Chapter 14

"Sims! What are you doing here?"

Tami and I had been walking down the hall under the gym toward the girls' locker room when Parker came out of the boys' locker room.

"Just meeting Robbie," I said with a smile.

He frowned. "This area is for football players only."

"Okay," I agreed amiably. "We'll wait in the parking lot."

I think I surprised Parker and Tami.

"Remind me to tell the cross country team that they can't use the locker room," I said quietly as we retreated back up the stairs.

Tami nodded, and for once the telepathy was going my way 'cause I knew she was thinking, 'That's more like the Tony I know.'

Outside, we leaned against my car and waited. "You remember the plan?" I asked.

"It's not necessary. She's not going to hurt you."

"Are you sure?"

"Mostly," she said with a giggle.

"Let's stick with the plan."

Just then Robbie came out, sandwiched between Mark Russell and Cassie Grover, and I do mean sandwiched since Mark had almost three inches on Robbie's five-ten, and Cassie had another inch on him. Cassie was the star of the volleyball team and was telling them about their last game. They stopped in front of us as Cassie finished her story, then Cassie waved and headed for her car.

"When you gonna come back and play some football, man," Mark asked as Cassie drove away.

"With Mike and Monster Girl there fighting it out for quarterback, Luke at half, and you kicking and pretending to play defense, I'd be riding the pine. I was never any good at that."

Mark laughed. "The third string needs quarterbacks, too." His laughter stopped abruptly with a little help from Robbie's elbow. "Seriously man, it's not as much fun without you."

"I don't know," I said as I maneuvered Tami between us, my hands resting on her shoulders. "Monster Girl's a lot of fun in a tight huddle."

The quick blush on Mark's face confirmed that Robbie and he were getting pretty tight, and I really didn't want to know how tight. My theory is that all the girls I know revert to innocent virgins when not with me, and I'm sticking to it.

"Got to run," Mark said, recovering. "Mom said that if I was late to dinner again, she was going to start feeding me out of a bowl on the floor with the dogs." He gave Robbie a quick kiss and started to step away.

"You can do better than that," Tami urged.

I could see Mark thinking about it when Robbie grabbed his neck and pulled him into a long kiss.

"This is not the place for that," Parker said pompously as he walked out of the building.

"Play practice, sir," I said quickly, even before Robbie and Mark could separate. "We're working on act three."

Parker seemed to consider that, opened his mouth, then shut it again and walked off.

"There's a make-out scene in act three?" Tami asked innocently.

I shrugged. "Ask me again if I ever get it finished. At the moment, no."

"You called him 'sir, '" Robbie pointed out after Mark had kissed her one more time and headed for his car."

"Your point?"

"Parker, sir?"

I shrugged again. "I promised Mr. Reed that I'd try to be good."

"For how long?" Robbie asked sarcastically.

"I'm shooting for two weeks."

"But we're not holding our breaths," Tami added.

Robbie moved over and set her equipment bag on my hood. I shifted Tami so that she was still between us.

"What are you two doing here, anyway?"

"We just came to see you and ask how practice went," I said, trying to sound off-hand.

"Un huh. So what are you two doing here, anyway?" she repeated.