So far, so good…
“Is someone here?” He gave me a quick hug and pulled away. “There’s a car in the driveway.”
Fuck…
“Yeah…” I quickly tried to wrack my brain. “I hired a new cleaning service—their car broke down. I think they’re coming back to get it later.”
“Oh, okay.” He nodded. “I thought it might be someone I know. They have an old Carson Cove Tigers sticker in the back window.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe they have a kid in high school…”
Okay, it’s turning into a string of lies, but it looks like he’s buying it.
“I need to run to the restroom—long drive.” He patted my shoulder and started walking towards the one that Taylor was hiding in.
“Wait.” I grabbed his arm. “I’m having some trouble with that one and I haven’t called a plumber yet.”
“Alright, I’ll run upstairs. Maybe I can take a look at it when I get back—I had to fix the one in my dorm last semester.” He grabbed his duffel bag and walked towards the stairs.
I hated lying to my son, but I had no idea how I would explain Taylor’s presence if he saw her—and he knew she was Victoria’s best friend. As soon as Dylan was upstairs, I checked on Taylor in the bathroom. She was fully dressed, except for her panties that were still in my pocket. I couldn’t usher her out the front door, and if the car disappeared while he was upstairs, it would probably look suspicious. We didn’t get much time to figure it out, because I heard Dylan coming back downstairs.
“Hide in the library.” I motioned down the hallway. “He never goes in there.”
“Okay.” Taylor nodded and made a dash for it—as quietly as possible.
The morning went from one that was supposed to be filled with excitement to a stressful endeavor. Dylan couldn’t find anything wrong with the toilet—because there wasn’t—and I pretended to be a dolt that made a mistake. As soon as he went upstairs to make a few calls and check in with his friends, I went to the library to see how Taylor was holding up. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy. She just wanted to go—but I was worried she wouldn’t make it out the front door in time.
I mildly hoped that would leave to meet his friends early, but that wasn’t the case—he came back downstairs and told me they weren’t meeting up until the afternoon. Normally, I would have welcomed any opportunity to see my son, but his timing was horrible. If I had known he was coming, I would have never planned to spend Saturday with Taylor—and I didn’t know if she was going to forgive me for holding her prisoner all day if it came to that.
“Hey Dad?” Dylan walked back into the living room and sat down across from me—in the same spot where I was undressing Taylor shortly before he arrived.
“Yeah?” I looked up at him.
“Something I wanted to ask you…” He looked down and sighed. “Have you talked to Victoria or Shaina lately?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “You don’t keep in touch with your sisters
? That’s surprising…”
“I do—well, I have been.” He had a slightly worried expression on his face, which caused me to tense up. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Shaina for a couple of weeks. Victoria said she hadn’t heard from her either…”
“I talked to Shaina…” I looked up and tried to remember the last conversation. “Well damn, yeah—I talked to her a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t get a call back from her when I tried to call last weekend.”
I’ve been so preoccupied with everything else—but I just assumed she was busy with law school.
“I wasn’t really that close to Shaina growing up, but we still try to keep in touch, you know?” he sighed. “She’s probably got stuff going on—law school and all.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, but the worry didn’t leave me completely—I definitely needed to try to call her again. “I’m sure she’s okay.”
Dylan has more important things to worry about. I’ll figure out what is going on with Shaina.
“How are things going with you?” I leaned forward. “Grades still holding up?”
“Of course,” he smirked. “I’m not a slouch like Victoria.”
“She’s doing fine,” I chuckled under my breath. “Good enough to graduate—that’s all that really matters.”
“I want to graduate at the top of my class.” He shrugged, and the smirk didn’t leave his face. “I have to be able to get a good job when I’m done with college—can’t leech off you forever, old man.”