Chapter 18

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

I looked up from where I was sitting on the sofa watching TV. "Hi, Mike. I was just hanging with Darlene. Great game yesterday."

Mike had really shown why a sophomore would even get nominated for all-state. Almost every pass he'd put in the air connected. He'd thrown four touchdowns and just missed the school record for yards passed.

"What do you mean by that?" he growled. "Get out of my chair." He reached down, grabbed Darlene's upper arm and yanked her roughly to her feet.

"I meant, you played good," I said, watching.

Darlene moved over and sat on the sofa with me. Mike reached over, grabbed the remote out of her hand and started flipping through channels.

"I was watching that," Darlene complained.

"Tough."

"Steve," Darlene whined. Mike's Dad, Steve Reed, had come in the house behind him.

"Mike's had a hard day. Let him watch some TV."

"But, I..." Darlene sputtered.

Her step-dad ignored her and stepped toward me. "Do I know you?"

I held out my hand. "Hi, I'm Tony Sims."

"Tony Sims." He repeated, ignoring my hand. "I think it's time for you to go."

"Honey, Tony was staying for dinner," Darlene's mom said from the kitchen.

"I see." He obviously wasn't thrilled about the idea.

I stood. "That's okay, I'll take off." I stepped around him and headed toward the door. "Darlene, it's been fun."

As I was closing the door, I heard the words 'cheap shots'. Evidently Dad was telling Mom why I was persona non grata.

Mental note, make sure Mike got a few shots on Monday. None of them cheap.

"I went over the songs with Darlene."

"How'd it go?"

"Pretty good. She's got a nice voice, though she needs to learn to project more."

"Then what'd you do?" Tami asked with just a hint of suspicion.

I liked that Tami trusted me, but the hint of potential jealousy felt good too.

"We sat and talked for awhile and watched some ice skating on TV. Then Mike and his dad got home, and his dad threw me out."

"Threw you out?"

"Well, not bodily, but he made it clear I wasn't welcome. Too bad, because Darlene's mom had invited me to dinner, and they were having ribs. I love ribs."

"It must be weird to wake up one morning and have a new dad, new brother, and new sister."

"Yeah. Especially since..." I changed my mind about what I wanted to say. "Very weird."

Tami looked at me quizzically, but didn't press.

"Where do we stand?" Robbie asked.

"Well, actually, I'm sitting in my father's chair. Mikee's sitting on me. Tami is..."

"I can hurt you."

"Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am. Humor, ma'am. Feeble attempt, ma'am."

Robbie looked skyward and shook her head. Tami grinned.

"Well, I dropped our proposal off with Mulino on Friday afternoon. He said ours was the sixth, which is kinda what we figured. He told me that he and the school board had had a meeting about the plays, but it would be unethical to talk about it."

"And you bought that?" Tami asked.

"Well, I tried to tell him that ethics were in the eye of the beholder, but he didn't buy it."

"You're losing your touch," Robbie said dryly.

I cocked my head and clicked my tongue. "Darlene Carter is on board as girl number two. She said she doesn't really know any guys yet, so she didn't care about guy number 2. I thought we might rope Ricky into it."