Chapter 42

David
“Good morning, Doreen,” David said as he entered the coffee house before class.

“I haven’t heard anything.”

He stopped by periodically to ask about his Goth Barbie barista friend, Kat. She’d left to go back to Yale.

David nodded his understanding as Doreen made his tea and a coffee for Ruth. She also bagged up four breakfast calzones. Doreen had experimented with creating the perfect breakfast sandwich. She’d rolled out her butter biscuit dough, used it to wrap egg, bacon, and cheese, and had them hot and ready each morning. David had become addicted.

“What’s left on your schedule?” Doreen asked.

“I shoot my last vodcast this week,” David began.

“My ad on your show has worked; my business is up,” she said to interrupt him. “I want to thank you for doing that.”

“It was partial payback for all the food and tea you give me.”

“Being able to say you’re in here at least once a week more than makes up for all that. For similar reasons, I give the campus police free coffee. It’s good business,” Doreen explained.

“Next week is finals, and then I get several weeks off before I have to report for fall football practice,” David said as he threw a face.

“Why the look?”

“They make us all stay in an athletic dorm before the start of the semester when our regular rooms open up, and I’ll have a roommate.”

“Didn’t you have one last spring?” she asked.

“I did, but we lived in a suite, and I had my own bedroom and bath. I’ll have some sweaty guy sleeping six feet from me and have to deal with dorm showers,” he complained.

“You poor thing,” Ruth said, unable to hold back any longer. “You should have been in the military and had to live in a barracks.”

“See? It could be worse,” Doreen said. “What are you doing with your time off?”

“I’ll go home for a while, and then I have a job at a football camp. When that’s done, I’ll fly to South America, where my roommate lives. It’s his and his twin sister’s birthday.”

“I heard that Alex almost died. Does that mean he’s okay?” Doreen asked.

“He’s fine, but he’ll never play soccer again. He claims it doesn’t bother him, but I’d be devastated if I couldn’t play ball,” David admitted.

“Sir,” Ruth said as she pointed at her watch.

David nodded as Doreen came from behind the counter. She wanted her morning hug. Somehow, the woman always managed to pull his head down and plant his face against her large breasts. Kat had always claimed that Doreen was sexually harassing her customers, but David never stopped the woman.

David met up with Cassidy for lunch at Ruth’s favorite sub shop. He’d started to let her pick because she’d have a new security assignment at the end of summer. After that, she’d only be with him for special occasions. David had come to appreciate Ruth after their summer together and sort of wished she was going with him to Colombia. But Fritz made the assignments.

Flying into that country had become a logistical nightmare. In the not-so-distant past, Colombia had been the kidnapping capital of the world. While the situation there still wasn’t great, in the Americas, Venezuela and Mexico were currently worse than Colombia. But that history convinced Fritz to bring along an entire team for security.

To add to the fun, entering the country was far from straightforward. You had to get special permits if you were going to stay longer than a designated amount of time, which they planned to do.

There’d also been a few raised eyebrows at his plans to fly in to a private airstrip. He’d been warned that his plane would be subject to an inspection to check for contraband (aka drugs) when he returned.

They ordered their food and found a table. Before they reached it, David was stopped by two groups who wanted a quick picture with him, which he agreed to.

“Did you pick up the kitty tranquilizers?” he asked when they got seated.

Cassidy had been moping around ever since David had announced Precious had to go home to her owner, Brit. He’d taken the evil cat in when Brit’s parents refused to keep the feline while Brit was away at school. She was desperate because she couldn’t take the cat into the dorms, and everyone knew Precious’s reputation.

Cassidy had called her and found out she was moving into an apartment. David got the impression that she wasn’t all that happy to have to take the cat back, but he’d been firm. He’d arranged to have Precious taken care of for over a year. Enough was enough.

“I know she’ll flip out if she has to fly, but I hate the thought of having to tranq her,” Cassidy said.

“I already agreed to buy her a seat so she doesn’t have to go under the airplane. I don’t need you getting kicked off because she escapes and terrorizes the passengers,” David said.

Ruth chuckled.

“I can just see her hanging off the pilot’s balls, and then everyone has to play ‘where’s the kitty?’”

“One yowl, and she’ll be stuffed under the plane,” David warned Cassidy.

“I know,” she finally admitted.

“I think we should test them out during finals.”

Cassidy didn’t take the bait.

“How’s Crystal’s trainee doing?” she asked to get even.

Chloe had returned the next two nights to collect her thousand points, but Cassidy said she hadn’t turned them in. She didn’t have to because the first night had gotten her the win. It also gave her fifteen minutes of fame as far as the rowing team was concerned.

Cassidy assured him that he came off well in Chloe’s recounting of that night’s festivities.

But David and Crystal had talked afterward. They’d agreed that while having an impromptu threesome sounded fine in theory, in the future, they would have to consider whether it really was a good idea.

He did admit that it had been hot to watch Chloe, who he’d thought was a confirmed lesbian, discover that she enjoyed giving oral to guys. She still wasn’t ready for more, but she’d asked Crystal if she could use him as a learning tool to improve her skills. Mr. Happy had rejected the big brain’s automatic objections and had won out.

“Do you really want details?” David asked.

Cassidy thought about it and shook her head ‘no.’

His phone rang. It was his lawyer, Ms. Dixon.

“Kendrick Knaggy is fit to be tied.”

“His father’s been earning his pay, then?”

“You got it. Foster found all these sneaky escalator clauses that would kick in as you made more money. There were also minimum fees that could have bitten you in the butt. For example, had you sent him after the J-drama’s additional income from the Netflix deal, you might have owed him more money than you were due,” Ms. Dixon explained.

“You didn’t see that?” David asked.

“We did, but we couldn’t figure out what it was attached to,” Ms. Dixon said to defend her team.

That was why they’d hired Crystal’s grandfather to help negotiate David’s contract with KAP Entertainment.

“Are we any closer to a deal?” David asked.

“We are; in fact, I think we’re there. When I get a signed version from Kendrick, I can either send it to your dad or you. Which would you prefer?”

“Dad, of course. He runs the day-to-day, and he should see it since he’ll have to deal with KAP. Just be sure to run it through a comparison check to make sure he hasn’t changed anything back.”

“Sounds good. I’ll email you a copy to do with as you wish and message you when it’s signed,” Ms. Dixon said.

He would move the email to his business folder and forget about it. Megan would file a hard copy and scan one to be stored on both their server and in the cloud as a backup.

After he got off the phone, he noticed Cassidy looking at her phone in distress.

“What’s wrong?”

“Chloe sent Andy and me a message. Her mom has been called in by the FBI. She said her mom hired a lawyer to go with her. Does that mean she’s guilty?” Cassidy asked.

“It means she’s smart. Remember when I was dealing with the shoe mess? I had a lawyer at every meeting I had with the FBI, and I’m glad I did,” David shared.

“Do you think Brook’s grandmother did anything wrong?” Cassidy asked.

What he really thought was that if the FBI decided to come after Grace Davenport, they would try to gin up some bullshit excuse to take her down.