Ch 69: You don’t want to know

Janet spent almost the entire first half of the game talking with Kenny and another boy, Bobby. They were both desperately in love and neither knew what to do about. At least they were receptive to her advice. That was more than she could say about others who asked for her services.

“Wes is gonna kill me,” she muttered as she was flagged down by a group of giggly girls. “Please, God, don’t let them be brainless fools.” 

Unfortunately for Janet, God had more important matters to intervene on and she spent most of the second half of the game listening to the drivel of what could only be accurately described as bimbos.

Ch 68: Let the games begin

“Oh, look! The game’s started,” Wendy said. “Gosh, I haven’t been back here since...gees, since I was a cheerleader. Makes me wish I still had my pom-poms.” 

“Yeah,” Donny said, in total agreement, his imagination perfectly capable of imagining Wendy in a cheerleader outfit. His mind wandering to such forbidden places, he hadn’t noticed she was speaking to him. “I’m sorry. I was... I... what did you say?” 

“I said it doesn’t matter how many times I see it happen, I just don’t understand off-sides,” she said. “I think it’s the lack of testosterone.”

“Pardon me?” he said completely bewildered.

“I’m convinced only males understand off-sides. Makes sense if it is attached to testosterone because I don’t have any of that,” she said with a shrug.

Donny shook his head. “No, you don’t,” he said, unable to keep his eyes from checking out evidence of her lack of testosterone. He then cleared his throat and added, “Want me to explain it?” 

Ch 67 Suddenly Smitten

“ Mr. Sebastian, what are you doing ?” Janet shouted.

Donny slowly turned around, still talking into his phone. “Uh, can I get back to you on that, Larry? I’m in the middle of something here. Yeah, okay, bye,” he said, then put away his phone and smiled. “Hello, Janet. Did you want something?”

“Yes, I do. I want you to stay off the phone,” she said, slipping her hand into his coat pocket, taking his phone and turning it off before handing it back to him. “Wes is paying me good money to make sure you watch the game.”

Donny laughed. “He is? Well, then we must do as he wishes so you’ll earn your keep, mustn’t we?” he said.

Ch 66: Make me happy

Wes found Janet in the courtyard at lunch time shivering and hopping from foot to foot with her arms hugging herself and like an idiot he said, “Are you cold?”

She glowered. “No, this is the newest dance craze I’m practicing for the McIntyre wedding,” she snapped. “Great idea of yours, having lunch out here.”

“Sorry,” he said as he pulled off his sweater and wrapped it about her like a blanket. “That better?”

“Won’t you get cold?” she asked, watching him shake his head, sending his curls bouncing.

“I’m used to it. We play in colder weather than this just wearing shorts and a t-shirt,” he replied, frowning as he brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I need a haircut.”

Ch 65: That’s high school!

Janet didn’t notice it at first. It came to her slowly. 

Some kids merely whispered behind her back as she past, others stared at her with stunned expressions on their faces, but a few came up to her beaming for no other reason than to say hello…at least that’s what they told her. She suspected they just wanted to see if she and Wes were really going out. High school kids can be so nosy! But then...so were adults. Evidence of that was the school nurse winking at her and Wes.

Perhaps her mother was right, Janet mused. She often heard Wendy say, "High school never ends!" Now she understood.

Janet tried not to laugh at them, but that was her favorite part of high school, getting to laugh at her fellow students and even some teachers plus all the silly things they do.

Ch 64: Doing it on their own

Janet filled the vase with water and then placed the flowers in it one by one. “They’re really nice, Wes, but you shouldn’t have taken them from your mom’s garden,” she said.

Wes stared at her reflection in the mirror and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s what guys in love do,” he whispered, nuzzling his face in her hair. “You’re so beautiful.”

Ch 63: Breakfast at Wendy’s

“Oh, Mom, you did awesome last night!” Janet gushed, hugging her mother. “Everybody said so, and you’ll never guess who was there.”

“The entire town from what I saw,” Wendy said, handing Janet a plate of French toast topped with glazed strawberries. “It was lovely of you to do that, Janet. Seeing a room full of friendly faces is so much better than…”

“Enemies?” Steve said bouncing in just then. He kissed his mom on the cheek before grabbing a plate and taking three pieces of French toast. He took a huge bite and continued talking with his mouth full. “Mom, you rock! Everything was awesome last night.”

Janet grimaced. “Those gentleman lessons haven’t done much yet, huh?” she said with a derisive shake of her head.

Chapter 62: The serious talk

“Wesley, I’d like a word with you, please,” Donny spoke, his voice coming from the living room.

“Oh, crap,” Wes muttered under his breath, softly closing the door behind him.

Wes found his dad sitting on the sofa and switching off the TV. He threw down the remote and gestured for Wes to take a seat beside him. Donny then proceeded to glare at him. “If you had walked from Janet’s house I could almost see it taking this long to get home… if you were keeping pace with a racing turtle. As you have a perfectly functioning car, however, and even if you had driven at twenty miles under the lowest speed limit, as unlikely as that is for a teenager to do, you should have been home quite a while ago. Am I wrong?”

Ch 61: Truth and guilt

Jasmine sat down on the bed and watched with growing impatience as Janet methodically slipped out of her clothes, pulling her voluminous night gown over her head.

“So? What do you want to tell me?” she asked at last when Janet sat with her hair brush in hand and still had not uttered one word.

“It’s my fault Mom won’t forgive Dad and let him come back home,” Janet said, a catch in her throat.

“Whoa! What? That doesn’t make sense. How is it your fault?” Jasmine asked.

“First, I gotta tell you, I talked to Dawn. She was at the Picadillo.”

“I didn’t see you talking to her. I didn’t see her at all.”

“It was in the restroom,” Janet said, pulling the brush through her hair.

“So, that’s why you took so long! I thought you were…anyway. What did she say? She couldn’t possibly blame you for…”

Ch 60 An ever fixed mark

The cell phone sounded just as Wes was in the middle of kissing Janet.

“Dad,” he muttered, annoyed as anything. He stared at Janet for a second and kissed her again while he dug in his pocket for the offending device. He put it to his ear only after he pulled away from her. 

“Hello,” he growled.

“Wesley, where are you? You do realize it’s a school night,” Donny said.

“I’m on my way home now, Dad,” Wes said, winking at Janet.

She shook a disapproving finger at him and she giggled when he went to bite it. He then covered her mouth so his dad wouldn’t hear her laughing.

“I realize you and Janet have made up, but…”

“I’ll be there soon, Dad,” Wes said.

“I can still ground you, you know.”