Chapter 5 #2
When her new phone arrived, she was quite excited.
She’d not been upgrading her phone for a while now and it was exciting to get a new one that did everything that hers didn’t.
As she was playing around with it, she did add in numbers like her work number and Zander’s, but no one else’s just yet.
There were thirty-six missed calls and a lot of voicemail messages.
Her family rarely text messaged her, but there was one from her aunt asking her where she’d gone the previous evening.
She might well not tell her either. Olivia didn’t trust any of the three of them.
For the rest of the day, she transferred things from her old phone.
There really wasn’t much. She did move her schedule from work to the new one and updated her calendar so she’d remember her appointments.
Again, there wasn’t much, but she didn’t want to miss an appointment simply because she got a new phone.
She and Zander talked about her job a little bit, but not too much about her parents.
It was her day off, and she was going to enjoy it as much as she could.
At four, his family came over to meet her and to watch a football game on the big screen television.
Food was brought in, and they enjoyed snacking all evening and yelling at the game.
She wasn’t used to all the noise as she lived alone, but she did have a good time with his family.
Especially the women of the family. They were fun and funny to be around.
“ I’ve been trying to get my tree up for a week now.
I finally gave up and had someone come in and do it for me.
With four kids, it’s nearly impossible to get anything done, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I love my growing family.” Shipley was beginning to show her next baby.
She couldn’t believe that none of the four were really their children.
They acted like they’d been family forever.
“ That’s the way we want it. Dusty can work from anywhere, and I have my moments when I need to talk to an adult, but we’re doing all right for only being parents for about three months now.
I’m excited to see what this one I’m carrying does to the group. ”
“ Don’t let her fool you. She’s brilliant at being a stay-at-home mom.
She and Dusty trade off duties, and it works well for the six of them.
” Alex was also going to have a baby, but she wasn’t showing as much as the other two.
Mandy was going to have a baby as well. “ You should see them when they get all dressed up. They look like the perfect little family.”
They talked about how each of them met their spouses and how in love they were from the first moment.
They were all surprised that she and Zander were just friends and she was living with him.
After explaining about her family, they seemed to understand a little more, but they did ask her if she was in love with Zander.
“ I like him a great deal. He’s my hero right now.
I’ve never known one until now, and I can’t think of a better person to save me than him.
I’m only staying here temporarily, just until my parents’ court hearing in a week to put them in jail.
I’m pressing charges against them for trying to get into my bank account, among other things that they’d been doing to me.
” Shipley asked her if they’d been knocking her around.
“ Not this time, but yes, they do when I’m out and about.
Not them, but my mom has these two goons that find me and knock the shit out of me.
It’s been nice having my own bodyguards while out.
The way my mother is threatening me, I’d probably be dead if she were able to get to me.
They think that my money should be theirs. I’m saving for my own house someday.”
“ There are plenty around that you can get too.” They talked about the housing market in their town and told her that the school system had hired new teachers.
“ Jobs are coming in, too. They just opened a brand new manufacturing plant that deals with sheets out near the plant. And they’re hiring on with some of the temp services, too. But you have a job, don’t you?”
“ Right now, I’m a personal shopper. I do it every Christmas, but this will more than likely be my last one.
I’m getting sick of people and how rude they can be.
That’s how I met Zander. He and I shopped for the entire day on Friday last week.
” They all looked in the direction of the men, and Zander just happened to stand up.
“ He did most of the list. I just pointed him in the right direction as to what he wanted on his list. He said he’s never been done before Christmas Eve before. ”
“ He’s not. Not even close.” He waved at her, and she waved back. “ You two getting along all right? I mean, has he told you that he loves you yet?”
“ We don’t have that sort of relationship. We’re just good friends.” They all nodded. “ Honestly. I don’t think of him as a potential date or anything like that. We just hit it off well enough, and he’s been keeping me safe from my parents and aunt. I don’t know what I’d do without him sometimes.”
As the women talked, she thought about how much of a good friend he’d become.
She’d not wanted to like him, but she did.
She supposed that he grew on her like old spores.
Laughing to herself, she wondered if there would ever be something between them and decided that more than likely not.
They were friends, and that’s what they needed to be.
~*~
Zander was happy that his family came over.
It was an enjoyable evening watching the game on the television and hanging out with them.
The food helped. There was always food for everyone when they got together, and he thought that was often enough that they should just buy a restaurant and have them cook for them.
Demi had told him once that there wasn’t much profit in owning a restaurant, and if their family were to show up very often, they’d be out of business in no time. They certainly could put away the food.
He was glad to see that Olivia was getting along so well with all of them.
She was holding one of Dusty’s kids in her arms, feeding them a bottle.
He would have thought they were too old for the bottle as yet, but they’d been through a great deal and might need the extra comfort for a while.
He knew that he would have had he been them.
The two boys had been in the room when their father killed their mother.
And when the police showed up to arrest him, he begged them to turn their backs for a while so that he could kill the boys, too.
Needless to say, it didn’t happen, and the boys were safe.
The children were all safe now, thanks to his family, and he couldn’t love them any more.
When the game was over, he and his brothers cleaned up the living room.
They weren’t slobs at all, but there were some water bottles that had been turned over as well as a bowl of chips.
After it was all in good order, they went to the kitchen and took care of the little bit of leftovers there were.
Mostly, that meant that they ate what was left, but it was taken care of all the same.
When they left, it was just him and Olivia again, and he asked her how it went with the wives.
“ They don’t understand why we’re not in love right now. It’s been two weeks.” She laughed, but he could tell that she was confused. “ I guess the rest of them were madly in love from the moment they saw one another, and they figured that it would happen to you too.”
“ They really were in love from the moment that they met. Especially Alex and Locke. She was Martha’s granddaughter, and in her will, she asked Locke to take care of her.
He got jealous when one of us asked her out on a date a couple of days later.
It was just a formal thing that we were going to, and she was just going to hang on his arm.
It worked out well, I guess, with Locke telling us all we weren’t to date her.
” He laughed. “ I think that the one who had the quickest romance was August and Jack. They were in love within minutes of seeing each other.”
“ I don’t love you. I like you a great deal, but I never thought that I’d fall in love with someone so quickly.” He said he felt the same way. That they were just good friends. “ We are. Very good. And someday, if that turns into love, then okay. But for now, I’m all right with just being friends.”
“ So am I.” He didn’t know why that bothered him so much, her telling him that she didn’t love him, but it got him in the chest. Shaking himself, he knew better than to mess things up with the ‘l’ word, so he just let it go.
“ I was wondering if you wanted to go to your house and pick up some of your clothing? We can be there in about twenty minutes and get you packed up, and then bring you back here. There is no point in your plants dying just because your parents are trying to kill you. Do you really think that they would? Kill you, I mean?”
“ I don’t want to think that they would, but I’ve been hurt by them before, and it came close.
They’ve never been this mad before. And I’ve never been this good at hiding from them.
I have a feeling that it’s going to build up with them until they explode or something like that.
I’m worried.” He said that he was doing his best to keep her safe.
“ Yes, and I don’t know how I’m going to repay you for it either.
You’ve gone way beyond what anyone just meeting me has done, and I can’t thank you enough. ”