Sins of the Father

Chapter 3: Stray Kitten

The excitement of the holidays — and of little Charlie and Chance — was finally starting to die down after a few weeks as school got back into swing. All of the returning students had made it a point to grin at Scott or Annie every time they passed once the news started to spread, hoping to get a chance to have some face time with the mansion's newest celebrities. Those kids were going to be so spoiled with all the attention they were getting, and everybody knew it.

Of course, Kate, on the other hand, was starting to just get busier and busier. Between wedding planning, taking classes at the Catholic church in town so she could be confirmed by Easter to give Kurt the Catholic wedding he deserved, and the movie company that had reached out to her about Kamala's first book, not to mention the fact that she was still creeped out by the visit of the future in-laws and Kurt was still a little bit down about the whole thing no matter how many times she promised him that she was still going to marry him not matter how evil his family was ... she was in clear need of an excuse to get out of the house.

She'd just closed another email from Susan — this one along the lines of her sixth or seventh attempt to accuse Kate of cutting her out of the company, even though Kate made it a point to give her a huge percentage every month, since she felt bad that she'd gotten everything when their Dad died. Susan hadn't tried to visit her at the school again, but she also hadn't called. Angry emails were about the extent of their communication at this point, and no matter how nicely Kate responded and how clear she was that there was no reason to be this upset, it just seemed like Susan was getting more and more worked up.

And Kate was just downright annoyed to boot, because Susan's most recent email had ended out with "And I hope you've finally come to your senses and stopped this wedding nonsense to that freak." As if that was going to go over well. Kate sighed, closed her laptop, and put her head on her desk for a while. She wanted Susan at her wedding, she really did, but this was sending up all kinds of red flags, and she was half convinced she should just... not invite her own sister. Which would really just seal the deal on neither of them having their families at their big day.

There was a gentle knock on her door before the door opened to reveal Scott with a little frown on his face when he saw how she was spending her office hours. "Are ... are you okay?"

She picked her head up and shrugged at him, painting on a small smile that didn't look like she was contemplating whatever-the-heck the patricide-equivalent of killing your sister was. "Oh, you know. Just trying to convince myself not to go yell at my sister. How're you?"

"I was getting ready to go on a run... but if you're having a bad day, I can ask someone else. I'm headed to Northern California to the giant redwood forest for a kid that got run out of town. That's all I know right now," Scott said.

"Oh, no!" Kate picked her head up further and pushed back from her desk. "No, no, you can't leave me here. That sounds perfect. Getting out of the house, a little fresh air, I am there." She held up her hand to tell him to stay put as she started to put things away.

"Alright, great. If you didn't want to go, I was going to have to ask K, and she's been avoiding me lately." He shook his head at the thought.

Kate just snorted out a little laugh. "Don't take it personally, boss man. You're dripping with baby glitter. And some of us aren't ready to become parents."

"The fact that she's adopted half the mansion speaks to the contrary," Scott said with a little laugh.

"This is true," Kate agreed, grinning and glad that the discussion was on K, not on her... especially with the recent "family" visit she and Kurt had just had and the way Kurt was around Chance and Charlie... She shook her head and then raised an eyebrow at him. "You gonna be able to stand being apart from the twins for so long?" she had to tease.