Daddy Brought Home the Stepdaughter

Chapter 3

Brad waited at the airport for hours, and no one showed up claiming to be Dusty or Massey, and Brad eventually had to leave. He was tired, a little hungry, his phone was dead, and his foot hurt.

When he finally reached home, he found himself staring at two motorcycles that sat in the spot where he parked his car. Two big black motorcycles, and something deep in his gut told him that those belonged to Dusty and Massey Mayron.

Brad got out of his car, feeling discouraged as he stared at the motorcycles, and Sara came hurrying out of the car, looking frenzied.

"Hey! Where have you been? I called you like 100 times." Brad sighed, feeling terrible.

"I know, my phone died." He explained, then gestured to the motorcycles. "Look... These motorcycles, are these..."

"Yes." Sara answered, exasperated. "They're here."

"They're here?" Brad exclaimed, completely exasperated now.

"Yes."

"What're they doing inside there?"

"Dusty's giving the kids all kinds of Starbursts and Massey's-" she stopped talking, biting her lip. Clearly, something bad had already gone down, but Brad was already upset.

"Starbursts? God damn it!" Sara's eyes went wide, and Brad took a deep breath. "Sorry. Sorry I'm a hot habanero pepper right now. I got a few bullet points I want to bring up with our friend Dusty, starting with airport etiquette, courtesy and expectation." The two walked inside, where they heard Megan's excited voice talking to Dusty.

"Oh, good story, Daddy!" She said, and there was a happy laughter following it:

"You like that story? It's all true. Hey! Who wants some more Starbursts and a couple of uncirculated silver dollars?" Brad walked in, and sure enough, there sat the man from the airport! The mysterious Massey was no where to be seen.

"So you are Dusty." The man, Dusty stood up and walked over to Brad.

"I sure am." He said with that smooth voice of his, and Brad felt beads of sweat form on his forehead. "You must be the new and improved husband." He held out his hand, Brad expecting a handshake, but Dusty pulled in him for a friendly pat on the back. "Bring it in, big guns."

"I already met you at the airport." Brad told him, pulling away. Dusty's eyebrows furrowed, and he looked confused.

"No, I don't recall that, friend." But Brad knew what he saw.

"Yeah, I walked right up to you and asked if you were Dusty. You had Massey with you." Sara tensed, both kids' smiles fell and Dusty turned red, but he let out a nervous chuckle.

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember a heavy hitter like yourself." He scoffed, and Brad chose to play along, wondering what had happened with Massey that turned the whole living room silent.

"Well, must have been my mistake." Dusty rolled his eyes and chuckled, lowering his voice a touch.

"All right, that was me at the airport." Brad threw up his hands.

"Yeah, I know that." He told him, exasperated, and Dusty sighed.

"The truth is, I saw you before you saw me, and I'm thinking, "This is the guy who's raising my kids?" "And damn it if he doesn't look like the real deal." I mean, look at you. You figured it out, didn't you? You cracked the code." Brad chuckled humbly, feeling flattered by Dusty's words.