Compromise Me (Book Two of the Kirkland Family)

Compromise Me: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next two weeks at home passed quickly for Josie.  She tried to spend as much time with her family, but she also wanted to visit her old haunts and hang out with old friends, yett the guilt of her grandfather and her family’s need to see her caused her to split her time between her house, her grandparents’ farm and the store.  Josie Kirkland did, indeed, grow up, she thought wearily.  Responsibility became her mantra.  It had snuck up on her like a starving rat.

Responsibility to her family, to her home, to herself.  At eighteen, when she moved away to college, she knew couldn’t play like she wanted.  And it was damn difficult to quit her childish ways...like cold turkey.  Yet in the six years she was there, she matured...somewhat.  She still had fun, but mature fun...with a little added Travis teasing along the way.

But it was most difficult being mature when her father got his dander up about her growing up.  When she told him that she already had all her stuff packed away in storage in Memphis and an apartment waiting for her -- and she didn’t need any help with any of that -- he became sullen.  He thought he’d get a chance to help her settle into her new place and make sure she lived in a good part of town, didn’t have to travel on the freeway, and stocked her fridge with vegetables.  

“Where had my little girl gone?” he muttered to himself one early evening as she explained that she had everything under control to make the transition to living on her own.  Back in New York, she always had a roommate, of some sort, and either lived in the dorms or in student housing, so he never worried much about whether she was safe where she slept at night...not more than normal, at least.  

“Daddy,” she said, curling up next to him on the couch.  “I’m still your little girl, but you knew this day would come.  I’m old enough to start doing my own thing.  I can’t live here at home for the rest of my life--”

“Yes, you can,” he said, and Josie saw Hannah smile at both of them.

“Justin,” Hannah said.  “She’s a grown woman.  By the time I was her age, I’d already gone off to live my dreams, realized my own mistakes, and found where I belonged.  She needs to learn about living on her own, paying her own bills, making her own mistakes...find the man she’ll love until the end of her days--”

“Oh, hell no!” Justin growled at his wife and oldest daughter.  Thankfully, the other kids, Uncle-Cousin Max, too, were outside, having a water balloon fight.  Josie sighed at the thought.  She loved water balloon fights.

“She is not falling in love with any jerk from...from anywhere!”  He turned to Josie.  “If I find out you’re--”

“I’m what?” Josie inquired, raising her eyebrows at him.  “I’m shacking up with a man?  Or getting my groove on? Or heaven forbid...dating?  Daddy, I’m twenty-five.  I’m old enough--”

“You are not old enough,” he said, pointing at her, and then pointed at Hannah, “And don’t you say anything differently.  At twenty-five, I had a wife and daughter, and I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing.  You’ll be old enough when you’re thirty-five, Josie...maybe not until forty.”

Josie rolled her eyes.  Same old argument with him.  This had been going on since the day she went on her first date back in high school.  

“Does it make you feel any better that I’m still a virgin?” she asked her dad in a saucy tone.

He went pale.  “I am not talking about your sexlife!  We’ve had that conversation.  Don’t even think about it!  Don't even think about getting one!”