittsburgh operations. I met my Natalie at Pitt.”

I just kept silent.

“Again, Tommy, I’m not trying to scare you. I just want you to understand just how far I would go to defend my family.” he paused, “and my friends. If you treat my daughter and Janie as friends, then you will never find a more loyal friend than me, understand?”

“Yes, Sir!” I gulped.

“It’s ‘Nick’, Tommy,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “I can tell, you are a good man.”

After a tasty lunch of grilled tuna melt and tomato soup, the girls dragged me upstairs and into Jennifer’s room. She did make sure to keep the door open. I looked around. The room was filled with stuffed animals and had posters of musicians like Billy Joel, Elton John, Dan Fogelberg, and Tom Petty on the wall. They were all signed and appeared to be real signatures, not just printed on the poster.

“My daddy tried to scare you, right?” asked Jen

“Not exactly,” I said

“Don’t worry, I can tell he likes you. Mom likes you a lot. She and your mom were friends in high school.

I had noticed that since our greeting, Janie had been quite subdued.

“Janie?”

“Yes, Tommy?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Of course not, I...”

“What?”

“Why are you even talking to me? You have Jenny. I know you’ve always wanted her.”

I took a risk that an angry, scary Nick would burst into the room (the door was open, so that really was a risk). I crushed Janie into a hug and she started to cry.

“Janie, I’ll always want you as my friend.” I looked at Jennifer. “You too, Jen.”

“After every one hears what happened at school, people will laugh at me and all the girls will throw themselves at you.”

“First off, if anybody laughs at you, they’ll answer to me!” I snarled. I felt Janie tense in my arms, but I stroked her hair and she relaxed. “Secondly, I’m only fourteen. What am I going to do with girls throwing themselves at me? If I want to ever date a girl, why would I want to date someone who is not in this room right now?”

Jennifer squealed and wrapped her arms around both of us. “I told you, Janie. He’s our hero. We are his damsels. He will always want us!”

I broke the clinch and looked at the girls. “We are so young, so can I make you a promise?”

“Okay,” they both mumbled.

“I promise that no matter what the future holds, I will always be your friend and you can always count on me ... both of you. If for some reason I am lucky enough to ever date one or both of you, I will be in heaven. Even if I don’t, I will always care for both of you. I will always be your friend.”

I was soon underneath a pile of squirming female flesh and felt my erection assert itself.

“Girls, let him breathe,” laughed Mrs. Bridges as she walked into the room.

“Oh, Mom!” whined Jennifer.

“We weren’t suffocating him too much,” whined Janie.

“It’s time for me to take Tommy home,” she said, as I climbed off the bed.

“Aww,” they complained.

“I’ll call you tonight, my girls,” I grinned and they seemed to beam at that remark as did Jen’s mother.

For a while, Mrs. Bridges drove down the road in silence. As we got near the outskirts of town, she finally broke it.

“Tommy, I just wanted to thank you myself. Janie is really a sweet girl and I can’t think what would have happened to her if that monster had put his hands on her, though I’m sure you got an eyeful,” she smiled and I blushed, causing her to laugh.

“It’s okay. I’m sure Janie would think of it as her hero’s reward.”

“Mrs. Bridges...”

“Please call me, Natalie. I know you are on a first name basis with my husband. It would seem silly to call me anything else.”

“Natalie, what’s going on? A week ago, your daughter would barely talk to me. The last thing Janie said to me was calling me the ‘king of geeks’ last year.”

Natalie visibly cringed. “First off, you must have guessed that Jennifer is a pretty shy girl. Her self-esteem and demeanor have improved since she met Janie four years ago, but she is still fundamentally shy. Her more aggressive behavior since yesterday is due to the fact that you are the savior of her savior. Also, she knows that you like her and have for some time,” Natalie paused. “As far as Janie, she admitted to us how cute you’ve gotten ... well now that you’re taller. The practice date ploy was all her idea and she worked out the specifics with her father. To be honest, she manipulated the conditions in such a way that it guaranteed her dad’s support while making sure that you were the most suitable choice for her.”

Janie Parker liked me?

“Are you saying...”

“Yes, Janie liked you, and more importantly, she trusted you. Still, most importantly, she knew you hated bullies and could hold your own in a fight. According to what Janie confessed to me, ‘Uncle Edgar’ had stepped up his creepy behavior and was promising to have her be his ‘next Parker woman.’”