Demitrius (Erikson Brothers #4)

Chapter 7

The house was settling into a good routine. He didn’t like it, but that seemed to be making the rest of the residents of the house happy, so he went along with it. He wanted things to shake up, to be fun. But with two kids in the house and a woman who seemed to be a little upset with him most of the time, he was going with it. Demi hated routine.

For as much as he loved things organized, he didn’t care for getting up at seven in the morning, taking a shower, eating, and going out the door. He supposed that he was bored. That’s what it was, he told himself, he was bored. And he was going to get himself in trouble if he didn’t stick with being bored all the time.

While he didn’t want anyone mad at him, he did need something more. Maybe a little play in the morning before getting a shower. Not sex, though that would be fantastic, but something to happen that would make everyone smile throughout the day when they thought about it. Something…just something. He was so going to be in trouble. Especially if he kept thinking the way that he was.

Demi didn’t want chaos. He just wanted something to shake things up. To giggle a little. He kept telling himself that he could do this. It could be boring, but every day, he thought of something else to do, to shake things up a bit. One of these mornings, he was going to bust loose and do it. However he was afraid that everyone would be pissed off at him for messing up their routine. Deciding to talk to his brothers, he left the house before the kids were finished with breakfast and went in search of any one of them to talk to.

“Don’t do it.” Locke just happened to be the one that he found first, and after telling him his dilemma, his brother was shaking his head even before he finished speaking. “You’ll upset everyone, and I’m sure that’s not what you want. Have you gone completely mad? Seriously, Demi, don’t do it. Not only will you regret it, but you’ll regret it for a long time. Wives have long memories and they’ll remember that shit long after the kids are grown and out of the house. They’ll be calling you the bad guy.”

“For wanting a little fun? When did you get to be an old man? It’s not like I’m going to go out and murder someone. I’m just going to interject a little fun in the morning. I think you’re looking at this all wrong. Don’t you ever mess up Alex’s routine in the morning?” He nodded and said that she’d messed it up, not him. “So, if you want a little sex in the morning, you have to wait for her to start it? That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“All I can tell you is not to do it.” He went to find another brother. But on his way to find someone else, his cell phone rang. It was Mandy.

“Why did you leave so early?” He decided to come clean. He told her everything that he’d been thinking. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were mad at us. No, I don’t mind a little bit of a routine buster. But the boys need calm before they go to school.”

“Is that written down someplace? I mean, I remember us being at home and…never mind, that’s not a good example. But when I was going to college while living with Martha, some mornings I’d barely get out the door on time because…that’s not a good example either. Damn it, I want them to have fun. Why can’t they have fun before going to school? A food fight would be—again, not good. I don’t know what I want. I just think they’d benefit from a little laughter before tackling school. I’m coming—wait. Why did you think I was mad at you?”

“You left without telling me goodbye. You usually…you know you’re just as much in a routine as we are. You have your alarm set for a certain time that gets you up and going too.” He told her that tomorrow he was going to take them to breakfast. “I don’t know about that. It’ll be—”

“It’ll be a blast. We’ll get up earlier than usual, take them to breakfast, and have a few laughs. That will make me feel better.” She asked him if he knew what they did in the morning. “We go over homework. Yes, I’m aware of the way we do things. And I think one morning we can skip going over homework for the tenth time and just enjoy each other. If you want, we can tell them tonight what we’re doing and they won’t be so surprised about the change. But I’m telling you right now, Mandy, I need something to shake up our lives. Before I go insane.”

“All right. But if they’re upset, I’m going to blame you.” He told her that he was willing to take that blame if it got them to get together as a family. “It does sound like it’ll be fun. I mean, it’s been a while since we’ve done anything like a family does.”

He thought that having her on board was half the battle in this. And if he messed up too much, then he wouldn’t ask them again. Well, he might, but not as much as he did this time. He turned the car around and headed home. There were plans to make, and he was going to get started on them right away.

“Where did you go?” Demi told Teddy that he had to talk to his brother. “I have to talk to mine sometimes, too, but I don’t run off without saying goodbye to everyone. I thought I’d done something to make you mad at me.”

“Why would you think that? I mean, I’m usually out the door before you’re even awake when I have to go to the restaurant. You didn’t think I was mad then, did you?” Teddy told him he’d not seen him, so it didn’t count. “How about tomorrow we all go out for breakfast instead of being here and eating. That’ll be fun, don’t you think?”

“How will I be able to go over my homework? I have to make sure that it’s all right.” He asked him if he’d gotten a bad grade so far. “No. Because we go over it a lot. I can even answer questions when the teacher asks. I love doing that. It makes me feel like I’m smart.”

“You are smart.” He pointed out that it was because he went over his homework a lot. “Teddy, work with me here. I need to do this so I can feel good about having a family.”

“We’re still your family, Demi. It’s just that the morning is for homework and stuff. I don’t want the teacher to think I’m slacking again. When Dad was around, I was forever slacking. On account of I couldn’t get my homework done and stuff. I love being able to tell the teacher we went over our homework—”

“I give up.” Teddy asked him if he was upset. “No. Just resigned to the fact that you’re an old fuddy duddy and I’m going to be doing things the same way until you’re out of college.” He tousled the boy’s hair. “I should have known it wouldn’t work. There is just too much going on in the morning for it to happen.”

“But you make my whole day by being here and helping me. I think about it all the time that you and my aunt have made it so that Martin and I have a safe place to live and sleep. We didn’t get much sleep when my dad was around. Now, not only do we sleep, but we get to have showers and snacks. You have no idea how happy it makes me when I can get up and go to the fridge and there is food there for us to eat. That the milk isn’t spoiled, or I have to tear off mold from bread to have a sandwich.” He started to tell him how sorry he was, but Teddy was on a roll now. “Something else that makes me feel good is that I have clothing that’s all mine. It fits and it’s clean. One time when the washer broke down, Momma couldn’t do laundry for a whole month until her check came in. The kids made fun of us all the time for being the stinky boys. I like the way things are because they were never like this at home. I never knew if I was going to get lunch or not. I never knew if Momma was going to feel like getting up with us. She didn’t help with our homework; she was too busy trying to get dad to stop beating on us.”

Demi felt like a heel. Here he wanted something to shake his day up, and the kids just wanted things to be normal. Daily things that they knew were there so that they could have a good day. Going over homework seemed so boring to him, but it was perfect for the kids. He should have known that and should have taken into consideration how they had lived before, when he was only thinking of himself.

There was no reason that he couldn’t make them laugh in the mornings or be silly about homework. He could do those things for them. He would do those things for them just so he could think about them throughout his own day and smile. Giving the kids stability was more important than having a day start off differently than the one before. They needed him to be there for them and he would from now on. They were depending on him, and he was going to make sure that he was there for them.

He got to take the kids to school most mornings, so he was going to make that his time with them. Find something along the path that they took so that they could examine it. A pine cone or something like that to marvel at. He could have his routine messed up a little if he wanted, but not at the expense of the kids having their routine just the way they wanted it.

The rest of his morning and into the afternoon, he worked on his next project. The restaurant was running nicely and didn’t need him there all the time. Now that it had been turned over to capable hands, he was ready to start something new. Something that would benefit his sons. Because at the end of the day, they were his sons as much as Mandy was going to be his wife.

That got him thinking about a ring for her. He had three that had been left to him from Martha. The one he was thinking about would be beautiful on her hand. It had special meaning to him as well. Martha had worn it to his college graduation and told him then that someday it would be his to use with his own wife.

The yellow diamond had gone well with the dress that she’d worn that day. Her happiness had been infectious, and he still remembered the check that she’d given him when he’d been going off to have some fun with his other classmates.

“You use this money for fun, young man. And I do mean it.” He told her that every day was fun to him, and she’d laughed. “Someday you’ll meet a young woman and you’ll want to get her something special. Use this money for that. Don’t ever cut corners with buying someone you love something lovely, Demitrius. It will be a remembrance for the two of you for the rest of your lives.”

He decided that he needed to go to a jeweler and figure out something special for Mandy. As he was thinking about what he wanted in the way of a ring, the first one he thought of kept coming back to him. It would be perfect.

The yellow diamond was surrounded by smaller white diamonds in a beautiful setting that he loved. The band was wide and made of platinum. It had been cleaned when he’d gotten it and now only needed to be sized. Mandy had such tiny fingers he knew that he’d have to be careful in getting the size right. Then he realized that he could just take her to get it sized, and he’d not have to worry about getting it right. Christ, there were times when he outthought himself on things.

He was deep in thought about the ring when Knox found him. The two of them had been meeting up for lunch on Thursdays for the past ten years or so. He got together with his other brothers, too, but for some reason, meeting up with Knox was the highlight of his week. Today was no different.

“I need a new project, and I’m betting you have an idea what I should be working on.” He asked him if he’d been to the school board meeting last night. “No. I didn’t even know there was one. I need to pay more attention to what’s going on. The boys go there.”

“They’re having trouble keeping people employed to do the morning breakfast program. It’s the first hot meal some of these kids get before lunch comes around, and that one isn’t always hot. They need five cooks willing to come in and do it. Do you know anyone who might have experience in cooking for a lot of kids?” Demi asked him what it meant in the way of a cook. “Mostly just what you think. Eggs mostly. Sometimes they have cereal when there isn’t enough money for eggs and sausage. But for the most part, you’d be cooking for about two hundred kids in the morning, then go home. There isn’t even any clean up as the lunch ladies do that, so they don’t have to come in earlier for that shift.”

“I take it that it doesn’t pay well.” He told him what was the going rate was, and Demi whistled. “That’s a lot of money. Why don’t they just let me do the cooking and then use the money for—why are you shaking your head?”

“You would need to be paid. It’s a paid position, so not getting paid would cause all kinds of issues. You can donate the money back in some other way, but you would get paid.” Demi thought that was silly and told his brother that. “Silly or not, it’s the rules that they have to abide by. Anyway, you would go in and cook, feed the kids, then leave. The hot breakfast consists of eggs, of course, sausage or ham, toast, and some kind of packaged jelly. There is milk and juice when they can afford that, too. It’s pretty standard. And you get to hang out with the kids every day. I know you’re kind of sappy like that.”

“I like to hang out with my kids every day. Two hundred of them would make me crazy.” Knox told him that he thought he’d love it. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t, but that’s a lot of kids to take under my wing. When can I start?”

“Since you’ve already had a background check, you can start tomorrow. I wouldn’t think you’d need all that much help, being that you know how to cook for a lot of people. And you might well not have all that much help. I’ll come and work with you. I think it would be fun, and I’ll see if I can get two more people on board to help us out. I would think that cracking the eggs would be the most help you’d need, right?” He said that making the toast would be helpful as well. “I forgot about that. Hopefully, there is more than a couple of two-slice toasters.”

“If not, then we’ll bake them. I can do this if you help, but we will need a couple more people. Maybe a couple of the women would come in and help us out. I know that they all have jobs, but if we ask nicely, maybe they’ll be willing to carve out some time to help out.” Knox pulled out his cell phone and called someone. “Also, I don’t know anything about the kitchen. I’ll need to go over there soon to get the lay of it. I don’t want to mess up anything by having to look for things that I might need.”

By the time he was off the phone, all three of the wives were going to help him. They couldn’t do it daily, but one of them would show up to help out. Then they were headed to the school so that he could figure out where things were and get to know the women that he’d kind of be working with. Demi was as excited about this as he’d been anything in a while. He also knew that once he got it started, he’d not let it go like he did most of his other projects. This way, he’d be able to see his boys, too, even though they didn’t eat at the school, they’d be there.

The kitchen wasn’t as organized as he had hoped it would be, but that was fine. He was learning a valuable lesson in not changing things around because they didn’t suit him. Once breakfast was served and everything put away, he was free for the rest of the day, and that excited him a great deal. Yes, he thought this was going to be a fun thing for him to do, and he was helping the schools out as well.

~*~

“How many gallons of milk does your family drink in a month’s time? I mean, five gallons seems like a lot to me.” Mrs. Harris told her that she could only drink one a week, but wanted the rest sent to her weekly. “I’m afraid that if you order five gallons, they’re going to be delivered all at the same time.”

“No, that won’t work for me. You’ll have to tell them to bring them to me weekly.” She tried explaining to her again how it will take weekly orders when you order them, but it will all be delivered at once when you tell them what you want. “You just tell them that they can’t do it that way. I only want one gallon per week.”

They’d been going over this every day for two weeks now, on how she wanted things delivered, over her putting in an order for what she wanted. It was becoming annoying as hell for her, too. Usually very patience with people Mrs. Harris was an entitled bitch and had to mess up the way she was teaching every time.

“Look, Helen, she’s told you this so many times that everyone in the room gets it but you. I honestly think that you get it, you just like being trouble. This might have worked in high school or even at your own home, but this is class, and you’re taking up time from the rest of us. Just order it like you’re supposed to and shut the hell up. You’re giving me a headache.” June Paddle had her laughing behind her hand again. The woman had no filter at all. “Damned woman. I bet the plants could order your groceries by now, and they ain’t even real.”

“I don’t like this ordering from a computer at all. I don’t know why I’m being made to do this.” Mandy told Helen that no one was forcing her to order her groceries, but she had signed up for the class. “I thought it would be fun to get out of the house for an hour or two, but all you do is keep telling me what I can’t do instead of what I want to do. I don’t care for being told no, you know. Why can’t you just let me—”

“Don’t you dare say you need five gallons of milk a month to me again, you old bat. There ain’t nobody at your house but you and that old woman that you have to clean up after you. Hell, I’m betting that she finds herself a nice dark corner to get away from your harping all the time and takes a nap. That’s what I’d do if I had to hang around you for more than ten seconds. You’re nothing but a harpy, Helen, and everyone here knows it.”

“I do, too, need to have five gallons of milk. I need it to feed the cats, now don’t I? You need to mind your own business, June. There ain’t nobody talking to you.” June asked her how many cats she had. “I have about a dozen of them now on the inside, and that many more that just shows up. I don’t give them all milk, but those that want it, it’s there for them.”

“Two dozen cats. Good heavens Helen no wonder you smell like cat piss all the time. What are they doing? Running the house for you? Nobody needs that many cats. Good Christ, love a duck, that sure does explain a lot.” Helen asked her what she meant by that. “Mr. Harris run off, didn’t he? More than likely because you had all them cats that you’re taking care of.”

Now there were insults being hurled around the room like cake at a party. Mandy sat down at her little desk, knowing that things were out of control for her to get anything done. All the women, all five of them, were yelling at each other, insults were being fired off like it was their job. When one of the women sat down beside her, she smiled at Mrs. Rogan.

“They sure do go on, don’t they, honey?” She just smiled and told her she tries to stay out of it. “Don’t blame you one bit. Not a bit. I do have me a question. It ain’t about milk but when they don’t have something. I don’t want them to send me something of equal value. The other week they sent me a grater and I have plenty enough of those. I just want what I order and if they don’t have it, take it off my bill. Can I do that?”

“Yes, but they’ll have to give you a store credit rather than your money back. Is that all right?” She told her it was better than having a dozen or so cheese graters lying around. “Yes, I can see where that would be a problem. I’ll show you how to set it up for yourself. Do they run out of things that often?”

She answered her that they didn’t do it often, but once was enough. After showing her how to change the settings on the order page, she went back to her seat. After a few minutes, another woman came up to get her questions answered. This went on for the rest of the class. She was answering questions on the side while the other woman fought about cats and milk. It was almost too much for even her to deal with.

When the timer went off twice, alerting them that the class had ended, the two women who had the most to say left, still fighting over the milk issue. She didn’t want either one of them back and was glad that the classes they were in, a four-week class, were finished for them. They would either sink or swim as far as she was concerned. Having something for her headache in her drawers at the office, she stopped by there to get some. That was when she ran into Shipley. She told her how the class was today when she asked.

“I heard them arguing as they were leaving. Is that normal?” She told her that for those two women, it was very normal. “I would have pulled out my gun and ended the argument right then. I don’t like bickering for the sake of bickering. So are you ready for the next set of women? These are all six domestics that need to learn how to do it for the household.”

“I am. But something was brought up today. It’s about missing items.” She told her that two of the women today didn’t want the store to give them something of equal value, and how they didn’t need whatever they were giving. “I can see where that might be an issue. I’d say make it up in food, it would be eaten at my house, but then I have kids in the house, and most of the women in the classes do not.”

“Yeah, I understand that too.” After talking a bit more on that subject, Shipley brought up the breakfast at the school and how they were going to go and help out Demi tomorrow. “You can come too. It’ll be fun to see the kids having a nice, hot meal, and Demi seemed very excited when I talked to him later. It’s a program that, as a charity-based doner, we can really get behind. He’s thinking that he could make a good breakfast without a lot of trouble.”

“He’s used to cooking for a lot of people. I believe that the people in there before weren’t at all used to cooking for more than their family. I think that was the bottleneck they were running into.” Shipley agreed with her on that. “I’m to understand that the state pays for the food to be given out. Is that right? Maybe with his background, he could get them better deals on the food that is coming in.”

“I never thought of that.” Shipley smiled at her. “I love it when I get to talk to you. You always make me see things that I don’t normally get to see. Thanks for that.”

“My pleasure. So I’ll be there at the school in the morning. Maybe the boys will want to eat there, too, so they can see Demi. They do love that man.” Shipley told her that they all loved him. “So do I.”

After getting ready for the classes starting tomorrow, she was surprised to find Carrie in the office. She’d heard that she’d been moved again, the poor woman had some family much like hers. But the difference was that hers was in jail right now, where Carries were running around causing trouble for everyone.

“I’ve been so careful about looking around for them. That’s exhausting too.” She asked her where she was staying now. “In a hotel. It’s not fun, but at least I’m safe. I’m fearful that if they find me now, they’ll kill me because Mom’s checks are going straight to the nursing home. And she is doing so well there, I’d hate for her to have to give that up.”

“I don’t blame you. My grandmother was in a nursing home right up until she died. She loved being able to be social when she wanted, and she could close her door when she didn’t. I think she lived longer too, simply because she had interaction with others around her same age.” Carrie told her that her mom was slipping away from her more and more, and that was sad, but she was glad that she was someplace safe. “Safe is about all you can hope for with families like ours, don’t you think?”

They talked about that for another hour until Carrie had to get back to her desk. She’d not realized that a car came to take her back and forth to work. It was another annoyance she told her, but again, she wasn’t out there where her brother Allen could find her. She’d heard about him, he was a monster.

Mandy cleaned off her desk of post-it notes and other notes that she’d made throughout her day. She felt a sense of accomplishment when she only had one or two notes left to finish at the end of the day. Today, even with everything that was going on, she’d been able to knock all of them off her desk in record time. Tomorrow would be a bit harder as she was going to be at the school first thing in the morning with the boys and Demi.

She so loved that man and was disappointed that he seemed to be avoiding her when it came to bedtime. She wanted to jump his bones every evening, but he came to bed a great deal later than she did, and it was impossible to do anything with the boys hanging on his every word. They loved him as well, but—

“I have a question.” She told Alex she was all ears. “Have you and Demi done the nasty yet?”

The question and what she’d been thinking threw her off for a few seconds. Long enough for her to be sputtering around with a non-answer. But Alex seemed to have understood and nodded. Long enough, too, that she had a plan to remedy her lack of sex.

“I thought so. The way the two of you look at each other is hot and all, but it’s very difficult to get together when there are others around, like the boys. I want you guys to think of a honeymoon after you’re married. As a family, we own this little island paradise that the two of you could go to and unwind. We did it and it was the best week I’ve ever spent in my life. You’ll have to go there soon.”

“I don’t want to pawn off the boys to anyone.” She said it would be their pleasure to watch over them. “How about we go after this thing with Georgie is taken care of. She’s sort of putting a damper on everything we think to do. I can’t wait for her to be sent to prison like my brother-in-law has been.”

“Great idea. I love that even better. All right, but it will have to be just as soon as it’s done with her. If there were ever two people who needed less stress in their lives, it would be the two of you.”

Plans were made and things were set up. Shipley had purchased the island home a couple of months back, and she and Locke had been making the trip to it weekly to get things set up for family. She couldn’t wait to tell Demi about it and get there. They really did need less stress in their lives right now.