Oklahoma (Isaac Hanson)

Chapter Twenty Two

another bit of a filler

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Being grounded wasn't all that foreign to Perrie, although it wasn't something she had experienced a lot. Grady and Laura had used grounding as a punishment before, but never more than a few days. Isaac's original sentence of three weeks had quickly turned into two, after he gave Perrie the chance to sit down and talk out her punishment. The father and daughter agreed that three weeks wasn't quite right for the crime committed, but time still needed to be served. Agreeing to two weeks, Perrie took them without much complaint, mostly due to the looming threat of another week being added on it if she did.

In her first week, she had spent most of her time sulking around the house. Having no phone, laptop, or any other form of electronic entertainment except for the radio; Perrie got a lot of chores done. Each morning she counted down until her days of freedom. Since Isaac wasn't an unreasonable man, he agreed that dance was still something Perrie could attend. Having a recital coming up meant most of her time was filled in at the dance studio, a nice relief from the four walls of the house.

Most days that she had to be at dance, Isaac would drop her off on his way to work. He had moved his schedule around to avoid Taylor and it was going well. Nobody mentioned Taylor to Isaac, except for when Zac had to bring him up for business reasons. Eventually, Isaac would sit down with his brother and work out their dispute, but it wasn't happening anytime soon.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, the Taylor debacle remained but Perrie knew better than to push it. From now on, she would just have to accept that not everything went the way you wanted in life. No matter how right it may be.

On the morning of her dance recital, she was allowed phone access for the purpose of calling Grady and Laura. It was their wedding anniversary and it would be rather unheard of if she didn't get to call them. While talking to her former foster parents, Perrie had to explain why she had been grounded. Sheepishly giving them only part of the story, she listened as Grady lectured her on how she needed to follow rules and do as her father told her. Listening to him chatter on, Perrie rolled her eyes, it as comical. Grady hardly ever punished her or Ben. Assuring Grady that she would do better to stay out of trouble, Perrie shifted the subject back to their anniversary.

Laura was in the middle of telling Perrie that Ben and Evan were planning to join her and Grady for lunch, when Isaac interrupted.

"You need to get going, they need you for final rehearsal." he reminded with a small smile.

Seeing the time, Perrie handed the phone off to Isaac and raced upstairs to get her costume in order for Nikki to drop her off at the studio. In record time, Perrie had her things and was in the car. Running through the kitchen, she shouted a few parting words at Isaac and Everett before racing out the door to where Nikki was waiting.

There were still things that had to be done, but Perrie could do those after rehearsal. Nikki would stay at the studio helping get things in order for the recital that evening. They had a babysitter lined up and Isaac was going to meet them for the show, since Junia was part of the same studio a few of the other family members would also be around for the recital.

"How are Grady and Laura?" Nikki asked, making conversation that was something other than dance.

"They're good. Ben is going to go over for lunch, we always made them lunch for their anniversary." Perrie explained with a shrug. It was silly, but she was going to miss that. Little things were sometimes the things a person missed the most. "Grady was pretty upset with me, when I told him I was grounded."

"You don't get in trouble often, do you?" Nikki smiled.

"The last time I was grounded, Ben and I missed curfew after a concert." Perrie smirked.