Offside

“Hi, Dad,” she responded. She tilted her head to peer at me and then looked back to the sheriff.

“Hey there!” he called out. He actually waved while still standing in the middle of the doorway. “How’s Ron and Timmy?” He danced back and forth between one foot and the other, which made me realize I was doing the same thing. I stopped, and then his words hit me.

Ron and Timmy? Who the hell were they?

“Dad!” she snapped at him with narrowed eyes. He just kind of shrugged at her but stayed in the doorway. I wondered if she could already smell smoke on him.

Nicole took a few steps forward, and Sheriff Skye nearly backed up into me.

“What are you two up to?” Nicole asked.

“Nothing,” Sheriff Skye said. He finally walked through the door and skirted around her to sit back in the recliner. “Just some guy talk, ya know?”

“No, I do not know,” she replied. “What is that smell?”

“Um…smell?”

“Dad!” Nicole yelled. She shook a finger at him. “You said you quit!”

Well, that didn't take long.

“You know how much I hate that,” she went on, “and as soon as I'm away from the house? Seriously?”

“It was me,” I piped up, “not Sheriff Skye.”

They both looked at me, Nicole looking confused and Sheriff Skye just looking like he was trying to catch flies. I nodded my head frantically and even went as far as pointing to myself.

“You—” she started, but the Sheriff interrupted before she could continue.

“Oh no, son,” the Sheriff said as he shook his head quickly back and forth, “I can't let you do that.”

He looked back to Nicole.

“I know, I was supposed to have quit, but…”

“It was me!” I insisted. “I was a little stressed out, you know? I didn't know why you ran off so quick. I thought I might find you here, but you weren't and…”

I trailed off and shrugged, hoping that was as much of an explanation as she would require.

“I…had something I needed to do,” she stammered a bit. “But—”

“He's just covering for me.” Sheriff Skye jumped in again. “Really.”

“Am not,” I insisted. “It was me, Nicole—really.”

“Thomas, you don't have to?

??”

“I'm not!” I said.

“You are—”

Sheriff Skye and I looked at each other, and the absolutely flabbergasted expression on his face was just too much. I busted out laughing, and that set him off as well. Then I couldn't stop, and it was actually starting to hurt my side. I wrapped my arm around myself and bent over a little but still couldn't stop even though I kept saying “ow, ow, ow.”

Sheriff Skye put his hand over his mouth to stifle himself and ended up just spitting through his fingers.

“Oh my God, I cannot believe the two of you!” Nicole yelled. She looked at each of us in turn with her hands on her hips and a pretty evil-looking glare in her eyes.