“You can play, or you can watch. Your call.”
At the last second before the race starts, she grabs the controller. And the race is on.
“Princess Peach? Seriously? If I’m anything, I’m Mario,” she grumbles at the character I locked her into.
“Nah. You don’t have a mustache.”
“What about you? You got spikes coming out your back? Is this why you have the name Kooper, because you play this old-ass game so much.”
I grin as my guy, King Koopa, swerves around her and drops a banana peel that causes her to spin out. “Not spikes, but I am bigger than most guys. And yeah. I made it known from the start that I’m the king around here. No one is going to take me down.”
“Big enough to hit, you mean.” She tosses a red turtle shell at me and zooms past me to win the game.
She shouts in triumph. “Ha! Princess Peach rules.” And then, like the crazy person she is, she sings the damn song that Jack Black made popular a while back. “Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches, Peaches….” She trails off as the next game starts.
“All right, Peaches,” I say after taking a strong sip of my drink. “Let’s see what you do when I actually try.”
“Ha, you’re dead, old man.”
If only she really knew how true her words are. Especially if her dad finds out what I’m doing.
Chapter 14—Ruby
Ten months later
Waking up screaming isn’t how I like to start the day. It’s draining. I’m sure if it was from a scream of passion, I’d think otherwise. But I haven’t had that. Screams of passion, yes. Woken up by one? Not so much.
I shuffle out of bed and head to the bathroom across the hall. I still have enough stuff at Dad’s place to get ready in the morning. I swear that guy stocks up on my bath supplies once a year just to keep me from complaining that I can’t stay over. Well, that, and he bribes me with food any chance he gets. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a goodfreemeal. The food on campus is okay, but not something you write home about.
Do people even do that anymore?
My mind wanders as I turn the shower on and get in once it’s warm, letting the water wash away the lack of sleep I’m riding high on. Between the late-night gaming last night with Bowser and the nightmare this morning, I can tell it’s going to be a long fucking day.
Just like it has been over the past year. I’ve fallen into a routine. A long, boring routine. It’s just the same every day: get up, go to school, study. When I’m not at school, I’m back home watching the club kids along with more studying. I don’t know why I thought it would be such a good idea to double the class load to graduate earlier. And then I got thestupid idea to just go straight into my doctorate program without even taking the summer off. Hell, I didn’t even celebrate when I graduated from college. Mostly because I thought it was stupid to have a big party for something you were returning to. I promised myself and Dad that when I get my doctorate, that’s when we’ll celebrate.
He’s already making plans. Told me he was even going to take me on a trip. This is his way of telling me that I’m going to take a break after this, but before I start my practice. ’Cause that’s the end goal: to have my own place to do what I want to do.
I might not have everything right now, like a building or anything, but this program takes three years. I’ve got time. And during that time, other than learning the business aspect of what it takes to be a successful physical therapist, I’ve got a part-time job that’s willing to work around my clinical rotations when I start on those next year. I’ve been there for a month now and already love it. The people are awesome, and I’m learning a lot. It’s exactly the type of clinic I want to have when I go solo.
I get that my life is filled with school and my job and babysitting. Some might say, and have said, that it sucks. Do I get lonely at night? Nope. Want to know why? I crash the fuck out. I’m too tired to be missing anything.
I’m keeping my head down. My nose in a book. Even Natalie is doing the same, but she double majored and is taking another full year and a half to finish her bachelor’s before moving on. She still hasn’t decided, but with an engineering degree and another in English literature, she’ll be ready for just about anything. If she ever finishes. I told her to double major in something that had course credits incommon, but she wasn’t about doubling up. She just wanted options. Her words.
At least the club is still as active as always. Weddings, babies—you name it, we’ve got it. And it seems we’re about to get more old ladies around here. No one is saying it outright, but this new girl, Milly, she’s turning heads. Then again, when you take out all but one member of an assassination team by yourself to get you and your kid safe, the brothers are going to talk. And when it’s a pretty woman? Yeah, the boys don’t shut up much about it. Well, unless Bass is around. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
I shut off the water and hear my dad yelling at me from below. I get out of the shower, head to the door, and crack it open.
“Yeah?”
“Leaving in ten. Be ready.”
“I’ll meet you there.” No way am I going to be put together in ten. The water woke me up, but I’ve still got to put myself together enough to look like something other than a zombie fromNight of the Living Dead.
“Ten,” he calls back, and I shut the door with an eye roll. “Don’t roll your eyes,” I hear him yell. He might not have seen me, but he knows me well enough.
“I didn’t,” I say back with a smile. It’s all crap. He knows it; I know it. But we still play this game. That’s what happens when you raise a strongheaded daughter—you get sass all the livelong day. Lucky him.
I didn’t wash my hair, so it doesn’t take as long to get ready. More than ten minutes, but less than thirty. I call it awin, even if Dad is grumbling about women taking too damn long as we enter our favorite bakery.
