Only two more chapters after this, can you believe its almost over? Here is the next installment in the Rita/Randy sage, enjoy.

I couldn’t believe it. It’s been somewhat of a trend lately, a crappy trend, but still a trend nonetheless. Something big happens, usually a giant argument, and then we go a while without seeing the person or people involved in the altercation. This time a week passed and it was only dad we didn’t see. Mom and Aunt Lisa still came by and called on the phone when they didn’t come, and since we were still at Jim and Marie’s house we couldn’t help but see them. Since Marie already basically knew everything it was obvious she would be on our side, but Jim out of nowhere having our back in such a delicate situation completely caught us by surprise.

Believe it or not, things didn’t get weird or awkward at all since everything was put on the table. Jim is still just as accepting of the situation as the day he heard about it. He assured Stephanie and Chris that he would still be there for them, and he even offered to be an ear to talk to for us, since dad was still in his way about Rita and I being together. I will admit, the sleeping arrangements did get a little “dysfunctional” at times and it was switched up to girls being in one room and boys being in the other, but even that became a thing when the girls told Jim they’d done stuff too. He still didn’t judge, he actually make a little joke out of it, threw his hands in the air in defeat and told us to figure it out, but threw in the “I’m trusting you on this” speech to give us a guilty conscience about doing anything.

Stephanie and Chris from what I know told Jim everything, going as far back to their first encounter with each other, and he sat and listened to everything they had to say. They told him how it was just a physical thing for the longest time, and that no feelings were there whatsoever, but over time things started to change, and they realized it was more than physical. They told him that ever since they started hanging around us, they started to see their relationship differently, even before they found out about us, simply because how close we are on account of the twin thing. They said seeing how we felt about each other answered a lot of questions they had lingering about each other, and while we’re not the reason they escalated from just being friends with benefits, to being lovers and friends, we played a big part in their transition. Even after hearing all this, Jim still had no ill feelings about anything.

Jim being so cool about it both put us at ease since we were staying at his house, and made us worry that much more because I didn’t know how much longer we’d have to be here. We didn’t know if dad would ever come around. We haven’t heard a word from him since the last time he was here. Usually we’d hear something, whether it’d be an angry rant or him trying to come by and take Rita back to the house, but for the past week, nothing. Mom said he’s been closed off from her and Aunt Lisa too; not wanting to do anything once he got home from work, which he now spent and extra four hours a day at according to mom. I hated to think that it came to this. I wouldn’t let myself believe that this was how it was gonna be from now on. I tried to make myself think it was something else he was going through, but I couldn’t lie to myself. Dad was never gonna accept us. This was how it’s gonna be, and we’d have to deal with it.
I stirred my now soggy Corn Pops as Rita washed up the little dishes we used and what was left from last night’s dinner. My phone rang and because I was in my little daydream state I almost missed it, but I caught it just in time and picked it up with mom on the other end.

“Hey mom, good morning,” I said.

“Hi honey, how are things going over there? How’s your sister doing?”

“It’s ok, and she’s good. We’ve both been in kind of a funk lately.”

“I thought you might be seeing as your father still hasn’t made an attempt to talk to you.”

“I kinda knew it was gonna happen, but I guess I still wasn’t ready for it.”

“Is that mom?” Rita jumped in. “Let me see, I need to talk to her real quick.”

I handed her the phone and went back to my soggy cereal, which by now had started to disintegrate into the milk. I got up and poured it out while Rita talked to mom about some woman thing that I tried my hardest to tune out. While she was still down about the whole dad thing, she at least perked up for a second as she talked to mom, hopping on the counter and swinging her legs back and forth. With nothing to do I just sat there. I couldn’t even think of anything to think about. I wanted to know what was going on at the house. Dad had to show something, anything that he was leaning some sort of way about the whole thing. I couldn’t try guessing anymore I had to find out, and I had to find out from mom, because there’s no way in hell I’d be getting back in the house, or Rita for that matter.

“Here you go, let me know if she says anything about dad. I’m gonna go put our clothes in the wash before everybody else jumps it for the day,” Rita said giving me back my phone.

“Oh mom I’m back. So yeah, I knew it was gonna happen, I just wasn’t ready for it.”

“Who’s ever ready to cut ties with their parents? I know I wasn’t,” mom said.

“You never really said what happened with you and grandma and grandpa.”

“It was a long time ago. You were still a kid when the whole thing happened, but you were old enough to notice that they weren’t coming around anymore. Now’s not the best time to get into that story, so long story short, I had to make a choice, and I chose my kids.”

“Don’t you miss talking to grandma though? You guys were best friends.”

“All the time, but a best friend wouldn’t give you an ultimatum like that. Mother or not, there’s no way I’d pick her over my kids, no mother in her right mind would.”

“Remind me to ask you what happened later on down the road, but first I still need some help with this situation. So going off what happened with you and grandma, we’re supposed to pick each other and forget about you two for the rest of our lives?”

“It might not happen quite like that, but you will have to make a tough decision soon, the both of you. This is the only time I’ve ever seen your father this way in the twenty plus years I’ve known him, so I don’t know what to make of this. The only news I have is the bad news you already know, that once he’s made up his mind about something there’s no changing it.”

“Mom there has to be something. We can’t just phase you guys out like that!”

“I for one won’t be phased out. If you can’t come to me I’ll come to you two. We’ll have holidays, weekends, and some random drop-ins. I know Lisa won’t let herself be phased out either. Plus with all this technology there’s Skype, FaceTime, Snapchat and all that other stuff.”

“After being around each other our entire lives, I don’t think Skype will cut it.”

“Some days we won’t have a choice, might as well get ready for it now, unless your father wakes up one day and decides to be ok with everything, which is a long shot.”

“Way beyond long shot. He had a point though the night everybody was here. We all made him seem like the crazy one for thinking what we’re doing is ok when anyone outside the house would condemn us in a second. I think that’s what set him off the most.”

“We probably could’ve agreed with him on some things, yeah, but we we’re supporting your happiness. Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t doing the right thing.”

“You stole that from that one movie with Samuel Jackson in it, I remember that line.”

“Yeah well good luck figuring out which movie. He’s been in everything since 1987.”

We shared a laugh and for a brief moment forgot about the whole mess we were talking about, but then just like that the laughter stopped and reality set back in, everything’s still a mess.

“Ok well I won’t hold you up anymore. I know you must have a million things to do,” I said.

“I’m never too busy to talk to my babies, you two remember that.”

“We will. If anything changes, even if it’s the slightest thing, can you let us know?”

“If anything happens I’ll call you as soon as it does, I promise.”

“Ok mom, talk to you later. You know what, can we meet somewhere later? At Mikey’s pizza? Dad is gonna be at work but it’s still risky going there. Can you meet us, you and Aunt Lisa?”

“I think we can arrange that. I’ll call Lisa and let her know. When did you wanna go?”

“Ummm, around, in like an hour and a half. We’re out of clean clothes.”

“That’s ok. It’ll give Lisa enough time to get here. We’ll see you both there.”

I hung up the phone and went back upstairs to Chris’ room, which was empty on account of him being in Stephanie’s room. I turned on the TV and laid back, trying to will myself to take a nap so I wouldn’t have to think about anything. It didn’t work. In fact, I did the exact opposite. No matter what angle I looked at it from there was no solution where everybody wins. It reminded me of that movie The Butterfly Effect where Ashton Kutcher’s character couldn’t win no matter what page he read, except when he figured it out at the end, but would we have to do that same thing? Questions like this were why I was trying to take a nap. The door creaked open and Rita came in and saw me laying there deep in thought. She didn’t say anything, she just came in, laid down next to me, put my arm around her and lay her head on my chest. I hugged her back and lay there with her for what seemed like hours, but was probably ten minutes.

“What did mom say?” Rita asked finally breaking the silence.

“Nothing good. She and Aunt Lisa are gonna meet us at Mikey’s in a little bit.”

“What’s a little bit? Shouldn’t we be getting up and going then?”

“No not now, we still have upwards of an hour before we have to go.”

“Oh, ok. You still think we should go to Ashley’s and stay?”

“At this point, I don’t know. The whole reason for doing that was so dad wouldn’t come over and make a scene, but he hasn’t shown his face in a week, so that cancels it out.”

“It does feel like we’re overstaying our welcome like you said before.”

“Yeah that was the other thing. They may not show it but us being here so long has to bother them somehow. They can’t be as free as they would be if we weren’t here.”

“So is that a yes or no for Ashley’s? It sounds like we’re still at a standstill.”

“I still don’t know. We could let mom and Aunt Lisa decide for us when we talk to them later?”

“I’m ok with that. She’s probably been dying to get us alone again anyways.”

“Well you more than me. I was just there for show last time. She knows we’re a package deal.”

“Show? Her face was inches away from your balls! You basically came on her! For someone who needs to get used to guys again she got awfully close to you in no time.”

“It’s Ashley. She’s unpredictable. We used to be like that, actually we still kinda are.”

“Remember the time at the movie theatre when that lady was trying to get in the stall?”

“That was funny. Remember in the dressing room with all those people walking by?”

“Neither one of those beat the time we were at Cedar Point in the woods.”

I sighed. “Things were much simpler then. Why can’t we go back to any of those times.”

Before Rita could answer Jim and Marie knocked on the door and pushed it the rest of the way open. They were dressed like they were about to go on a hiking trip.

“Oh, Chris and Stephanie are in her room laying the same way. This is gonna take a little more getting used to,” Jim said. “Anyways, we’re headed out to the woods to go canoeing, we’d invite you but we know how you kids are about nature and stuff. We’ll be back around dinnertime with some takeout Chinese so don’t get too full.”

“Ok. We’re getting pizza at Mikey’s but it’ll be digested long before dinner,” Rita said.

“If you all go anywhere make sure you lock up the house, and make sure everything is off and cleaned up. I don’t plan on coming back and doing anything but eating,” Marie said.

“We will. Have a nice time, and wear waterproof makeup and a hair net.”

“I’m going butch today. It won’t be any fun if I’m constantly worrying about looking pretty.”

“That actually kinda sounds fun. We might have to come with you next time,” I said.

“Really? I’ll hold you to that. Ok we’re leaving, just wanted to let you guys know. Try not to destroy the house while we’re gone, and if you do, only destroy Marie’s stuff,” Jim laughed and immediately received a punch in the arm. “What! You have two of everything, you won’t miss it! Ok, we’re really leaving now. Be good. THAT GOES FOR YOU TWO IN THERE TOO!”

“WE GOT IT DAD! THIS ISNT OUR FIRST TIME IN THE HOUSE ALONE YOU KNOW!” Chris yelled.

“IT IS UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

They left downstairs and out the door in a matter of seconds, and it only took that long for us to hear moaning noises coming from Stephanie’s room. We went to see exactly what was going on and wasn’t surprised to see Stephanie laid out on the bed with Chris’ head between her legs.

“Yeah, that only took, half a second after they were out the door?” Rita joked.

“We’ve been waiting on them to leave all morning. We had to pass up canoeing just to be able to get some, we love canoeing! We’re taking advantage of every second they’re gone, well more like Chris is taking advantage of every second, but I’m not arguing,” Steph said.

“You were so anxious you couldn’t even get her panties all the way off? You just hiked them to the side and dove right in without a life jacket huh?” I teased.

“Don’t give me that Randy I’ve seen you do much worse,” Chris said back.

“When? If I did there’s no way you should know about it, so either Rita spilled all the details, which I don’t think happened, or you were spying on us. Peeping ass tom ass voyeur ass…”

“Well you’re watching us now so we’re even. Are you two just gonna stand there?”

“For the first time in probably ever, we don’t feel like doing anything,” Rita said.

That comment was enough for Stephanie to turn to us with her mouth wide open and Chris lift his head from between Stephanie’s legs. They made the moment even more awkward by not saying anything. They just looked at us with those same expressions on their face.

“Ummm, if I recall correctly, you two were handling some business,” Rita said.

“What do you mean you don’t feel like doing anything? Is something wrong?” Stephanie asked.
“Physically, no, every other possible way, yes. It’s hard to think about sex when everything else is coming down around you because of one little situation you can’t control.”

“Man. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was ‘stop having sex’ bad,” Chris said.

“Nothing’s ever gotten this bad before. No matter what we choose to do we lose something. You don’t have to let us stop you, you can go back to fucking each other,” I said to Chris as he kept rubbing Stephanie’s pussy while we were talking.

“Well as long as you don’t care,” Chris replied as he pulled off Stephanie’s panties and pulled her to his face by her legs. “Like we said, we’ve been waiting.
We watched as Chris gobbled her up like he was eating Thanksgiving dinner. Stephanie couldn’t keep her body from shaking as he no doubt kept teasing her clit. She ran her hands across the bed for anything to grab but couldn’t find anything, so she planted them both firmly on the back of his head. Whenever he came up for air, she was right there to send him back under.

“Oh my fucking god Chris! You got so good at eating my pussy! Seriously guys, this doesn’t do anything for you? I feel like I’m gonna cum on his face any second!” Stephanie moaned.

“Seeing him eat you out is definitely making me horny, but then I start thinking about other stuff, and it goes away. It’s been happening for the last week,” Rita said.

“Ugh, yeah Chris right there right there! Whenever you start to think about other stuff just, ugh, think about something like this right here, but imagine, oh god! Imagine Randy giving you one of those body rocking, toe curling, mind blowing orgasms we know he’s good for, FUCK!”

Chris picked his head up. “It’s worth a shot. Your parents aren’t here to get mad so…”

“Don’t stop right when I’m nearing an orgasm, that’s the matter with you?” Stephanie whined as she pushed Chris’ head back down. “Now you have to build it back up!”

“Yeah seriously Chris, you don’t do that. But yeah, it’s to the point where I’d rather dad be mad and talking to us than this situation now. You dad is completely fine with it. You basically just have to not let him see it. Our dad doesn’t even wanna SEE us,” I said.

“It could be my scrambled brain talking, but maybe this is what everybody needs, your dad time to process everything, and you guys to stay close. If you let this affect you, yeah baby right there, keep doing that, push your fingers inside me! If you let this affect you now, it’ll keep on popping up down the line and ruin your moods plenty more times, that’s it baby!”

I paused for a moment to try and search for a message in Stephanie’s statement. “Somewhere in there something made sense, but I can’t figure out what,” I said.

“I get what she’s trying to say, and she’s right. We can’t let it bother us too much or…”

“FUCK! I’M GONNA CUM! IF YOU STOP NOW I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” Stephanie screamed.

“Yeah. We can’t let it bother us or…”

“OH GOD! I’M CUMMING! OH FUCK YES! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!”

“Wecantletitbotherustoomuchorwe’llnevergetoverit!” Rita rushed it in one breath.

When I was done laughing at Rita I looked over at Stephanie and Chris post orgasm. Stephanie had finally released her grip on Chris’ head but she was still jittery as Chris kneeled over her. She pulled him down and stuck her tongue right into his mouth, wrapping her legs around him as he struggled trying to get his pants off.

“So I take it you guys aren’t anywhere close to being done?” I asked.

“Not even in the same ball park. I’m about to fuck the shit out of her,” Chris said.

“Oooh fuck Chris! you got me tingling all over again,” Stephanie said.

“You’re gonna be more than tingling when I’m done,” he said as he threw the rest of his clothes off while keeping serious direct eye contact with Stephanie.

Steph threw her shirt over her head and rubbed her pussy. “She’s all yours.”

He wasted no time pinning his body to hers and pushing his cock into her, letting out what sounded out a long overdue groan from his and an on top of the world moan from her.

“So I guess we’re no longer here? You two want some privacy,” Rita asked sarcastically.

“Pull up a chair or join in, whatever you wanna do, but we’re not stopping,” Chris said as he started pounding furiously into Stephanie to her complete enjoyment.

“As much as I hate to turn down an invitation like that, we have to be somewhere in a little bit, but you can set up a camera and record this for us later,” Rita said.

“Nope, ugh, if you leave, you miss out, fuck yeah Chris take that pussy!” Stephanie moaned.

“We can go and come back. Odds are as wound up as they’ve been we’ll come back and they’ll still be fucking just as hard as they are now,” I said.

“True, unless Jim and Marie walk in on them first, but then again they’re cool with it, so yeah. We should be back in somewhere around two hours, don’t fuck each other to death,” Rita said.

“I make no promises. I’m on auto-pilot, whatever happens, happens,” Chris said.

We glanced back one more time before we headed out the door. Stephanie pushed Chris on his back and slid on top of him just as smooth as she slid his cock back into her pussy. They could both be porn stars the way the fucked each other without caring who was watching, or maybe it was the fact that it was us watching that riled them up even more, who knows.

“FUCK THAT’S SO GOOD! I thought you guys were leaving?” Steph said leaning around.

“We are, just getting one last little peek in before we left. Ok, now we can go,” I said.

“For somebody who was supposed to leave a long time ago you’re taking your sweet ass time getting out the door. Something distracting you?” Chris joked.

“Ok don’t get cocky, no pun intended. We’re gone for real now. We need to use your car since we don’t have ours here, where are the keys?” Rita asked.

“In my room in the box next to the Xbox. If you kill the gas fill it back up please thank you.”

“Yeah yeah just makes sure you don’t stop in the middle of an orgasm again. we’ll be back.”

We went and grabbed the keys and headed out the door to meet mom and Aunt Lisa on our side of town. The drive there was quicker than usual, probably because we caught almost every green light on the way there. It was also quieter than usual, we basically said nothing the whole way there, but I knew we were thinking about any and everything, the look of worry that appeared on her face after we left the house in a semi good mood confirmed that. We pulled up to Mikey’s a short time later and saw mom’s car sitting in the parking lot, so we knew at least she was here. We went in and both she and Aunt Lisa were there sitting in the back corner away from the windows, nowhere near our usual seats.

“Hey mom, hey Aunt Lisa,” Rita and I said as we hugged them both. “Been here long?”

“We just got here actually. Your father came home early and I had to wait for Lisa to get to the house so your father wouldn’t suspect anything,” mom said.

“Sorry I live an hour away. I don’t need another speeding ticket in my life,” Aunt Lisa joked.

“Please like it actually stuck. With those cannons no way you got a ticket.”

“Two of those times I had a woman officer, and not the female friendly kind.”

“How many tickets do you have? You said that like you have a glovebox full,” I said.

“Like seven. What can I say, I like to go fast, like that Ricky Bobby movie.”

Did you guys order anything yet? And that movie is Talladega Nights Aunt Lisa,” Rita said.

“Yeah we got you two a pepperoni sausage and we’ll split a supreme. So how’s it going over there? Everybody getting along? They still treating you like one of their own?” mom asked.

“Yes we are, and they are, but it feels like we overstayed our welcome, especially me. If we stay there any longer we’re gonna have to start paying rent,” I said.

“If they didn’t want you there, they would’ve told you. After witnessing it for myself Jim doesn’t look like the kind of person who sugarcoats anything,” Aunt Lisa said.

“We’ve been thinking about going to stay with Ashley for a little bit, she basically suggested it, and it’d be nice to let them have their house back for a little bit,” Rita said.

“Ashley? You think that’s a good idea? Your father’s client?” mom asked.

“It protects us from another outburst like before, though he’s probably all yelled out now. He hasn’t even attempted to make any kind of contact with us; call, mail, in person, relay a message, skype, nothing. It’s hard knowing how dad was before all this and knowing how he is now. I can’t help but feel guilty for my part in this,” I said.

“It’s a tough situation for both sides. Technically he is right, what you’re doing is illegal, but you can’t help who you fall in love with. Technically you’re right, no matter what a parent should be there for their children, but this is a big blow to absorb. We’re on an uneven playing field no matter how we look at it, neither team has the advantage over the other,” mom said.

I was a little surprised and pleased on how she used the sports illustration to describe our situation, it helped me make sense of it. “So how do we even the playing field?”

“For the first time in maybe ever, I don’t have an answer. Usually I’d be able to think of something, even something small, but this time, I don’t have the slightest idea what to do.”

“Nothing? Of all the times to run out of ideas, this is the time you pick?” Rita asked.

“I know honey, I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help but this is a situation I never thought I’d be in, I never planned on having an argument for something like this.”

“I know, it’s not your fault. I was just surprised that’s all. What about you Aunt Lisa? You know anything you think might work? I don’t care how small of an idea it is, anything helps.”

“I wish I did, but I’m just as lost as your mother. I threw out any arguments I had the nights you got into it with your dad, and he shot everything I said down,” Aunt Lisa said.

The waiter brought over our pizzas just as I was about to figure out something to say. I was a little hungry since I wasn’t in the mood to eat this morning, and having something to nourish me (even if it is pizza) might help stir some ideas around in my head. We all at a slice (some of us faster than others) and tried to draw up any new ideas that could help us.

“So mom in the last week, did dad’s behavior change at all? Did he calm down, change up his routine, start up any new hobbies, anything to show he’s going back to normal?” Rita asked.

“No, nothing, and I’ve been watching his closely. Every morning since a week ago he gets up, showers, kisses me and leaves, nothing else. When he gets back from work he either finishes up whatever paperwork he has left over or he goes out to the garage. I went out there a couple times to see if I could catch him doing anything, all I could say is the garage couldn’t be cleaner. It looks like he tore down the other one and built a brand new one, which isn’t a good sign.”

“What? Why not? He’s occupying his mind isn’t that a good thing?” I asked.

“He’s TOO occupied. He’s trying to pretend like the situation with you isn’t happening by forcing his mind on other stuff, and cleaning when you’re angry is a dead giveaway.”

“So no matter how we look at it there’s bad news on top of bad news, great.”

“It can’t last forever. Eventually it has to wear off,” Aunt Lisa said.

“By the time that happens we’ll be the same age as you two, probably older. It’s starting to look like we’ll never get to go home. I don’t even remember what my room looks like anymore.”

“We’re focusing too much on the negative. Let’s start looking at the positive.”

“The what? What from all this can we take away as positive? I’m confused.”

“Well for one you finally held your ground and stood up to your father. You left everything material he bought you behind which shows you can be independent, and most important, you let everyone know that you put Rita above everything else. I’d say that’s pretty positive.”

“Yeah, it looks nice on paper, but where has it gotten us? Nowhere. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you pointing out that stuff, especially the Rita part, but it just feels like we’re having the same conversations over and over with no success while dad is at home giving the garage a Martha Stewart/Bob Vila makeover.
He’s not even thinking about us!”

“I do have a suggestion that might work, might not work,” mom said.

“What is it? If we haven’t done it already it’s worth a shot.”

“Why not instead of waiting for your father to come to you, you go to him? Take every emotion you feel right now and go to him with it. You’re confused as to why he can’t accept you. Explain it to each other until you hit a common point. You’re angry at the way he’s been treating you lately, confront him about it. You feel sorry about what you’re putting him through, as I know he does but just won’t say it, get those emotions off your chest. He doesn’t understand why you two need to be together, make him understand.”

I had a ting of familiarity about what mom said. “Confusion, anger, sorrow, understanding. I had a dream about those exact four emotions not too long ago.”

“A dream? How did the dream go? Did you figure out what to do?”

“Yeah I did, but that was a life or death situation, the terms were a little different.”

“Then this should be easier. You just have to convince one man to see things from your view.”

“Mom we tried all this stuff before, it just won’t work. Dad put up a wall in his head and if it has anything to do with me and Randy being together it doesn’t get through,” Rita said.

My phone rang from my pocket. I had it on vibrate and pulled it out to see Ashley calling.

“Hey Ashley. I was gonna call a little later. Can me and Rita come over in a little bit?”

“Yeah I was just about to ask you the same thing. Can you come in the next half hour?”

“Umm, yeah we can do that. We’re just finishing up here. See you in a little bit.”

“Ok see you when you get here. Don’t be making me wait and stuff.”

I hung up the phone with a smirk to see everyone staring at me. “She said we can come over. She’s gonna try to convince us to stay. She’s been trying to for the longest.”

“Don’t make any decisions yet. She may have gone legit but that doesn’t mean you still have to do everything right away. She still has to earn full trust, that takes time,” Aunt Lisa said.

“Oh yeah that just reminded me, did dad say anything else about you two? About your secret past times he found about? Anything that could work for us?” Rita asked.

“Nothing new really. I already told you how he let it go because he thinks it happened a long time ago and we were experimenting. He hasn’t brought it up again, like it never happened. He’s just focused on you two, and has been since the start of this,” mom replied.

The waiter brought the check over and while we offered to pay for our half, mom refused it. She paid the bill and Aunt Lisa left the tip and took what was left of their pizza and packed it to go. We didn’t have anything left over of course because we’re fat like that.

“At some point, something is gonna have to give, whether it be you or him,” mom said.

“Well it’s gonna have to be him,” Rita said. “We tried mom, countless times to talk to dad, and every time we get shut out and end up going around in a circle for a week, it even happened just now! If he wants to talk to us, he knows where to find us, I’m done trying.”

“Rita you don’t really mean that do you? I know you’re pissed off and all but…”

“Yeah mom, I do. We did everything dad wanted and more, and he won’t even talk to us. Why should we keep putting in all this effort if it’s gonna be for not?

You said at some point we had to make a stand, well I’m making it, it’s just not the one I hoped it’d be.”

“She’s right mom, enough is enough. He knows where to find us,” I added.

“Am I telling him this or is he figuring this out on his own?”

“Tell him. We don’t want him to say we tried to low blow him in any way. Make sure he knows. He’ll come and talk to us or he won’t, the ball is in his court now.”

“Are you staying at Ashley’s or are you going back to the Wilson’s?”

“We’re just going to visit Ashley. We’re still staying at the Wilson’s for now.”

“Ok we’ll meet here again tomorrow or the day after if we can’t make it. Get over here and give me and your aunt a hug, that pizza wasn’t completely free.”

We hugged them both and we left the pizza shop to head to the car. Though it was hard to say, it needed to be said. We weren’t gonna sit around anymore hoping dad would come around, either he would or he wouldn’t, but we weren’t losing anymore sleep over it.

“No.”

“No what?” Rita asked.

“Dad shouldn’t hear from mom and Aunt Lisa about our ultimatum, he should hear it from us.”

“But he won’t meet us anywhere. He won’t talk to us. How are we gonna tell him?”

“Mom said he came home early right? Let’s go tell him ourselves.”

“We just walk in and tell him accept us or we’re leaving?”

“Yep. This is our last stand. We’ve been having this runaround argument for too long Rita. It’s time to make a choice. Either he accepts us or we have to go, simple as that.”

“Are you ready to hear something you don’t wanna hear?”

“You’re never ready to tell your parents that you’re moving on without them, but if it comes to that then it comes to that. We can’t keep doing this over and over.”
Rita took a breath, nodded her head, and stood up. “Ok, I’m with you, let’s go.”

We got in the car and made a left turn to our house instead of a right turn to Ashley’s and in no time pulled up to our house. Our car was parked on the street to make room for mom, dad, and Aunt Lisa’s car in the driveway so we parked behind it and got out and stood in front of the house. The more I stood there, the more I wanted to back out, but I already made too big of a show by this point, so backing out wasn’t an option.

“Last chance Randy, are you sure you wanna go through with this?” Rita asked.

“As long as our keys still work, we’re going in. No turning back now.”

We walked up to the front door and tried our key, it still worked, so we took a breath, turned the knob, and went in. it felt weird standing there, like we haven’t been there in ages. The house I grew up in seemed like a distant memory; it didn’t even feel like I belonged there. We didn’t get a chance to stand there for too long because mom heard the door open and made her way to the living room from the kitchen and was surprised to see us standing there.

“What are you two doing here? You know if your father sees you…”

“We know, that’s why we’re here. We decided to tell him ourselves, we wanted him to hear it from our mouths. You didn’t tell him yet did you?” I asked.

“No, I was working up to it. Are you sure you wanna do this? He’s not gonna be open to reason, especially since you came back here to do it.”

“We’re sure. No more waiting, no more jumping through hoops. We’re getting this over now.”

“Anna who’s at the door?” dad asked as he descended down the stairs. “We’re not expecting anybody until… why in the hell are you two here?”

“We’re here to end this dad, one way or another. We can’t keep worrying ourselves stupid wondering if you’re ever gonna accept us, so we came over with an ultimatum. Either you find some kind of way to deal with what we have, or we’re leaving,” I said.

Dad chuckled in a sarcastic way. “So let me get this straight. You show up here, after I told you not to, give ME an ultimatum, and threaten me with leaving? You must be out of your mind to come in here and think you can get away with something like that!”

“Dad we’re serious, we’re tired of the waiting game, we need an answer,” Rita said.

“Oh YOU need an answer! So we’re on your time now! Just throw out the fact that I’m YOUR father! You don’t get to come in here and make demands!”

“Dad please! We just wanna know! Tell us something, anything, but we can’t keep worrying every single day while you go on not even thinking about it!”

“Ok, fine, you wanna know what I think, I’ll tell you. As long as you’re doing, whatever this is you wanna call it, I can’t deal with you.”

“MIKE!” mom yelled reminding us she was still standing there.

“I can’t do it Anna, I can’t knowingly support this. They’re committing incest, it’s illegal, there’s no way around it. Until you figure out what you’re doing is wrong
and break it off I won’t have anything to do with you. You wanted to know what I thought, there, that’s what I think.”

“So just like that, we’re not your kids anymore?” I asked.

He just stood there staring at us, not saying a word.

“Dad! You just swore us off that easy like it wasn’t even a hard decision to make?” Rita asked.

“This was not an easy decision! I thought about this long and hard, but I always came back to the same thing. I will not support this relationship, I will not!”

“So then yeah, you just swore off your kids. And nothing will change your mind?” I asked.

“Nothing short of a cold day in hell or a miracle. You’ll always be my kids, but until you get your heads right and figure out what you’re doing is wrong, I just can’t…”

Everybody stood there, not knowing what to say. It didn’t worked out like I planned, but we went in for an answer, and we got it, I just didn’t expect it to hit so hard.

“Ok. It that’s the way you feel, then it’s time for us to leave,” I said.

“Randy wait, Mike you fix this! There’s no way you can…”

“No mom it’s ok, you know how he is, once his mind is set there’s no changing it. at least it’s all cleared up now, he will never accept us as long as there’s an ‘us’ and there will always be an us, so that means it’s time for us to go. Goodbye mom, goodbye sir.”

“Hold on a second Randy,” Rita said. “Dad, are you sure? Are you absolutely sure this is what you wanna do? We’re still your kids,” she said trying to hold it together.

“I said what I said and I meant it. I can’t support this, not now, not ever.”

She hung her head. “I see. Then I guess this really is our cue to leave. “Goodbye mom, goodbye dad. I hope you come around. Life is too short for something like this.”

We both hugged mom as he stood there holding his ground. We headed to the door and looked back one more time just to see if we could catch him slipping, nope, still had that same look. We left knowing things would never be the same again, but at least we finally had an answer.

“Well like you said, at least now we know so we can move on,” Rita said.

“Yeah. It’s gonna be a whole lot harder doing it than it is saying it though,” I responded.

I started the car and drove off, trying to get away from the house as soon as possible. We managed to overcome almost all major obstacles when it came to us, but right when we needed it the most we ran out of magic. We had to find a way to pull it together and get past this. Dad made it clear how he felt, and that it would stay that way. He closed the door on any attempt to change his mind; it was up to us to find another door to open in its place.

——————————————-

A few days passed since we put our foot down about dad, and sadly, just as we thought, nothing changed. Mom said he took what we said with a grain of salt and went about his day the same as he has been for the last week and a half. Even though we knew it was coming, it still hurt. Our dad couldn’t see past his personal problems and be there for his kids. I wanted to be more than mad at him, but I couldn’t be. Up until this point he’s been the perfect dad; always there, always spending time with us, giving us whatever we needed, even at his own sacrifice. Though it’s reasonable as to why we don’t have his support here, as a parent you should give it, if it’s what’s best for your kids, and Rita is what’s best for me, and I her.

We talked to Ashley that day about staying at her place for a couple days. She was all in agreement but we still needed a few days to think about it, so we told her we’d come by today again and let her know what’s going on. We were headed there, well at least she had the intentions of taking us there, but once Rita’s hand slid onto my crotch while she was driving I knew we’d end up taking a detour, and that’s exactly what we did, right into one of those parking lot structure things. Hopefully it was the ones that didn’t have cameras that zoomed in on every car that came in because at that point I don’t think Rita cared too much about it, which could be determined by how fast she hopped into my lap once the car was parked.

“I take it you’re over the not being able to have sex thing then huh?” I asked.

“I was done yesterday, but we couldn’t get a moment to ourselves without someone walking into the room, that’s why I said we’d go back to Ashley’s. I knew we could squeeze something in before we got to her house, and the pun was definitely intended on that.”

She had on a skirt and I had on some simple basketball shorts, so we had no trouble getting our clothes off. We wasted no time on foreplay; she just ripped my pants down to my ankles and pulled her panties all the way off. She didn’t even bother taking her skirt off, she just lifted it and engulfed my cock with her pussy in one motion.

“Ooooooh fuck! The first time back in is always the best!” Rita moaned.

We leaned the seat back a little so we’d be at an angle and still have more room to maneuver. Steph and Chris’ car had a lot of space in it, but the leather seats I could tell were going to be a hassle. It was hot, and even though we had the a/c on, my legs were still kinda sticking to the leather. The uncomfortable feeling was pushed from my head when Rita slowly lifted herself off my cock and just as slowly let herself glide back down on it. Her pussy was gripping me so tight I didn’t think I’d ever be able to slide out of her. She didn’t bother taking off her shirt or anything since we were too focused on getting our bottoms out the way, but she basically ripped mine off and kissed around my chest as I squeezed her tits through her shirt, which after feeling on her bare tits for so long felt a little off, but not enough to deter me or anything, plus the nipples poking through her shirt made for a nice visual that I wasn’t used to. Rita riding me with as much effort as she was felt great and all, but with the a/c running, the heat from our bodies going, and me sticking to the seats, it made for a somewhat uncomfortable position, so I pushed her into the back seat and climbed on top of her, much much better.

“Come on baby, fuck me! We don’t have a lot of time as it is!” Rita said.

“Ashley probably knows what we’re doing anyway, we have plenty of time.”

I shoved my cock back inside her and she wrapped her legs around me to hold me into her. It was a little cramped but it wasn’t too bad, it was a lot better than the front seat so I had better leverage to fuck her, that and she kept kissing my neck and cheek begging me to.

“That’s it, keep fucking me Randy, keep fucking this pussy!”

“You missed this didn’t you baby, me sliding my cock in and out of you like this?”

“Yes! I missed it so much! Nobody will ever fuck me the way you do!”

“You’re damn right. This is my pussy, you hear me? This is my pussy!”

“It’s your pussy Randy, it’s your pussy! It’ll always be your pussy I promise!”

She tried to hook her legs around me but I stopped her. If she did that I wouldn’t be able to thrust into her as hard or as deep as I wanted, so I stopped that before it started. She instead cradled my neck and bit onto my neck the more I sped up, the harder the thrust, the harder the bite, and I was fucking her pretty hard, so I know she definitely left a mark on me. I gripped under her back so I could push her body into me at the same time I pushed into her to give her the hardest fuck possible in the car we were in, which made it a little harder, but worth it.

“I’m gonna cum! Don’t stop! Don’t stop Randy please don’t stop!” Rita groaned.

I was in a good enough position, I hadn’t caught a cramp yet, and I wasn’t going to cum yet myself, so I was able to keep the pace I was at until she came as long as it didn’t take her years to do it. She wrapped her legs around me and dug her nails into my back, but this time there was no getting out of it. When a girl cums, if she wants to punch you in the face, let it happen.

“I’m cumming Randy! Keep going! I’m cumming! Oh my god! I’m cumming!”

Her grip on me intensified ten times over as I once again channeled her inner workings to release their fluids to the outside world, but I didn’t think Stephanie and Chris would appreciate the location for this unveiling. Good thing they were leather seats. I kept a steady pace as she came under me, slowly letting spurts of cum flow from her pussy each time I withdrew from her. She was glued to the seat with no control over her body and I was still pumping away inside her through her orgasm. With the seats being leather she had a pool of liquid under her and dropped into the seats whenever we pushed down too far, which meant Stephanie and Chris weren’t gonna be too happy with us.

“That’s it, cum all over my cock Rita, let it all out,” I whispered into her ear.

Her grip began to weaken as she neared the end of her orgasm, and I took the opportunity to unlock her legs so I could go back to giving her full thrusts and prolong her orgasm for as long as I could. I wasn’t in any danger of cumming yet and I still had the energy, so I figured why not, we’re already here, nobody’s around, I might as well fuck her for at least a few more orgasms.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

I froze. With Rita’s current state I don’t think she heard what sounded like something metal tapping against the window, but I heard it, and to be honest it freaked me the hell out. There was nothing I could do at this point. I was ass naked with my cock buried in my sister who was still suffering (for lack of a better word) from and orgasm at that second. Whoever it was tapped the glass again after I failed to look up the first time, and noticing I had no other choice, I lifted my head up to see who it was, which turned out to be a security guard, which wasn’t so bad, but they still kinda had some power so I had to cooperate. I reached for some clothes from the front seat, anything that could cover me and Rita and slowly rolled the window down.

“Umm, kid, what the hell are you doing? I mean I know what you’re doing, but what are you doing? You do know this is a public lot with cameras right?” the guard said.

“Uhh, we didn’t know, we didn’t see any cameras so we thought it was ok,” I responded.

“That’s the idea. You’re not supposed to know they’re there.”

“Well you just told me so it kinda defeated the purpose doesn’t it?”

“I told you because the other guards are watching you on their monitors right now and passing it through all the walkies. By now everyone knows what you’re doing here.”

Did not expect that. If they got our faces on camera we’re fucked. I was panicking inside but I had to stay cool, he didn’t know who we were and he wasn’t yelling so I guess that was a good sign. “Shit. Well so much for privacy. Any chance this won’t end up on the internet? I don’t need my mother seeing me on YouTube or any other social medias.”

“Relax. They aren’t high end cameras, and even if they were we couldn’t put it on the internet without a big lawsuit following, so you’re safe, unless someone recorded it with their phone.”

“Yeah uh thanks, I think it’s time to leave before someone else shows up.”

“You better hurry up. Calls are already coming in on the walkie about meeting up here.”

Even through that whole conversation Rita still didn’t move. Since she was still pretty much dressed I flipped her skirt down and got dressed as fast as I could and booked it out of there. I was driving around for a full five minutes before Rita even sat up in the seat.

“Why’d you leave? We weren’t done!”

“Umm yes we were. We put on a show for the whole security staff in that parking garage. I can’t believe you didn’t hear any of that.”

“Put on a show? Oh my god did they see our faces? Are we on camera?”

“The one guy said the cameras were crap, but that’s what he said. He could be telling the truth, he could be lying, but they can’t do anything with it legally anyway so we’re good.”

“I can’t believe a bunch of strangers was watching us have sex. Sounds kinda exciting.”

“What? How do you go from scared to horny again in less than fifteen seconds?”

“Well they can’t do anything, and they don’t know who we are, so why not?”

“Unbelievable. Only you. I’ll call Ashley and let her know we’re on the way.”

I pulled up the contacts and dialed her and got through on the last ring and I put her on speakerphone. With all the noise in the background it didn’t sound like he was at home. She probably got tired of waiting on us and left to go do something else.

“So I take it you took a detour on the way to my house right?” Ashley asked.

“Something like that, something came up and we had to take care of it.”

“I bet something came up, and Rita probably had a blast putting it back down.”

“I will either confirm or deny that statement. I’ll just nod my head and mumble.”

“That’s the same thing as agreeing. Well anyways I’m not at home, my dad needed me to come to where he is, so can you come over tomorrow instead?”

“I guess. All this rescheduling might just be a sign for us not to come over.”

“Or just bad timing. If you didn’t have sex all the time we would’ve already talked and stuff.”

“Hey! Don’t blame sex, we were still coming, or at least I’d still be,” Rita jumped in.

“And there it is. Just come over tomorrow after you fucked the energy out of each other, which if you start around noon means you should show up around for or five? I’m thinking five. Five sounds right, unless you throw in a round two, then seven thirty. Sex sex sex.”

“Ok. Try not to spend tens of thousands of dollars on stuff you won’t even keep just to pass the time until we get there. Money money money,” I retaliated.

“Touché. See you tomorrow, if there’s any time left.”

Before I had the chance to hang up another call came in, but it was a number I didn’t have saved in my phone. I started not to answer it because I don’t like to answer calls from numbers I don’t recognize, but it was local, so I made an exception.

“Uh, yeah hello?”

“Hi, am I speaking with a Mr. Randy Stevens?”

“Yeah this is Randy Stevens, who am I speaking with?”

“This is Officer Jenkins, you met me at the hospital. I’m the one that’s been handling your case. I thought I’d call you directly so I pulled your number from the file.”

In an instant both Rita and I went from joking around to serious. He had to be calling about the guy that shot me, and in my experience, phone calls aren’t usually a good sign.

“Yeah I remember you, is everything ok? Did something go wrong?”

“No no everything is fine, I just wanted to call and give you the good news. The man who shot you has stood trial, and he’s been found guilty on all counts. The jury just decided.”

Both Rita and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. With the whole dad thing we kinda let it slip about the trial. The lawyers told me with all the evidence they had against him I most likely wouldn’t need to testify in court, I guess they were right.

“Where are you? Are you still at the courthouse? Am I allowed down there?”

“I’m still here yes, the downtown Lakeview Courthouse Center outside room 301.”

“Is he still there? You think they’ll let me say something to him?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, you don’t want to…”

“Please, I won’t attack him or anything. I just wanna say a few things and leave, that’s it.”

He was quiet for a second. “You can maybe get a couple minutes, but he’ll be in a jail cell and it’ll be monitored. We won’t be moving him for about another six hours.”

“A few minutes is all I’ll need, thank you, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in half an hour tops.”

“Don’t take 55 to get here, there was a pile up this morning, it might be still backed up.”

“That’s the one I was gonna take too, thanks. We’ll be there in a little bit.”

I hung up and jumped on the next best freeway headed downtown. I was surprised mom didn’t call me to let me know, unless mom doesn’t know yet, which means dad doesn’t know either.

“What are you gonna say to him? How can you even wanna look at him?”

“I have no idea what I’m gonna say, but when I do see him the words will come. You think we should tell mom and dad? This might be something that’ll get him on our side.”

“I don’t know, we’d be forcing to feel guilty for us. Tell him after you talk to this ‘person’. I don’t even wanna look at him, but I don’t wanna miss a chance to stare a hole through his head.”

“Believe me I’m thinking the same thing, but officer Jenkins said people would be there.”

“I don’t care. That’s in case we get too hectic or try to hit him through the bars or something. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna mess with him the best way a woman knows how.”

“Then I feel bad for him. Ok I kinda don’t know where I’m going. Can you use your GPS to get me the rest of the way there? He said they were at Lakeview Courthouse center.”

“I thought guys didn’t like to admit they needed help with directions?”

“I don’t wanna take any chances with this one. I wanna look him in the eyes before they send him upstate. I wanna see if he’s sorry or anything.”

“He won’t be. He didn’t care if you died the night he shot you.”

“Then that changes my whole approach. I’ll just play it by ear when I get there.”

About ten minutes more driving and another fifteen looking for a parking spot and walking to the building we finally got there. We went through the metal detectors and made our way through a couple more checkpoints and got to room 301, where Jenkins was waiting on us.

“Thirty minutes, well a few over, but that’s probably because of the millions of metal detectors and checkpoints you had to go through. Nice to see you,” officer Jenkins said.

“You too. Is he still here?” I asked.

“He’s down in the temporary holding cells. You have a few minutes to talk with him but only a few minutes. I’m only saying this once, turn your phones off, and don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t, I’m just gonna look him in the eyes and swear him off for good.”

“I’m talking to you too Rita. I know how this guy stirs you up. Don’t lose control.”

“I’ll be fine. Randy’s alive and he’s going away, I’ll just let him know he lost,” Rita said.

We followed Officer Jenkins to where the guy who shot me was being held. After a few clearance checkpoints and signing of some papers, Officer Jenkins told us they had him chained to a chair in one of their rooms, ready to talk. We walked in and there he was, Johnny Adams, the guy who almost ended my life, sitting at a table donning an orange jumpsuit with both hands chained to a chair surrounded by four guards in each corner of the room. I couldn’t believe it. he was finally going away. He looked up and Rita and I and laughed as I sat in the chair and Rita stood behind me.

“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you. From what I heard, guilty on all counts,” I said.

He still had a small grin. “The little fucker. I almost didn’t recognize you without the two bullet holes. I don’t think we properly met, I’m Johnny in case you were wondering.”

“I know who you are, and I don’t care, and you’re not Johnny anymore, you’re just a number now, inmate 57735 or whatever they decide to call you.”

“If you don’t care than why are you here? You must care a little.”

“I might be the first person in history to ever do this, but I’m here to thank you.”

He started laughing again. “Wait wait wait, you’re here to thank me? I try to take you out and you come congratulate me? You must be a new brand of stupid.”

“I’m not the one chained to a chair so you tell me. But like I said, as crazy as it sounds, I’m here to thank you. Me getting shot put everything into perspective in a crazy time in my life. You ended a nasty feud, saved two relationships and started a new one without even trying, and in the process got yourself pinched for the crime and other crimes you committed, so all around it was a win-win, well maybe not on your end, but then again you’re crazy enough to think so.”

“That was a nice little speech, not that I was paying attention to most of it but your facial expressions told me enough. All I really heard was the ‘thank you for shooting me’ part, which I’d be happy to do again if you need some more good luck in the future.”

“Thanks, but where you’re going the only weapon you’ll have is the food. Nice try, though.”

“You wouldn’t be so happy if I had another bullet in that gun…”

“Still talking. Well I guess it doesn’t hurt seeing as you’re looking at life with no parole.”

“Am I getting under your skin? Or hers? The funny thing about no parole, is that it tends to get revoked, you know, for good behavior and things like that.”

“Then I have absolutely nothing to worry about seeing as how friendly you are.”

“You’re laughing now. You won’t be a few months from now when I’m in court for appeals.”

“You can’t be that stupid to threaten me in a government building with guards in it, but then again, you do everything backwards anyway so why should this be any different.”

“Whatever man. Get your little gloat in now. I’ve seen worse cases than mine get overturned on appeals, and when that happens, I’ll pay your little girlfriend another visit, and maybe that bitch standing behind you too.”

“HEY YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTH!” I yelled leaning at him before I knew what was happening.

“There he is! There’s that anger I was looking for! Hey bitch, why don’t you come from behind that chair, my hand didn’t get to say goodbye to your face last time we were together.”

“YOU SON OF A…” I said as I started to walk around to his side of the table before Rita held on to me, prompting the guards to all take a step forward and intervene if they needed to.

“That’s exactly what he wants Randy, don’t give that bastard the time of day,” Rita said.

“Ok I think this talk is just about over,” Officer Jenkins said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said sitting back in the chair. “Nice try. I’m not gonna let you get to me. I just have one question then you can get back to whatever life you have left. Was it worth it? You beat up on some girls and shoot me for what? So you won’t look like a punk? Your whole life is gone now. You eat, sleep, shower on someone else’s schedule now, your life isn’t your life anymore. Does this affect you in any way? Do you feel regret for any of this?”

He was silent as he stared at me with his arms crossed. “I thought you said one question. The only regret I have is I didn’t order a banana split while they were on sale.”

I sighed and dropped my head in shame. “I feel sorry for you man, I really do. Prison is the perfect place for you. You should fit right in with all the murderers and rapists. Take a good look. You tried to end me, but I’m still here, and in the process fixed a problem in my life, and I thank you for that, but this is the last time you’ll see me, ever. Enjoy prison. I’m ready officer.”

I got up to leave and turned to walk out the door with Rita on my shoulder.

“Awww what’s this, no goodbye from you babe? Not even a see you later? And here all this time I thought we were friends,” he said to Rita with that smile on his face.

Rita turned to him and walked to the table, putting both of her hands on it like the cops do when they’re interrogating someone. “You aren’t worth me wasting my breath on, but I will say this. When I leave this room, I will never think about you again, I will never mention you, I won’t even say your crappy rip-off of a name. You, are the reason people like me exist, you’re the reason jails exist, you’re the reason this planet has become what it is. If the word appeal so much as gets whispered around your case I will be here bright and early every morning to make sure you stay in whatever hole they throw you in. I will be at every court appearance from here to New York to make sure you never breathe even a little piece of fresh air ever again. Every attempt you make to get out of jail, I will be there to make sure you stay in. You almost took someone very important from me, I’m gonna take everything from you. If I were you I’d enjoy what little freedom you have left, because as long as I have a say in it, and believe me I have a VERY big say in it, you will never live life as a free man again.”

The door opened and we turned to see Ashley walking in. her eyes went straight to Johnny, and she had the same fierce look that Rita had, but hers was more piercing.

“I’m sorry to walk in on you like this, they called me too. I had to be here and say something before he left. Is it ok if I come in?” Ashley asked us and we agreed it was.

“What the fuck is this! Big fucking party! Anybody else coming in? What do you want?”

“I came to watch them drag you away like the useless piece of trash you are.”

“You’ve got some nerve bitch. How many people did you/do you fuck over on a daily basis? If I’m a useless piece of trash then you’re the can they’re tossing me into. You’re just as bad as me, probably worse. At least with me you knew what you were getting.”

“Like a knife to my throat you son of a bitch!” Ashley said slamming her fist on the table.

“That was your fault. If you hadn’t been such a bitch and cooperated it wouldn’t have gone that far. At least I didn’t pretend to be someone’s friend and then stab them in the back. You know all about that don’t you? You probably don’t have one friend you haven’t screwed over some kind of way, if you do, it’s because you haven’t done it yet.”

“Yeah because you know all about me. You don’t know hit about me so don’t pretend you do.”

“I know you’re the reason he almost met his maker. If you weren’t fucking him over so loud I would’ve walked right past you that night without even knowing you were there, but as usual you had to be a loudmouth bitch who had to control everything, and I was sick of it, so it was time to put you in your place. It’s amazing how true colors come out when you’re put in a situation you can’t control. That was probably the first time you said please your whole life.”

Ashley paused and took a breath. “You know what, I’m not gonna let you rattle me. We’ve already come to terms with what happened and put it behind us. The only reason I came here besides to see them haul you away was to thank you.”

“You too? Enough with this thank you shit, I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of dumbasses in my life! Who the fuck thanks a person like me for what I did?”

“If it wasn’t for you I’d probably still be that same nasty person I used to be. I swore off the bitch I used to be and turned my life around for the better, and as much as I hate to give credit to a piece of crap like you, you are the reason it happened.”

“Pot calling the kettle black like a motherfucker. That high and mighty ‘I’m saved’ attitude isn’t fooling anybody. Don’t think because you’ve been on good behavior for a few months you get a free pass on everything you did. You’re still the same bitchy girl you were before, you always will be, it’s just a question of when she’ll be back, and she will be back, I guarantee it.”

“You can say what you want. I know I messed up, and I’m putting in the time to fix it, which is more than I can say for you. Even though I didn’t want to, I did what I came here to do, which is thank you, but don’t forget, you held a knife to my throat. I will do everything in my power to make sure you never see the light of day again.”

“That’s a big statement. You sure you can deliver?” he said with a smile on his face.

“I bet my own freedom I can. Every time you try to file for an appeal, I’m gonna be there, paying whatever it costs no matter how high it is with the tape of you holding me at knifepoint and shooting him, and that’ll be all she wrote.”

“And I’m gonna be right there with her doing the same thing,” Rita said. “Don’t you get it? You’re fucked! You’re gonna die in prison you bastard!”

“Which is more than you deserve, but I take comfort knowing you’re in a cage,” Ashley smiled.

His smile left his face and was replaced by an angry look of defeat. “You must think you’re real smart. Enjoy you’re little moment now, because you won’t in a few months. THIS ISN’T OVER YOU STUPID BITCHES!” he shouted as he lunged at Rita as far as his chains would let him go.

“SIT DOWN!” one if the guards yelled. “THIS VISITS OVER, TIME TO GO.”

Rita didn’t even flinch. “It is over, for you. You can throw that pathetic tantrum all you want, it’s not gonna change the fact that you’re now a dog that’s about to be put in his cage. You may have had all the power that night when you shot him, but we have it now, because the only thing worse than a man with a gun, is a woman with a grudge, and you have two aimed at you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go enjoy being free. See you later, Johnny.”

She leaned off the table and turned around with a grin on her face. She grabbed me by the arm on the way out and strutted out of the room like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“See you in a few months, Johnny,” Ashley said as she turned and left right behind us, leaving Johnny sitting at the table looking like he was about to have a panic attack.

“THIS ISN’T OVER YOU BITCHES! I’M GONNA GET OUT, YOU’LL SEE! I’M GONNA GET OUT AND I’M GONNA FIND YOU! I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE! I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!”

They closed the door behind us and Officer Jenkins looked at Rita and Ashley the same way I was looking at them, like they were the most powerful women on Earth.

“I don’t know if I should be proud of you for standing up to him and not letting him get to you, or scared of you the way you laid it all out on the table in there,” Officer Jenkins said.

“Major lesson in life… never piss off a woman. We know so many ways to hurt you without lifting a finger. Once he started yelling I knew I had him, and all I had to do was keep acting casual and I knew I’d reel him in further and further,” Rita replied.

“It felt so good to let him have it! And the way we left was icing on the cake,” Ashley said.

“Even though he’s not getting out, it’s not wise to egg him on like that.” Officer Jenkins said.

“I’m not worried. He knows nothing about us. All he has are a bunch of empty threats. I wasn’t kidding either; I’d be at every appeal to make sure he didn’t get out,” Rita said.

“Well I couldn’t be prouder of her,” I said. “Did you see how calm she was as she was telling him off? Even when he was acting all big shot and trying to get under her skin she wasn’t fazed, she just put him in his place and did it all with a cool head. He wanted to explode when we were leaving. Perfect example of hell hath no fury like a woman scorned did you have all that planned out or did you make it up after he tried to get under our skin?”

“A little of both. I already had an idea of what I was gonna say but once I started talking my mouth took over. I had to let him know who the boss was, me.”

“Well Ms. Boss, if there’s nothing you have to ask me or anyone else in the building I think it’s time you both went on your way. We have to process him and get him moved to his permanent facility, and I know as much as you’d enjoy seeing that, you can’t be here for it. We’ll let you know how everything is going and if anything’s changed,” Officer Jenkins said.

“Let me know the MINUTE anything changes,” Ashley said.

“Well at least we finally got some good news for a change. We don’t need to know EVERY little thing, can you just tell us when he’s been finally put in jail?” I asked.

“Will do. The first thing we do when putting someone away is we inform any parties involved that the suspect in question has been incarcerated. It’s a phone call we look forward to as long as there wasn’t a death attached to the case, so it’ll be all good news here.”

“Ok, I guess that’s our cue to leave. Thanks for sticking with us through the whole case,” I said.

He held out his hand and I shook it. “My pleasure. Stay out of trouble, and keep your sister safe, and you missy, try not to tell anyone else off for at least a few days,” he laughed.

Rita shook his hand and laughed back. “I makes no promises, see you around Officer Jenkins.”

“You too Ashley. Stay on the straight and narrow, you hear me?”

“I will officer, thanks,” Ashley said as she shook his hand.

We headed back up the way we came through the building and found out that upon exiting the building we had to go through the same procedures we did when we came in, so we had to go through metal detectors and checkpoints again until we made it to the front door and were cleared to leave. Before we walked to our car Ashley held us up for a second.

“Guys, about what he said, about me always being a bitch and it being my fault…”

“Hey,” I stopped her. “It’s like you said, we put it behind us. As long as you don’t convert back into the old you nothing he said matters. He was just trying to get to you.”

“It kinda worked a little. In a way I’ll always be responsible for what happened. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, were good. It took us a while to get to this point but we’re here,” Rita said.

“Thanks. So what are you guys doing the rest of the day, you Chris and Stephanie?”

“Ummm probably go home, we still have a lot of stuff to figure out,” I said.

“Well if you change your mind and wanna do something call me, I’m free today too.”

We walked down the street to where we were forced to park and got in with Rita driving and me in the passenger so I could lay back and enjoy the feeling of justice being served. My almost killer spending the rest of his life in prison was good news we needed bad.

“Glad it’s finally over?” Rita asked noticing me leaned back in my seat.

“Yeah, it’s been hanging over my head for too long. I’m glad it’s finally done.”

“Me too. Now we never have to worry about him again, I’m already forgetting his name.”

“We should celebrate. Let’s go do something we haven’t done in a long time.”

“Well I know you’re not talking about sex,” Rita laughed. What haven’t we done? Where am I even going? I’m just driving around without a sense of direction.”

“Let’s go to the ice cream shop. I haven’t been there in months.”

Rita looked over cautiously. “Are you sure you’re ready to go back?”

“I am. This whole business is done. I can finally go back with no ill feelings about it now.”

“Ok. If you’re ready to go back then I’m ready to go back. Two banana splits coming up.”

Now that we had our destination we headed to the ice cream shop we haven’t been to since the day I was shot there. We parked and before going up to the booth to order we just looked at the area where everything happened. I looked at the area where I hit into the gate, where we went crashing through tables, and where I hit the ground after I was shot. The area has been moved around and fixed since, but most of everything was still fresh in my mind, and I could tell it was still in Rita’s too by the way she secretly intertwined our fingers.

“This is our neighborhood, I don’t know if we should do that here,” I whispered.

“This is where I almost lost you. This will always be an emotional spot for me.”

“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and everything that happened on that day and every day since made me stronger, and made us stronger.”

“Yeah it has, but it didn’t have to be that hard, we almost didn’t make it.”

“If it was easy it wouldn’t be worth it. Now we both know what it takes to make it.”

“I like that, I’m gonna use that as my favorite quote from now on.”

“Speaking of favorite, those banana splits won’t order and eat themselves.”

We went up to the booth to order our ice cream and I remembered to turn our phones back on. When I did I had a few missed texts from mom, Ashley, and Chris, so I texted them back to let them know what happened. I also had a few missed calls from Ashley so I decided to save time and just call her; she picked up right when I was about to hang up.

“I didn’t think you we’re gonna call back so soon, I almost didn’t hear it ring,” Ashley said.

“We decided to go to the ice cream shop, and before you ask, yeah that one,” I said.

“Oh. I haven’t been there since everything happened either. Is it ok if I come too?”

“Depends on how fast you can swing over here before the ice cream is gone.”

“I’m close. I drove slow from downtown because I kept thinking about what that asshole said. I can be there in around five minutes. Order me a banana split since I know that’s what you got.”

“We’re gonna be sitting in practically the same bench from last time when you get here.”

“Ok, see you in a little bit.”

I hung up and waved for Rita to add another banana split to the order since Ashley was coming and sat down to wait for them to get made. Whoever cleaned up did a good job of fixing up the area. If you weren’t there the night everything went down you wouldn’t be able to tell anything was damaged. Pieces of that night started flashing in my head, but since I was finally past it I was able to push them aside so they didn’t take over my thoughts anymore.

“You ok Randy?” Rita asked when she saw me staring off into the distance.

“Yeah. I never thought I’d be coming back here, but here I am. It’s almost like a kind of retribution, being able to come back to the place where I almost lost my life.”

“Let’s leave it at that, ‘almost’, and move on. I wanna be able to enjoy this place again, not have a flashback of you bleeding on the concrete every time I come here.”

“Me too. They’re calling us, our ice cream is done, I’ll go get it.”

I walked up to the booth and paid and picked up our ice cream, and on the way back I saw a newspaper clipping of the story they did on me getting shot pinned to the wall. It didn’t show me, but it showed the busted tables and rails where everything happened. I’m not gonna lie, it kinda rattled me for a second seeing that, but like I said before, it was time to leave that behind and get back to enjoying this place for what it was good for, the ice cream. I fixed myself and walked back to the table to see Ashley had shown up while I was away.

“How long was I up there? I didn’t see you come over,” I said.

“I just got here. I had to stop at the bank and get some money out,” Ashley said.

“Oh, ok. Well ice creams here, three banana splits, mine with sprinkles.”

“Why didn’t you get mine with sprinkles? I like sprinkles on my split! Sprinkles!”

“Because you didn’t say anything about sprinkles on the phone, so you got a plain ass regular old sprinkle-less split. Everybody wants to be like Randy.”

“Yeah whatever,” Ashley said as she looked around the area like we did when we first got there. “It still looks the same, like nothing ever happened.”

“Yeah that’s what we said. Then again it has been over three months,” Rita said.

“That bastard held a knife to me right there. He better not fucking get out of jail.”

“He’s done. The way he was talking in the room I wouldn’t be surprised if they added another ten years to his sentence for being stupid. He was making threats in front of guards,” I said.

“That’s because he knew he was done. He was just trying to get the last word in.

“Well you and Rita took care of that. That line about a pissed off woman was classic.”

“Yeah I felt proud of myself after I said it. That came out of nowhere,” Rita said.

“Alright enough of talking about him, have you thought about what you’re gonna do about staying over at my house or staying at Stephanie and Chris’ house?” Ashley asked.

“We thought about it, and we like staying there, but we can’t help thinking we’ve been there too long. Eventually everybody wants to be free in their house and they can’t do that with us there mooching off their space, so we’re gonna mooch off yours for a while,” Rita said.

“Well when you put it like that how can I not agree to it,” Ashley joked.

“It’s best. We give the Wilson’s some breathing room and we get a change of scenery, and I stops dad from making a scene since he definitely won’t do that at a client’s house, shit after that ‘discussion’ we had a few days ago he probably won’t show up at the Wilson’s either.”

“It’s still bad huh? You think he’s ever going to budge?”

“He made it clear the other day he’s not. He can’t support it in his own words. To a certain extent I understand where he’s coming from but I mean we’re you kids, you should be looking out for our best interest, and we are each other’s best interest,” I said.

“Your dad is one of those once his mind is made up there’s no changing it kind of dad’s, my dad used to be like that until he and my mom separated, then he completely flipped.”

“Well I don’t see my parents divorcing, so the only thing that’ll be able to change his mind would be me getting shot again, and I don’t plan on that happening again.”

“Well then Rita has to get pregnant by another guy or something,” Ashley joked.

“Yeah there’s a better chance of Randy getting shot again than that happening,” Rita said. “Not saying I’d rather it happen or anything, but you know what I mean.”

“So when are you coming? Dana, Becky and Carina are gonna be over tonight but if you’re bringing your stuff over today I can kick those bitches out.”

“Maybe tomorrow, so we have time to get all our stuff together,” Rita said.

“By we, she means her. I left for weeks and fit all my stuff in one bag, she left for days and has three bags, which are all emptied out in their house,” I laughed.

“Yeah yeah whatever, girls have more body parts to attend to than boys, we have to be ready for anything, you’ll never understand our struggle,” Rita said.

“They never will. That’s why it takes us four hours to get ready to go out. We have to look our absolute best at all times because there’s always that one asshole who will find that ONE flaw that we didn’t have time to fix and point it out to the world,” Ashley said.

“If he points it out then he’s not the one you should be talking to anyway,” I said.

“Yeah but what about when he tells everyone around him about it?”

“If they let it bother them then they aren’t the ones you should be talking to either.”

“Look at you, sounding like Dr. Phil and Oprah rolled into one person.”

“And dad wants me to give this up, uh no. I have it all here… looks, brains, sense of humor, personality, treats me like a queen, and that penis, oh my god that penis. Best part,” Rita said.

“Yeah I had a close up view of the action last time you were at my house. Between as hard as he was fucking you and how much you squirted I don’t know who had a better time.”

“Me definitely. Always me. I’ve never not come when we had any type of sex.”

“And there we go again, flying through topics like there’s no tomorrow,” I laughed.

“Using two negatives back to back, damn Rita he got your brain all twisted up just thinking about it! One thing though, my bed is off limits. You two are liable to fuck anywhere and I’ve seen the messes you leave behind. I’d like to be able to sleep in my bed.”

“Deal, if you go buy the second round of banana splits,” I said as I finished mine.

“We probably shouldn’t have eaten these ones, we didn’t eat dinner yet. If we don’t eat like we normally do Jim is gonna know something’s up,” Rita said.

“It won’t matter, I’m still hungry. Besides, it’s not like we’re twelve, we won’t exactly lose our appetites and Jim and Marie won’t send us to our rooms for eating dessert before dinner. That would be pretty funny if they did though,” I said.

“So tomorrow? I’ll clean out a space and the hot tub. That same water from the last time we were all there’s been bubbling around in there because I forgot to turn on the self-cleaning thing. Knowing you two there’s probably some other stuff floating around in there too…”

“I wouldn’t put it past us. Anytime, anywhere is always an option.”

“Yeah yeah you freaks, you fuck in it you clean it out and pay for damages.”

“We’ll think about it. We should get back, Jim probably almost has dinner finished.”

“Ok, call before you come over, don’t do that drop-by crap on me, I won’t let you in.”

“That’s code for ‘I need time to stop masturbating before I let you in,” Rita laughed.

“That’s only half true, at this point I don’t care if you see me or not, I’ve seen enough of you to be able to tell where your kids birthmarks are gonna be.”

“Aaaaaand on that note it’s time to go. We’ll call you and let you know tomorrow,” I said.

“What I say? Ok, call me tomorrow, don’t wait too late.”

We went back to the car and drove back to Stephanie and Chris’ house. As good of a time as we were having there, we had to leave. We needed to give them a break from us constantly being there, and to be honest, we needed to give their refrigerator a break. We ate up so much of their food I don’t know how there’s anything left in the house at all. We got back to Stephanie and Chris’ house to see them standing on the porch waiting for us with their arms crossed and a fake pissed off look on their face, or real, I couldn’t really tell.

“Where have you been? You said you were gonna come right back!” Chris said.

“My bad, we stopped for some ice cream after we came from the courthouse,” I said.

“Ice cream before dinner? You know dad’s gonna kill you. Where’d you go, Baskin Robbins? Did you bring us any back or were you being selfish?” Stephanie asked.

“We went to the one by our house. The one where, you know. I wanted to go back.”

“Oh. How does it look? Did it bring up any bad memories?”

“It looks pretty much the same. Nope no bad memories, I’m finally over it.”

“What happened with the guy who did it? Did you get to tell him off?” Chris asked.

“I tried to be civil, but it didn’t work. Rita and Ashley went ham on him though. Oh yeah, Ashley showed up halfway through it. She and Rita basically tag teamed him.”
“What did you say? I knew we should’ve went! What did you say?” Stephanie asked.

“Let’s go in the house, we don’t need everyone around here knowing our business,” Rita said.

We walked in and got as far as the stairs before Jim halted us. “There you are, I was wondering when you’d get back. How’d the meeting go?”

“It was great, just what we needed. He’s going away for life basically, so finally some good news. We were just telling Stephanie and Chris about it,” Rita said.

“Ok, well dinner’s almost ready, we’re having tacos. I would say I hope you’re hungry but that’s like Super Mario saying I hope Peach doesn’t get kidnapped by Bowser.”

“Finally, a language we can understand. Took you long enough dad,” Chris said.

“I do what I can. Come back down in ten minutes, food will be ready by then.”

We went up to Stephanie’s room to finish our conversation, and upon walking in we smelled the unmistakable smell of sex, and it was fresh, like it just happened fresh.

“Waiting on us to come back huh? Liars,” I teased.

“You did it with your parents here? What if they came in here?” Rita asked.

“It’s not like they don’t know, and we were careful. We had sex by the door,” Chris said.

“Yeah that makes it better. That gives you an extra three seconds reaction time,” I said.

“That’s all we needed, why do you think I’m wearing a skirt?” Stephanie asked.

“Ok yeah we had sex, big deal. What did you say to the guy?” Chris interrupted.

“Like I said before, I tried to be civil, but he kept egging me on and trying to push my buttons, so I told him I felt sorry for him and good luck in prison,” I said.

“I wasn’t nice to that bastard,” Rita jumped in. “I told him I’d make his life hell if he ever tried to get out. He was gonna see me at every appeal he tried to make no matter where it was. Ashley said the same thing. We called him all kinds of names with a smile on our face and told him we were gonna go enjoy being free and for him to have fun in prison, it was great.”

“Yeah then she said that line ‘the only thing worse than a man with a gun, is a woman with a grudge’ and told him ‘see you later Johnny.’ I lost it, she won at life at that moment,” I said.

“I wish I could’ve seen his face when you said that,” Stephanie grinned. “He probably wanted to break you in half for saying that and he couldn’t do anything about it.”

“She wiped the smile right off his face. It was perfect. She turned around and didn’t look back and he had a temper tantrum yelling at her because she got the best of him. He had to sit there and be put in his place and then get hauled off to jail in a bad mood.”

“Good. Piece of shit. Well at least that last part is finally over,” Chris said.

“Yeah, now the only thing left is the one thing we can’t control.”

“I wanna say he’ll come around, but let’s be honest, if he wanted to come around he would’ve by now. I don’t mean to sound harsh or anything but that’s basically what it is.”

“Yeah I know. There’s nothing we can do about it. On another note, we talked about it, and me and Rita agreed to stay at Ashley’s for a couple of days.”

“Why? Are you tired of being here or something?” Stephanie asked.

“No, we wanna stay, but we need to give you your space. If we stay any longer we might as well move in. you barely have food in here because of us as it is,” Rita said.

“So you’re only gonna be there a couple of days? And then what?”

“We haven’t thought about that part yet, we just don’t wanna overstay our welcome here.”

“Ashley’s probably gonna try and molest you in your sleep,” Chris joked.

“How is that any different here? Steph isn’t good at sneaking around,” Rita said.

“Whatever, you only knew I was there because I wanted you to know I was there,” Steph said.

“ALRIGHT EVERYBODY, FOOD IS READY!” Jim yelled upstairs.

“We’re telling them at dinner, I’ll try to slip it in casually,” I said.

“That’s what she said,” Rita joked as she slapped me on the ass.

“That’s what she never said… nope I’m gonna leave that one alone. Time to eat.”

“She said that too,” Rita laughed and ran her hand over her crotch.

We trailed down the stairs and into the dining room where everything looked like it was set up professionally. There was a huge plate of taco meat in the middle with soft shells, hard shells, and chip scoops surrounding it and jars of sour cream, cheese sauce, taco sauce, and all the lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese and other fixings surrounding that.

“Man, when we have tacos it never looks like this! Is this a special occasion?” I asked.

“No special occasion, just a normal regular taco night,” Jim said.

“If he’s just now getting to all the good spreads we should wait maybe another week before we go to Ashley’s, who knows what’s next!” I whispered to Rita.

“No, we’re going. This is one of the main reasons we need a few days away, we’re gonna get fat if we keep eating like this. This does look really good though,” Rita said.

“Ok enough whispering, I made all this food now sit down and eat up,” Jim said.

We all made our plates, everyone getting some of everything, and sat down to eat. Whatever spices Jim added to the meat made it so good everyone packed their plates with the remainder of the meat after eating only one taco. We all had soft tacos, hard tacos, and the scoop things in our plates and no room for anything else. I think Rita and I have been here so long our eating habits were starting to rub off on them.

“So everything good? I tried a different mix of spices tonight,” Jim said.

“It’s wonderful dear, you should add this to your menu,” Marie said.

“Yeah Mr. Wilson it really is good, you doing this with all your stuff now?” I asked.

“Kinda, I’m changing up on things I already have. I want my menu to stand out from others. Same kind of food, but with a more rich and satisfying taste,” Jim said.

“Well you’re off to a good start dad, keep it coming,” Stephanie said.

“It really is Mr. Wilson. You cook better than our mother, and that’s big,” Rita said.

“I have an idea for a chili/stew kinda thing. I’m still working out the kinks, but I think I’m almost there. I just need some hungry participants to try out some samples and tell me what they think as I go along, what do you say Rita, Randy? Up for a taste testing tomorrow?”

That reminded me we still had to let them know we were leaving. “Actually I wanted to talk to you about that. Rita and I decided to go stay at Ashley’s for a few days,” I said.

“Is something wrong? You don’t like staying here anymore?” Marie asked.

“No it’s not that at all, it’s just we’ve been here so long, we need to give you some space for a little while. You can’t walk around like you would if we weren’t here.”

“That’s nonsense. What’s the real reason you’re leaving? Not enough food?” Jim joked.

“That really is it. We don’t wanna overcrowd for too long. We’ll go stay at Ashley’s a few days and give you some breathing room, and then we’ll come back and eat up your food again.”

“Does Ashley know you’re coming or are you doing a drop-by?”

“She knows. We’re gonna call her tomorrow and let her know we’re coming.”

“Does this have anything to do with your father at all?”

I paused for a second, but I figured there was no point in trying to hide it. “Kinda. He came over here and exploded, and then we went back to the house and tried to get him on our side again, it didn’t work. At least at Ashley’s there’s no chance of that happening.”

“Because he’s your father’s client, I see. Well it seems like you have it all figured out. If you feel the need to go stay at Ashley’s go right ahead, and afterwards you’re always welcome to come back and stay as long as you need to, without the pressure of being a burden.”

“Thanks Mr. Wilson, we appreciate it. We’ll definitely be coming back.”

“Well if you leaving does anything, it’ll give us a chance to restock up on food. Just you two can eat as much as the rest of us any given day,” Marie laughed.

“Part of that is dad’s fault. Who makes food this good just because?” Chris asked.

“I have to try new things to get ahead of the competition. I’m new in this business remember? I need something that gives me an edge over the people who’ve been here a while.”

“If you keep making food like this I guarantee you won’t have a problem.”

“I noticed. There’s but a little corner of meat let on the plate, which is mine by the way.”

Jim went to scoop up the last corner and Chris fought him with his spoon for it. It turned from a spoon fight to paper rock scissors to a thumb wrestling match.

“We’ve definitely been here too long,” I laughed. “This is something I’d do with Rita, except the paper rock scissors because I can’t win at that to save my life,” I said.

“I made the food, I get the last of the food,” Jim said.

“I’m a growing boy, I need it more than you do,” Chris retaliated.

“You’re as big as you’re gonna get, I need to keep my strength up.”

“Oh for petes sake why don’t you just share it, or I’m gonna eat it!” Marie said.

They looked at Marie to see if she was serious, and she looked to be, so they used their spoons to divide half the meat equally between then while avoiding looking back at Marie.

“There, now that wasn’t so hard. Now who wants to do the dishes?”

“I cooked so I don’t have to do the dishes,” Jim said.

“I helped him so I’m out too, plus I’m just not doing them,” Marie laughed.

Everyone looked around like we always did when the dishes came up. We usually altered but since everyone pitched in the last couple of days it kinda reset the order and no one wanted to be the first to do them. “Paper rock scissors?” I suggested.

“Best two out of three, on shoot, no do-overs, loser does all the dishes,” Stephanie said.

We paired up and squared off against each other. Rita beat me and Stephanie lost to Chris so it was down to us. There were a bunch of dishes no neither of us wanted to lose.

“You’re gonna lose Randy, I always come through in the clutch,” Stephanie teased.

She threw rock and I threw paper. “What was that? Somebody spoke too soon!”

“That’s only one, you got lucky on that one but I got the rest.”

“If that’s what you wanna call it, come on take this whooping like a woman.”

I threw scissors and she threw rock again. “Oh, now who has the premature celebration!”

“Last one for all the marbles, remember no re-dos so when you lose don’t be crying.”

“Remember all this gloating five minutes from now when you’re washing…”

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Who’s that? Were you expecting anybody tonight Jim?” Marie asked.

“No not tonight. I have clients that are supposed to come over but they never said anything about coming at night. I’ll go see who it is.”

Jim got up to answer the door and we went back to our game. I threw out rock since that’s what Stephanie’s been doing this whole time and she threw out paper, figures.”

“Ha! Told you all that gloating was gonna come back and haunt you! Get in there and spic and span those dishes, I wanna see myself in them when you’re done…”

Stephanie stopped talking and stared at whatever was behind me. I turned around to see what she was looking at and was surprised in the least to see dad standing there.

“I need you to come home, we need to talk,” was all dad said.

Rita paused. “Dad, I’m not coming back without Randy, you know that.”

“Randy’s coming too. I need to talk to both of you.”

I looked at Rita, shocked at dad’s sudden appearance after the last visit we had. Dad’s not one for changing his mind, unless this was a bad news visit. “Did something happen?” I asked.

“No nothing happened, well yeah something did happened, but it doesn’t… we can talk about it at the house, I just need you to come back right now. You can drive there in Chris and Stephanie’s car if they let you and come back when we’re done.”

We looked at each other, around at everybody else to guage a facial expression, which they all had the same, basically ‘go and see what he has to say’ and looked back at dad who was waiting for a confirmation. We nodded yes and he relaxed his posture and loosened up.

“Ok I’ll meet you back at the house, come back when you’re ready.”

He walked out the front door and just like that he was gone just as fast as he came. We were completely caught off guard by him showing up. The way things ended last time we were all in the same room, I didn’t think we’d be seeing him again of his own free will in a while.

“You’re going to go see what he wants to talk about right you two?” Jim asked.

“Yeah we are. I don’t like how that sounded though. Did you see the way he got all jumbled up when we asked him if anything happened? it might be some bad news,” Rita said.

“Well whatever it is you won’t be able to find it out here. He came here for a reason, go ahead and get back, we’ll take care of the dishes for you,” Marie said.

“No I lost, the least I can do is clean up before we leave,” I said.

“Don’t worry about the dishes, your father made a point to come here and talk to you in person and invited you back to the house, the last thing you need to be worried about is some dirty dishes. Go find out what’s going on and then come back and fill us in,” Jim said.

Chris left the table and came back with the keys to their car. “Try not to burn all the gas out this time. You forgot to fill it back up after your field trip this morning. Come to think of it, you never fill it back up. Take care of that before you come back please, thanks.”

He tossed me the keys and we were out the door and on our way back to the house. The whole way there we were quietly exchanging concerned looks of what could be going on. We called mom and Aunt Lisa’s cell phones and the house phone but there was no answer on any of them, so we were starting to assume the worst. We pulled up to the house to see everybody’s car there, and we looked at the house to see only the light in the living room was on, so that uneasy feeling we had started to intensify. We went up to the house and went in, scared of what we were walking into with the little information we had, but knowing we had to do it anyway. We walked in the door to see dad sitting in a chair facing the couch with his hands together in a fist under his chin and mom and Aunt Lisa standing on either side of him.

“Come on you two, sit down, I wanna have a talk with both of you,” dad said.

We walked over to the couch and sat down in front of him, now having an idea about why we were there, but still not knowing what he was about to say.

“Ok. I’m gonna be blunt. I don’t like what you two are doing, and you don’t like me trying to break you up, and that put us at a standstill for a long time, so due to a recent event that happened, I’m trying a new approach. I want you two to look me in the eye and make me understand this, give me an acceptable and credible reason to be ok with this.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dad was giving us an opportunity to convince him to be ok with us. I never thought in a million years this would happen. I was so unprepared for this moment that I had no clue what to say. Lucky for me, when Rita heard dad say that she fixed her posture in a way that looked like she had an entire speech planned for this situation.

“Dad. I love him. And he loves me. That should be all the reason you need. So what if what we doing isn’t socially acceptable, at one point in time it was, it only changed because people wanted to fix something that wasn’t broken. It may be illegal, but so is just about everything else we do on a daily basis. It’s not like we sought this out dad, it just happened. At least you know that Randy isn’t hooking up with some random girl from the street, and you know I won’t get used and heartbroken by some guy who only wants to get in my pants. You know us better than anyone, so who better to trust to be with your kids, than well, us?”

“We hate what this is doing to everybody dad,” I said feeling I needed to say something. “We don’t want this to drive the family apart. We just wanna be together and not be judged for it. I know that’s asking a lot but if there’s ever a time we needed your support on something this would definitely be the time. Like Rita said, who better to date your kids than somebody whose known them all their life? No one knows us better than we do, which is why it works perfectly, and that’s not even including the twin thing. I promise dad I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure she’s safe and protected. One thing you’ll know with us dad is we’ll never hurt each other and we’ll always be happy, that’s two things but you know what I mean.”

He sat there and listened to everything we said and when we finished talking he sat there again. This was the awkward silence of all awkward silences. There was no expressions on dad’s face whatsoever and he didn’t move the entire time he was sitting there thinking, so we had nothing to go on to find out of our talk had any positive impact on what he thought. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally lifted his head up and looked at us.

“I wasn’t planning on ever changing my mind about this, ever, but when you talk like that things have a way of changing your mind for you. I was going to work this morning and traffic was stopped for this huge pile up on the freeway. Five cars were smashed, five, because of what appeared to be a drunk driver. Everybody made it out pretty much ok, except for this one kid. The accident was so bad it forced all traffic to go down one lane, so driving past you couldn’t help but see and hear everything going on with the accident. The kid who was hurt looked like he took the brunt of the hit. He was laying on the stretcher looking lifeless while the paramedics worked on him with his mother frantically screaming to save him. Of all the things she said, one stood out and will stay in my head forever. She said ‘please don’t take by baby away from me, I’ll take him however I can get him, just please don’t take him away from me’ with tears covering her entire face. I couldn’t have felt worse for her.”

Hearing dad tell the story the way he did I could tell it hit him hard. He looked like he’d been thinking about the accident since it happened, which I imagine rattled him about the situation with us. Our situation isn’t quite the same as the lady and her son, but it’s just as emotional.

“I might not agree with what you two are doing, but I don’t wanna take the chance of losing you two in my life, so… I will try to respect what you two have.”
The smile that came across Rita’s face when he said that was amazing. “THANK YOU DADDY!”

“WAIT! I’m not done. I have a few rules. I may have decided to accept what you two are doing, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tolerate everything either. When you’re here I don’t wanna see it, I don’t wanna hear it, I don’t wanna catch any wind of anything going on in my presence. If you’re gonna do anything close the door and please not be loud, or even better, wait until I’m not here so I can pretend you’re still a normal brother and sister.”

She waited and made sure dad was done, and when he nodded she jumped on him and hugged him. “Thank you daddy, thank you! You don’t know how much this means to us!”

“After everything that’s happened since this started I think I have an idea.”

“Mom, Aunt Lisa, did you help at all with dad changing his mind?”

“I wish we did but we didn’t. We couldn’t get through to him at all no matter what we said or did. He made this decision and went to the Wilson’s all on his own,” mom said.

“I like to think we helped with our constant nagging, but it was mostly him,” Aunt Lisa said.

I couldn’t believe it. I got up and held out my hand for dad to shake it, and he looked at it, then back at me and shook it. “Thanks dad, it really does mean a lot that you’re behind us on this.”

“This is going to take some serious getting used to, but I’ll try. Just remember the rules I said, and most importantly, I don’t wanna see it. I DON’T wanna see it. I
DON’T WANNA SEE IT!”

“So you said you don’t wanna see it? I’ll add it to the list,” I joked, which felt good doing again.

“Funny. Are you two going back to the Wilson’s or are you coming back home today?”

“We can come back today, we just have to go get our stuff,” Rita said.

“What about going to Ashley’s? Are you still going to her house tomorrow?” mom asked.

“Well we kinda already told her we would so it wouldn’t be right to back out at the last minute, but after that we’ll come back home and get settled back in,” I said.

“You should get going before it gets too late, and I’ll bet Stephanie and Chris want their car back, so one of you drive theirs and one of you drive yours.”

Dad handed Rita the keys to our car and twenty dollars for gas which we had to put in Steph and Chris’ car since we burned almost half a tank of theirs just today. We left out of our house in a good mood for the first time in I don’t know how long and headed back to the Wilson’s after a quick stop at the gas station. We pulled up in their driveway sometime later and walked in to everyone sitting in the living room watching The Walking Dead reruns.

“So what happened? What did Mr. Stevens say?” Stephanie asked.

“Stephanie don’t be so forward,” Jim said. “So what did Mike say?”

“In a nutshell, he’s gonna try to accept us. He’s actually giving it a try,” Rita said.

“He is? He finally came around, that’s good! Did he say what changed his mind?” Marie asked.

“Something a lady said at a car accident he witnessed earlier about taking her son however she could get him. It reminded him that he would be losing us too the way he was going.”

That’s wonderful. So I’m assuming you’re going back to your house correct?”

“Yeah we came to grab our things and bring back the car. We put twenty in the tank Chris so we put back more gas than we used up, you’re welcome.”

“Thank you, now if you’d do that each time you drove it that’d be perfect,” Chris said.

“Yeah you’re lucky you got the whole twenty. Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Wilson for letting us stay here, and eat up all your food, which got better with each new thing you made.”

“You’re welcome back any time. Just give us a heads up three days before you plan on coming so we have time to stock the house up with food,” Jim joked.

“Deal. Thanks again. Next time we come we’ll buy the first dinner,” I said.

“You got it. You better get to packing. You don’t wanna be out too late.”

We went upstairs and started packing our stuff up and Stephanie and Chris came in behind us.

“So now can we come over to your house since everything’s in the open,” Chris asked.

“You should be able to yeah but not right away. Let’s let dad get used to seeing us for a couple weeks first before we throw a whole other set of siblings at him,” I said.

“You’ll get caught having sex the first week three days in, guarantee,” Stephanie laughed.

“We still have to be careful not to let him see us, now he’s just aware of us that’s all.”

“No I’m saying you’ll get caught on accident because you can’t help but screw each other.”

“Hey don’t judge, at least help pack while you broadcast our sex life,” Rita said.

“Help pack what? You’re almost done. All you did was stuff everything in the bags.”

“Well now I need one of yours because I magically have more stuff than fits in the bags.”

“If by magically you mean you took some of my clothes as our own, then yeah, magically.”

“You should be honored I want your clothes, it means you have good taste and a small waist.”

“I know I have good taste, we shared a lot of the same stuff remember,” Steph grinned.

“Only you two can turn talking about clothes into something sexual,” I said.

“Don’t be paying attention to us get all your stuff packed,” Rita said.

“I did, five minutes ago. We’re literally waiting on you and your now five bags. How are you leaving with five bags when you only came here with two or three?”

“That’s a secret. Can you put these in the car while I finish the last bag?”

Chris and I ran the bags to the car and came back to see they were still in the same position they were in when we left and the bag still looked exactly the same. They saw us, threw a couple more shirts in it and zipped it up. We went downstairs and said goodbye to a waiting Jim and Marie and got in our car and left. Rita drove back so I took the time to lay my head back and run over the events that just passed in my head.

“I know right, I can’t believe it either,” Rita said reading my mind.

“There are literally no more obstacles in our way, unless dad has a relapse.”

“I don’t think he’ll relapse as long as we don’t give him a reason to.”

“Yeah true, we’ll just have to be even more careful than before.”

“I’m just so happy it’s finally over! There literally are no more obstacles, unless you count society as a whole as an obstacle, but that’s another problem on a different day.”

“Yeah we’re finally all the way good now, let’s enjoy it.”

We got back to the house and carried our stuff in to a waiting mom and Aunt Lisa who were sitting at the couch talking and smiling at us when we came in. they both got up and gave us a tight squeeze hug like they haven’t seen us for forty years.

“Oooooh it’s so good to have my babies back home! I thought it’d never be over,” mom said.

“It’s good to finally be able to sleep in our own bed. Sleeping at Steph and Chris’ house was nice but there’s nothing better than sleeping in your own bed,” Rita said.

“Speaking of your own bed, I’m officially moved out. My house is finished being repaired and I went back home, so Rita you have your room back,” Aunt Lisa said.

“That’s ok, I already have a room. That can be your guest room whenever you sleep over. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping alone anymore now that everything in the air.”

“Where’s dad? Did he go to sleep? His car is still outside,” I said.

“Yeah he went to bed already, but that’s nothing new. Remember what he said you two, just because he’s being accepting doesn’t mean be all out in the open with everything,” mom said.

“We know mom we won’t. There’s no way we’re gonna mess this up, no way.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. Ok get upstairs and get your things unpacked. I want to make a big breakfast before your father leaves for work and we’re all going to be there.”

“Yeah it’s pretty late anyway. We’ll be up; I’ll set an alarm just in case.”

“Ok. Goodnight, I know I already said it but it’s so good having my babies back home! Oh, and in the morning I wanna know all about what happened down at the courthouse.”

“Rita will probably be the one to tell you, but I’ll be there too. You won’t believe the way she and Ashley put this guy in his place, I mean absolutely destroyed him.”

“Tell this at breakfast I wanna hear about it too!” Aunt Lisa said.

“We will, goodnight mom, goodnight Aunt Lisa,” we said as we headed upstairs.

I cut the light on to our room that hasn’t been occupied in over a week, and I haven’t been in in nearly a month. It took me a while to get adjusted to the way things were but once I did the feeling of belonging finally came back. It was good to be back home. We didn’t even unpack anything. We just threw it all in a corner and stripped down to our underwear. I closed the door and climbed into bed, basking in the crisp cold sheets that I messed so much and Rita cut out the light and climbed in behind me. I couldn’t believe it, we were finally home.

“I never thought I’d lay in this bed again to be honest,” I said.

“I did, I just thought it would be a long time before we did.”

“They’re right. Even though dad is ok with us, for now, we can’t slip up. If he sees anything he doesn’t need to see he might slip back into his old thoughts and then we’re screwed.”

“We won’t slip up. Too much is on the line. He doesn’t have to see anything, but we don’t have to sneak around either. This is probably as best a situation as we’re gonna get.”

“I’ll take. I’m just glad I still have you and everyone’s ok with it, for the most part.”

I pulled her into me so that we were spooning and kissed the side of her face as I wrapped my arms around her waist, but then she wiggled free of me.

“Wait a minute, let me just fix one thing, I’ll be right back,” Rita said.

My eyes were still adjusting to the dark so I barely made out her body shape as she made her way to the door, opened it, left it open and crawled back into bed with me.

“Now we can really be with each other without having to worry all the time.”

I could tell she had a smile on her face when she said that. She turned back into me the way we were before she got up to open the door and locked my fingers with hers.

“I love you Randy.”

“I love you too Rita.”

I kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her close to me, now more intent than ever to keep her safe after assuring dad I would. I was happy about the way things turned out, but I knew it would take a lot of effort to make sure it stayed that way. We had to show dad we were meant to be together no matter what it took, and we were ready to accept the challenge.

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