Chapter 5

"Anybody home?"

I recognized Tami's voice and smiled. She must have seen no cars and stuck her head in the door. "Back here," I yelled.

Tami walked into my bedroom before I remembered that I hadn't made my bed. Well, she had to find out I'm a slob sometime. I was sitting at my computer typing.

"Answering your fan mail?"

"Fan mail?"

"I figured that since you and Robbie have won three games now, the fan mail should have started." She stood behind me and looked down at the screen.

"The closest we've come to fan mail is Coach Branson from the High School telling us last night that he hoped we were both coming out next year."

"At least that means you won't have to try and sneak her into a game."

"Yeah, I guess. This is just that paper for social studies."

"Mrs. Taylor wanted two pages double spaced. How many you got there?"

"Five."

"And single spaced too."

"I'll reformat it when I print. I always do it this way."

"So ten pages. You're done."

"I'm in the middle of a paragraph."

"Save it or I'll shut down your computer."

"You wouldn't."

One look in Tami's eye and I knew she would. I clicked on the save icon and swung my chair around to face her.

"You know what they say. All work and no play makes Tony a dull boy. It's time to play."

"Tami, I'm not sure..."

"Tony, love of my life. It's Saturday. No one's home. You have a not-so-ugly girl in your room and a bed five feet away."

"Tami, it's just that I... I mean you... I don't want to screw up your life."

"Tony, it's been two weeks. And you were supposed to protest that not-so-ugly label."

"But..."

"I told you about the patch."

"I looked them up on the internet. They're not a hundred percent."

"Nothing is. A plane could be flying overhead and suddenly fall out of the sky into the pool--where, I might add, Alana is swimming in a bikini that's even smaller than usual. Should we give up the pool because it's not a hundred percent?"

"That's different."

"No, it's not. You can either hide from life or live it. Everything else is just degrees." Tami reached down, took my hands, and pulled me to my feet. "I think your problem is you like me too much."

"I love you," I said without even thinking about it.

"You love me?" She gave me a push and I stumbled backward onto my bed. "And you couldn't even correct not-so-ugly?"

"Maybe I should get Tabby in here. You don't like her, so you won't care so much. Maybe then you can get it up."

I didn't correct her, but I'd already gotten it up. My cock started swelling as soon as I'd heard her voice.

"Stay!" she ordered and walked out of the room. A few seconds later she was pushing a naked Kelly inside.

"This little girl..." I wished she hadn't said little girl. She was ten after all, not six. I wasn't some kind of child molester. "... says you haven't given her the good feeling since the beginning of summer."

I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, which were probably as red as Kelly's.

"Do something about it!" Tami commanded. "I'll be in the living room." Tami stepped out and closed the door.

You know those videos they make you watch in health class? The ones about dating and social situations and stuff, made by some guy who hasn't had a date since the fifties? Not one of them covers what to do when your girlfriend brings a naked fifth grader into your room. I wondered if I should send a suggestion to the Board of Ed.

"Hi," Kelly said after a long silence.

"Hi yourself. Did you know you forgot your clothes?"

Kelly giggled. "I didn't forget them. Tami told me to take them off."

"Why?"

"You know."

Suddenly Kelly took one step and sailed across the room and landed in my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me an almost painful hug. "Thanks."

"What was that for?"

"Uh, Mikee and I heard Mom and Dad talking. It was about Kenny and some of the trouble he's gotten into. They were worried about him cause he shot that owl for no reason."

"Orville. His name was Orville."

"Daddy was saying there's hunting and there's killing. And that shooting the owl, shooting Orville, was just killing. I think Mom's glad you busted Kenny's gun, though Dad grumbles about it." Kelly squirmed around. One of my hands went naturally to her butt and the other to her thigh to steady her.

"Mikee and I talked about it later and we figured that you didn't want to tell us what Kenny had done. You didn't want us to know he was bad."

"I don't know if he's bad. He just doesn't think about what he's doing." Damn, now I was defending the puke.

"I think Mom's real worried that Kenny is bad. When she was talking about the owl she said some cereals started off that way."

"Cereals?"

Kelly shrugged. "I don't know what kind of cereal, or why they're bad."

Lightbulb. Not cereal, serial. She was saying that some serial killers started off that way. I sure wasn't going to explain that one to Kelly. Serial killer? I didn't think that Kenny was that bad. Maybe he just needed to get laid. Maybe I could set him up with Tabby.