Brook wanted more than seeing everyone at an event like this or a class reunion. If David hadn’t been working with her grandmother, she wondered if even he would still be her friend. Yes, he would talk to her if he saw her, but Brook had pushed David away after their breakup. Even he would give up on her after a while. Honestly, she felt they both had moved on, and friendship might be all they had left.
It had been a year between them seeing each other when he came to New York. For the rest of her Lincoln High friends, it was closer to a year and a half. She would have to work to resolve how she would manage to reconnect with her old friends in a meaningful way. It wasn’t like she could call Zoe, and they could grab a coffee.
Brook could just hear David spouting off that nothing worthwhile was easy. Maybe the big doofus was right.
◊◊◊
Chapter 36
David
His habit of getting up at the crack of dawn had David half-awake, contemplating rolling over and doing what any normal college kid would do: sleep in. Then he heard two women’s voices from the outer room. He reached over and felt that Crystal wasn’t in bed with him.
A moment later, the door opened, and suddenly he had a child land on his chest, who wiggled off and began jumping up and down on the bed. There was no doubt that he was now wide awake.
“Coby,” David groaned as he grabbed the little man’s ankle, causing him to fall back onto the bed with a delighted squeal.
David opened his eyes and saw Coby’s mom, Pam, smiling down on the two of them. He gave her a wink.
“Dude, it’s way too early,” David moaned to his son, grabbing Crystal’s pillow to cover his face.
“Wake up! Wake up!” Coby chanted gleefully as he stood back up and began to bounce on the bed.
“Too early,” David’s muffled voice said.
Then he felt the little monster jump on his stomach. If David wasn’t serious about his ab work, that might have hurt.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Coby yelled.
David had no idea his son had gotten so big. It was like having a medicine ball dropped on his stomach as his son bounced up and down.
David peeked out, which made the munchkin giggle.
“Up now!”
“Coby,” David said with resignation in his voice.
He held out his arms, and his son dropped to his knees right on his solar plexus, causing David to oof out air as Coby snuggled in his dad’s arms.
Pam joined them on the bed and cuddled up to David’s side.
“I want a snake,” Coby announced.
David moaned.
“All this before I even have coffee?” David asked Pam.
“You get to play the bad cop on this one,” she said, throwing him under the speeding bus that was his youngest son.
“Why does he want one?”
“His cousin Kyle thinks he’s getting one. The neighbor’s snake ate his kitten,” Pam said as if that explained anything.
Kyle had always loved kittens, almost as much as his sister loved horses. The problem was that his kittens had all seemed to have a short life span. None of which was his fault. Well, one had been accidentally offed by Kyle’s dad when it bit his hand, and he jerked back to get away. The kitten’s tooth had sunk in and caught on his skin, so when Greg lurched away, the fur ball had bounced off the wall. That caused it to ‘fall asleep,’ as Greg had tried to sell it.
This latest kitten, Mittens, had been brought into the household when Greg and Joey had returned from Hawaii. Kyle had guilted his dad into getting a new kitten after Precious had left, and he and his siblings had to go to grandma’s house for a week.
Honestly, David had hoped that the cat curse might befall Precious, but she was too evil for anything like that to happen to her. Or it could be that kittens only died in Kyle’s care.
“Back up. What exactly happened?” David asked.
“The neighbor boy was home for the summer and had brought his escape-artist python with him. Greg said that the boy’s dad literally wet himself when he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. The snake had gotten itself on the shower rod and hissed at him when he went to use the toilet.
“Your brother said that neighbor had brought it out to sun, and when he got a phone call, the snake escaped and found its way into Greg’s backyard. Kyle went outside to play with his kitten when an episode of National Geographic occurred. Joey rushed outside because Kyle was screaming bloody murder. When Greg heard Joey shriek, he rushed out. By then, the snake had the kitten in a death grip, and it was too late,” Pam shared.
“Oh, my,” was all David could think to say.
“Greg did save the kitten’s collar. He was worried it would make the snake sick,” Pam said and then gave a nervous giggle.
“Help me connect the dots. How did Kyle go from being traumatized to wanting a snake?” David asked.
“He watched the snake eat the kitten. Apparently, that is very cool,” Pam shared. “And he shared that with your son.”
His first thought was that he could still borrow the snake and see if it could deal with Precious. Then again, that cat would almost certainly kill the snake, and his nephew would need therapy.
“In the future, you are allowed to tell Coby ‘no’ when he asks for something like this,” David said.
“Daddy says no snake,” Pam said and then nodded to their son.
On cue, Coby gave his dad a shy look.
“Can I have a puppy?”
‘Fuck me!’ David thought as he chuckled at the two of them.
“Nice,” David said to Pam, who looked pleased with herself. Then he turned to his son. “No puppies. Duke couldn’t handle the responsibility.”
Plus, his mom would send the puppy to his place until it was potty trained and quit chewing on furniture and shoes.
“Give him your pouty face we practiced,” Pam encouraged her son.
David watched, bemused, and then turned to Pam. “I give it a six out of ten.”
It looked like Coby might be a little actor if given some guidance. Saying ‘no’ to both Pam and Coby was like trying to teach Japanese to Duke. That hadn’t worked … at all. Fortunately for David, he had one more out.
“You have to convince my mom,” David said to play his ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Pam wrinkled her nose at him, knowing that was a deal-breaker. Neither of them wanted to rile her up because she and his dad had agreed to help raise Coby while David was in college. Pam knew his mother wasn’t beyond shipping both puppy and their son back to her as revenge for when she stepped in something unspeakable.
“How about I get you a goldfish?” ‘to kill’ David added in his head.
“Really?!” Coby asked as he stood up on David’s chest.
“Yes,” David said.
His son leaped off the bed and crashed to the floor. If it had been any of his other kids, there would have been tears.
“Tell the others!” Coby announced.
Pam chuckled when David face-palmed himself. If one got something, the others had to as well … And to top it off, he hadn’t discussed this with any of the other baby mamas. The odds of at least one fish going belly-up each week were a dead certainty with this group. He would have to figure out how to get the horde only a single fish.
◊◊◊
David and Crystal found her dad and Ms. Dixon waiting for them.
“David, I’m Kendrick Knaggy, the managing partner of Knaggy, Anderson, and Petters, better known as KAP Entertainment and Talent Management.”
David shook his hand and then sat down at the table.
The four of them made small talk until they’d finished their meals. Then Kendrick focused on winning David’s business.