She started squealing with delight. She started talking to him about her dress so fast that he couldn’t understand her. Besides, he had no idea what she was talking about: colors, fabric, sewing.
As she went on and on with a huge smile on her face, he realized that he needed to reel in her expectations.
“Of course, it won’t be for a while,” he said. Her squealing stopped. She was silent and then she started to sniffle.
“How long?” she asked, sniffling more now.
“Not long,” he said, lying. “Maybe a couple of months. Maybe in the fall.” He realized he needed to channel her energy into something positive to take her mind off of the disappointment of a delay — and possible never-occurring — prom.
“Between you, your mom, and grandma, I’m sure you’ll come up with something awesome for a dress,” Grant said. He thought that others, probably including Mary Anne Morrell, would help find some fabric.
“Gotta play the cards you’re dealt,” she said, forcing a smile. Then she broke into a genuine smile. She realized that this prom would be more “real” than the old pre-Collapse ones. Before the Collapse, people just bought dresses, wore them once, and then threw them out. But out here, they would make a special dress just for her. She would keep it forever. This might even be better than the prom she had envisioned.
Manda hugged her dad. She was so glad he was here and that they were together.
Lisa came out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to see Manda and Grant hugging.
“What you guys talkin’ about?” Lisa asked.
“Nothin’,” Manda said. “Just hugging my best dad.”
Chapter 173
Kellie Is in Love
“I’m in love, dude,” Wes said to Grant one morning as the Team was getting into Mark’s truck to go out to the Richardson house for training. Just as Wes said that, a beautiful girl in her early twenties came out of the yellow cabin.
She had light brown hair and was in perfect shape, something Grant could tell from her shorts and tank top. He tried not to pay too much attention to her because she was half his age, but damn, she looked fabulous. She came running up to Wes and hugged him.
“When are you done with work?” she asked Wes, practically making out with him as she spoke. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she said extremely seductively. Grant knew what Wes had in store for him after work; hours and hours of it. He was a lucky bastard.
“I’m done around dinner time,” Wes said. “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” he said, trying to be semi-business like with Grant around. Wes realized that he hadn’t yet introduced his girlfriend.
“Grant, this is Kellie,” Wes said. She snapped out of her love trance and broke off from her hug of Wes. She turned to Grant and tried to act polite, even though she was a little annoyed that someone was distracting Wes from her.
Grant put out his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you Kellie. I’m Grant. I live over here,” he said pointing to his nearby cabin. “I work with Wes.”
Kellie saw Grant’s pistol belt and his military-contractor looking clothes. Like the Team, Grant was wearing 5.11 pants and had a Raven Concealment holster, which set him apart from the local guards, who usually wore hunting clothes. She realized this Grant guy must be one of the Team, although she hadn’t seen him around and he was older than the other guys. He must be a boss or something. She vaguely remembered one of the Team saying something about a “Grant” guy being a judge and on the Team, or something. She figured she better be nice to him so Wes didn’t get in trouble at work. She needed Wes to be home where she could… do more of what they had done all night.
“Nice to meet you, Grant,” she said. She paused a moment to be polite and then went back to hugging Wes. She just wanted to hold him. She didn’t want him to leave because she was afraid he’d get in a gun fight and not come back. She kept telling herself not to fall for some military guy, or whatever it was the Team did out there, but she couldn’t resist. Wes was so cute and he was new.
Kellie recalled how she met Wes a few weeks ago. She had grown up at Pierce Point with the local boys. She’d dated some and done the usual dumb teenage stuff with them. She had a steady boyfriend, Ethan Meecham, for about a year, but he was so small-time, just a Pierce Point boy. She had decided to break up with him before the Collapse started, but she didn’t have the nerve to do it. When Ethan went off to guard duty at the gate, Kellie was relieved. He’d be busy with that and not have any time for her.
Then she saw them; a pickup load of cute guys. New guys she hadn’t seen before, and they came with guns. Way cooler guns than the hunting guns everyone else had. The guys in the truck had military looking clothes; not camouflage or uniforms. They looked like they were professionals, but not soldiers… like guys in all those movies she’d seen. She was amazed at how calm and confident they looked as they drove by. Luckily, they were driving slowly so she could get a good look at them. One of them smiled at her. He was so cute. She fell in love with one look.
Kellie thought it was great that the guys in the truck were riding around and looking for bad guys, who they would shoot if they had to. They weren’t afraid of anything.
Kellie was drawn to that: She had some bad guys in her life she wanted people to go get. She wanted to be protected, and these were the type of men who would do that. She felt so safe just seeing them. It was a peaceful and exhilarating feeling. Nothing could hurt her when they were around.
It was a momentary feeling, though, because they drove by and then they were gone. She had to meet them, just had to. She would do anything to meet them, especially the cute one who smiled at her.
She was in her yard when they drove by. Once they were gone, she panicked. How could she meet them? Were they gone for good? She was terrified she’d never see them again.
Kellie found her mom, Sheila, hoping that she would know who they were. She frantically described what she’d seen and asked her mom who they were.
“The Team,” her mom said. “Some guys from Olympia who are out here doing police things. Nice guys. I met them at the Grange a few nights ago. Were you scared by the guns?” her mom asked. Sheila still thought of Kellie as her “little girl.”
“No, I wasn’t scared,” Kellie said. She remembered that her mom still thought she was dating Ethan so she stopped herself from saying that she wanted to meet the cute one, the smiley one.
“I just wanted to make sure people with guns were OK to be here,” Kellie said.
“Oh, they’re OK to be here,” Sheila said. “We’re lucky to have them. They apparently trained together before all of this, like a SWAT thing or something. I’m not really sure,” her mom said.
“The Grange?” Kellie asked. “Are they at the Grange?”
“Yeah,” Sheila said, “for the meetings at 7:00. They eat there, too,” Shelia said, starting to figure out why Kellie was so interested in meeting them. She saw this as an opportunity to get her daughter out of the house and do something productive.
“You could volunteer to help serve meals at the Grange. It wouldn’t kill you,” Sheila said.
“Great idea, mom,” Kellie said. It had been about ten years since Sheila had heard her daughter say that.
“Great idea?” Sheila said, in complete shock at what her often unruly daughter had just said. “I love hearing that.” They hugged. Her little Kellie, the one who listened to mom, was back. Maybe these boys on the Team were actually going to be a good thing for Kellie, Shelia thought.
“I’ll go up to the Grange now and volunteer,” Kellie said, impulsively grabbing her car keys.