Chapter 6 #2
“Here. Let’s get you a tissue,” Morris said and handed her two or three from the box on the desk.
“Thank you. Mom, where have you been? I’ve been waiting and waiting!”
“So, sir, what do I need to do to get her out of here? Is there a fine or—”
“No, ma’am. The owner decided not to press charges, so she’s free to go.”
“Thank you, sir. Where are the other kids?”
“Their parents already came to get them, but you left me here!” Hadley bellowed, still sobbing.
“We’ll talk about this in the car. Thank you, sir. Come on, Had. We need to get back home.”
The ride to the house was anything but pleasant. Gina drove about five miles to give herself time to calm down. When she had, she finally asked, “So, tell me, what the hell were you thinking?”
The girl sniffled a little. “That I like Anson and I want him to like me.”
“And for that, you broke into someone else’s cabin?”
“We didn’t break in! It was unlocked!”
“It wasn’t yours. That’s breaking in.”
“Whatever.”
So fast that she scared even herself, Gina whipped into a parking lot and slammed the truck in park.
“Whatever? Whatever? I’ll tell you whatever.
Whatever means I had to get showered, get dressed, and drive all the way to Cadiz to pick you up from a place where you shouldn’t have needed to be because you were somewhere you shouldn’t have been!
And I’d better not have to do that again!
You can be a lot of things to me, young lady, but dismissive isn’t one I’ll tolerate,” Gina spat out.
How dare Hadley talk to her that way! “We’re going home and you’re going to spend the rest of the weekend in your room. ”
“But Mom—”
“No. Don’t even bother. This is non-negotiable. Really, Had, I can’t believe you. Where did this come from? You don’t do shit like this. You never have.”
“I just wanted him to like me. That’s all.”
“Did it occur to you that you shouldn’t like a boy who’d do something like this? By the way, how old is this kid?” Hadley didn’t speak. “I asked you a direct question. How. Old. Is. This. Kid?” Hadley mumbled something. “What? I can’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Nineteen! He’s nineteen! Okay?”
Gina’s hands started to shake. Dear lord, that was trouble she didn’t need. “Okay, first of all, I find out he’s been around you again and I’ll have him arrested.”
“Mom! But he—”
“No buts! Second, don’t be a follower of the wrong people.”
“I know. Best friend, jumped, bridge. Blah, blah …” Gina cleared her throat. “Um, blah. Sorry.”
“Yeah. You should be.” She pulled the truck back onto the road and kept driving. Good lord, why was it always something? “By the way, I’ll be taking you to the OB/GYN next week.”
“He didn’t touch me!” Hadley screamed.
“That’s fine, but I’ll be putting you on birth control, and I’ll expect you to take it correctly and as directed.”
“Birth control? Why would you—”
“I can’t raise a baby, Hadley, and if you’re this irresponsible, then—”
“Mom! Anson’s in a wheelchair. He’s paralyzed from the waist down!” Hadley screamed. “We just went out for a walk and he needed to go to the restroom to empty his bag. We were looking for a place, and we found the cabin. That’s all we were doing. We weren’t having sex!”
Oh, holy shit. Could this get any worse? “That’s no excuse for what you did. And I’m sorry your friend is in that situation. I applaud you for trying to help. But you never should’ve sneaked out of the house.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I wanted to help him. The girls at school always made fun of him and wouldn’t have anything to do with him, but I always liked him. He’s funny and smart and polite. He just graduated in the spring, so he hasn’t been out of school long.”
Hadley. Always trying to help someone. “Honey, sometimes when we have to do something we know we shouldn’t to help someone else, it backfires. That’s what happened here. And there’s a lesson to be learned. Trespassing means trespassing, disability or not.”
“I get it, Mom. I do. It won’t happen again.” She’d started to cry again, and Gina felt horrible. “And I’m sorry. I’m sure you didn’t want to leave the store.”
“I wasn’t at the store. I took today off.”
“Why? You never take Saturdays off.”
Gina could feel Hadley’s eyes on her, questioning her. Should she tell her daughter? “Well, I had a date last night.”
“A date? Like with a guy kind of date?”
“Yes. With a guy.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, Hadley. I’m not dead yet,” Gina muttered.
“No, I mean, I didn’t think you cared about dating or anything like that. Is he nice?”
“Yes. He’s very nice. I really like him, and he really likes me. He’s the guy I told you about, the one I met at the store.”
Hadley sat quietly for a few miles before she said. “What does that have to do with today?”
“We’d made plans to go to breakfast this morning.”
“I’m sorry. Guess you’ll have to do that another time.”
Gina snickered. “Why do you think it took me so long to get there for you? I had to go home and shower and …” OH SHIT! What did I just say? Oh my god, this is bad. This is really, really bad. Did she catch it?
“You had to go home and shower? Go home and … Oh my god, Mom, did you spend the night with him?” She didn’t even have to look—she knew Hadley’s eyes were probably about to bug out of her head.
Well, Gina, you got yourself into this. Now you’re going to have to get yourself out. “Matter of fact, I did.”
“Oh my god! You’re such a hypocrite! Telling me you’re going to put me on birth control and—”
“Now you hold up just a minute! If I got pregnant, nobody would have to help me raise my baby so I could finish high school! Which I can’t anyway because I had a hysterectomy after you were born. So this is not the same thing! At all! And you’re underage!”
“So are you going to see him again, or was this a one night stand?”
“Hadley, so help me god, when I get you home—”
“Wish I’d been there to see you do the walk of shame,” the girl mumbled.
“I didn’t do the walk of shame! He lives out in the country on a huge farm, so nobody saw me!”
“Like that makes a difference?”
Dear god, this is a royal fucking mess! Gina thought about pulling the adult card, then decided not to.
A minute later, she changed her mind and did it anyway.
“I’m an adult. I can make choices for myself.
You, however, are a kid. You don’t have the ability to do that.
So I have to make them for you. And this is one I’m making for you. Got that?”
“Got it. Sure do. You can screw around because you’re an adult.”
“No! I’m not screwing around! This was the first time, and I really like him, and … Why the hell am I justifying my actions to you? You’re a kid, for Christ’s sake!”
They didn’t speak the rest of the way home. As soon as Hadley was in her room and Gina could slip out, she sat down on the back porch and hit the contact in her list. “Hey, beautiful! Get it all ironed out?”
“Oh, yeah. Swimmingly.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“So here’s what happened. She and her friend …
” Gina launched into the entire story. She left out the part about the hunky sheriff.
That was on a need to know basis, and he didn’t need to know.
She was embarrassed to tell him how she’d slipped up, and she hoped he wasn’t angry about it.
“And then I accidentally said that I’d had to come home and shower before I could pick her up, and boy, she caught that and ran with it. ”
Kyle started to laugh. “You did not!”
“Uh, yeah. I did too. Stupid me.”
“Oh, hell! How did you fix that?”
“I didn’t really. I played the adult card. She basically called me a ho bag.” He was laughing hysterically. “Hey, this isn’t funny!”
“Yeah, babe, it kinda is!” he said, still hee-hawing. She was starting to get angry, but she stopped and remembered that moment in the car. He was right—it was pretty damn funny. “Don’t be mad, sweetie. It’s just that, well, it really is funny!”
“Yeah. I guess it is! I didn’t even have to look at her face. I knew she looked like somebody had goosed her with a cattle prod.”
“I bet! Wow! So did you tell her anything about me?”
“Nope. That part will remain a secret.”
“Oooo. I’m your guy on the down-low. I like it,” he said, still chuckling.
“Yeah. My side piece. My dick on the side.”
“There ya go! So I guess you’re stuck there chaperoning the prisoner for the rest of the day.”
“Day. More like week.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. She was trying to help a guy out.”
“I know, but she shouldn’t have done that, gone into that cabin. I’m so afraid …” And she stopped.
There was silence for a little while before Kyle said, “You’re so afraid she’ll be like her dad.”
A tear slipped down Gina’s cheek. It was hard enough to raise two kids alone without being a survivor of domestic violence, working full-time, and having to worry they’d picked up some of their sperm donor’s bad traits. “Yeah. I’m afraid,” she said in barely more than a whisper.
“Honey, I listened to you talk about them last night. They’re good kids. They’re smart and kind. They’re not their father.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that—”
“I understand. But cut them some slack. Quit looking at them through the filter you use on him. It’s not fair to them.”
“You’re right.”
She heard him snicker just a little. “Could you say that a bit louder? It’s probably the only time I’ve ever heard that directed toward me from a woman’s mouth, and I want to enjoy it for a few seconds.”
“I said you’re right.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now, do you want to meet me for dinner somewhere? I mean, obviously you can’t come over and spend the night, and I don’t need to be there spending the night. Not yet at least. But we could still have something to eat. And you can take something back for her.”
“That’s true. Let me think about it and see how the afternoon goes. How flexible are you?”
He let out a laugh. “For you? Like boiled spaghetti, baby. You just say the word.”
“Thanks. I … Thanks.”
“Uh-huh. Me too. And you’re welcome. Talk to you later, babe. Bye.”
“Bye.” The phone went dead and Gina held it to her chest for a couple of minutes.