King of Her Desire

55

The sibs jumped all over me when I got to Gerri's. Kelli even spanked me because I scared her "...getting all sick at that stupid party."

So I grabbed her up and kissed her and said, "I'm fine, though, right? I'm here! So what's up? What'cha been doin' besides driving Gerri nuts?"

"How come you did that, though?" Cody asked me. Little dude sounded angry, too.

"What'd I do, son?"

"How come you were drinkin' with that guy? You don't even drink really. Just maybe beer or somethin'."

"Oh, I drink at parties. With people I know."

"I never seen you drunk."

"Because you only see me at Mima's. And hell no I don't drink over there. You gotta have your wits about you over there."

"Yeah, and you tell us not to take nothin' from somebody. Not even a soda if it's open."

He'd busted me good. I did tell them that. If the cap's off, the top's popped, the wrapper's peeled back...whatever, they're supposed to turn it down. I said it and I meant it.

"It was just...well, it was a different kinda party, dude. It's...well, okay, I know I shouldn't have. But I was all caught up in the moment and Elliott was happy, Sochi was happy..."

"You pee all over yourself?"

"Jeez, what—"

"Everybody was laughin' at the house 'cause that stuff makes you mess yourself."

"Leave him alone!" Kelli cried. "He coulda died!"

"That's what I mean!" Cody snapped back. "He coulda died! And then what'd happen to us?"

Carli started crying then. That kind of real, gut twisting crying where you could tell she'd been through about all she could stand.

It was loud enough to make Sochi snatch off her earbuds and come running away from whatever she'd been listening to on her cell.

But Carli calmed down a little bit when I picked her up. Sochi sat down with us and put an arm around Kelli just to help out. But she looked like she wanted to cry herself, Sochi did.

So I said, "I gotta think this through. They can't be scared all the time like this."

And Gerri came in then, drying her hair with a towel and looking all concerned.

"They're okay," I said. "Justifiably mad at me, though."

She eased down into one of the big media room chairs and said, "Well, you look better than I expected."

"I feel pretty good. I'm awake today, anyway. I was all groggy and weird for a while."

"It was very bad," Sochi told her. "His eyes...they had no light."

Gerri smiled at her and said, "I bet I know who turned those lights back on, though, huh?" And then she pointed to Sochi's cell and asked, "You get the links I sent? That's a lot to listen to. All that yammering we did that night."

And she looked at me then, and said, "She wants to make a little...audiobook type of thing for Elliott. With all the speeches and whatnot. I tried to catch most of that while she was trying to catch all the conversations."