Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3) (40 page)

Anyway, the only other noteworthy thing I heard was towards the end of the meet with one event left go when Camie got a text. I couldn’t read it from where I was and didn’t really even try, but she showed it to Kate and asked, “What do you think?”

To which Kate shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Hmm, I guess if you want to…but remember your dad asked you to help him make a lasagna so if you’re going to, we’ll have to get out of here right when the meet ends…”

“Ooh, yeah...and that nap interfered with my chores too.” Then Camie sent a text of her own and put her phone away.

“Yeah, there’s that, but do you really wanna…” Kate said and then, remembering I was in earshot, she got cryptic by nodding her head slightly and motioning with her eyes to Tristan on the other side of the pool. “You know…”

“Yeah, no, I don’t,” Camie returned, shaking her head and then she looked at the cats, “Crap. I can’t just leave the girls here though.”

I saw and watched as it happened, but, it didn’t register until it was too late.

Kate’s eyes narrowed in thought, then, suddenly, when the start buzzer sounded, they lit up like a lightbulb had literally been turned on in her head, a sly grin spread across her face and then she turned to face me fully and said, “I’m sure Uncle Pete wouldn’t mind doing you and Tristan a huge favor by watching the girls for about fifteen minutes after the meet until Tristan is ready to leave, right, Uncle Pete? You’d totally do that for your friends, wouldn’t you?”

I was stuck. My options were to just suck it up and agree or say no and sound like a complete asshole, which I really dislike being thought of as—even if it’s sometimes true—or even possibly being asked why I won’t do it, which I really can’t seem to come up with a valid reason for.

I blew out a breath and said, “Fine, whatever, but you know he’s gonna ask, so what do I say when he does?”

“Duh, you’ll tell him the truth…Camie had to get home because she has chores to do and she promised her dad she’d help him make dinner.”

Duh is right. It’s not like I know anything about what the text was about anyway. It didn’t stop me from fidgeting under the cats’ weighty stares though when Camie and Kate left, whereby leaving me alone with the two furry weirdos who were just sitting on the bench in front of me,
looking
at me in what felt like a distinctly accusatory way. And yes, I suppose it could be the product of my imagination, but my guilty conscience is really hoping they can’t truly understand the English language like they appeared to do when the meet started, because then they’d have understood all those things I said about drowning them when they were keeping me awake at night and I was so tired. If that’s the case, the staring would mean they’re either plotting their revenge, or now that we’re alone together, that they’re about to implement their already thought through plan of attack…

“You know I didn’t mean what I said, right?”

They stared. I fidgeted.

Damn. I should’ve threatened their lives in Spanish. I could’ve said I was just studying for a test as a viable excuse.

There’s gotta be a way out of this. I only wish I’d paid more attention at the time and could remember which one likes chicken nuggets…and was it ketchup or mustard the other one likes on her cheeseburger? Hmm. I wonder if they’d overlook the fact that I can’t remember those details if the toy is good…

True lies ~ Jeff

The second Ian tagged the wall, winning the final event in the meet, Katy and Camie bolted.

I looked at Katy and with my hands in the air like I was asking, “What the hell?” she pointed to Camie and then to her wrist and non-existent watch in explanation.

“Trist, dude, she’s leaving…” I told him after hitting him in the shoulder to get his attention and then I jerked my head in the girls’ direction.

He looked over at them with an exceedingly childlike look of disappointment and caught Camie’s eyes when she turned to make sure she’d left everything for the cats. Camie gave him a similar answer to Katy’s, but hers looked a little more apologetic with the shrug and “Sorry, I really gotta go,” expression she had though. Tristan replied by raising his eyes and brows quickly in submission and shaking his head like he was begrudgingly saying, “Uh, okay, I guess…” Then he looked over to where Pete was sitting with the cats and sighed.

“Well that really bites…I wanted to talk to her…” he said out loud but to himself.

“So go to her house and talk to her, you jackhole,” I said, pointing out the painfully obvious.

“Mmm, yeah, I’ll have to, but I’m supposed to practice with Pete,” he told me and started walking over to his children and our pitcher.

Hearing Tristan approach, the cats flew off the bench they were sitting on, startling Pete so much he dropped their leashes and ended up tripping and stumbling over one of the metal bleachers while he was scrambling to catch them as they galloped over to meet us halfway.

“Hey, why’d they take off so soon?” Tristan asked, picking up both the cats and like it was normal; he let them have their way with him as they climbed on him indelicately, sniffed him indecently, and indiscriminatingly licked his wet hair. It was kinda disturbing to watch. It was almost like he was being kitty molested or something just as equally not right.

“Camie has chores and has to help her dad make a lasagna or something… Dude, doesn’t that bug you?” Pete asked, gesturing to Phineas who was balancing herself on one of his shoulders and rubbing her entire head all over his cheek, while perched on the other shoulder, Ferb had her nose and whiskers inside Tristan’s ear.

“Nah, it’s just what they do…I’m used to it. Um, would you be terribly upset if we didn’t practice today though?”

Pete shrugged and sounding a little put out he said, “No, I guess not, why?”

“Well, Camie and I had an awesome night and I was hopin’ to talk to her about some stuff after the meet, but as you see, she bailed. I don’t know what she’s got goin’ tonight or if she’s goin’ to Kristen’s, but I kinda would rather not do this at a party anyway, and I really don’t wanna wait until tomorrow either,
sooo
, that kind of leaves me the time I set aside to play with you,” he explained and looked at his foot as he sorta kicked at a small puddle on the pool deck.

“You gonna tell her you’re a stupid jerk?” I asked at the same time Pete asked his question with a grin.

“You finally gonna tell her you wanna get back together?”

“Mmmmaybe,” Tristan answered and looked everywhere except at Pete and me like he was embarrassed. He’s not; he’s just being a giddy, overgrown kid.

“Amen! Jesus, it’s about time…for that I’ll totally let you off the hook,” Pete said and handed the cats’ sparkly pink suitcase to Tristan before he said goodbye to us and turned to leave, rubbing his knee as he did.

As Tristan, the cats, and I walked to the locker room to change, I looked around and dropped my voice to ask, “So um, I take it you’re not planning on telling her everything, so ah…how are you gonna do this?”

He sighed and then answered, “No, I can’t do that, so in keeping with both the lie and the truth, I’m just gonna tell her I made a mistake.”

I was nodding my head like I agreed, but, what I was
really
thinking was, “I was afraid that’s what you were gonna say.”

Shit. I’ve got a feeling this isn’t gonna turn out quite like he and Pete are expecting…

The best laid plans ~ Tristan

I wanted to give Camie enough time to get her stuff done at home so Mike and I took the girls down to the park and dicked around a little bit before getting something to eat. I also did that to make sure I can honestly say I’m full in case I show up before Camie’s family has eaten dinner and invites me to stay. You see, Camie and her dad not re-heating something or making a pre-packaged meal but actually cooking together won’t be good. Kevin doesn’t like to follow recipes and Camie…well, Camie can’t cook. She thinks she can but the only people in that house who can turn ingredients into food are Mandy and Jillian. Now if it was
Jillian
who was helping their dad make the lasagna, then yeah, I’d totally show up hungry.

I was already becoming highly impatient to see Camie when I got home though, so when I was getting the girls’ stuff set up and realized I’d ran out of the plastic cartridges for their litter box, I started to feel my blood pressure rise with the irritation of having to run back out and come all the way back home again before going to Camie’s.

“Son of a bitch!” I grumbled. “I suppose it would be completely wrong of me to ask you two to hold it for a little bit while Daddy goes and talks to Mommy to see if she’ll take me back, huh?”

They just paused in giving each other a bath and with their pink tongues poking out of their mouths, they stared at me like they were saying, “Well, Dad, we
could
try that, but we wouldn’t ask you to hold it
or
your breath for that matter, and chances are, we’ll shit on your cuddle pillow just because we can and to prove our point here, but hey, if you wanna live dangerously, by all means go ahead and run over to Mom’s for a bit.”

“I know, I know…okay, let’s go…back in the car,” I said and grabbing their harnesses again, I scooped them up and went to the damned pet store.

By the time I got back home the second time, I was in a full-fledged hurry. I debated all of three seconds on taking a shower and chose to just change my clothes instead. I already showered this morning and it’s not like I’m dirty or anything, but because I had the cats, I didn’t rinse off in the locker room after the meet and I always try to at least do that, if not actually wash my hair after swimming in a chlorinated pool. It’s just a habit I picked up when I was a towheaded kid after my mom pounded home the fact that if I was gonna swim my life away, my hair would turn green if I didn’t rinse the chlorine out and I’d be stuck sitting in a bathtub with baking soda on my head for half an hour or longer every night and I
hated
doing that. It was boring to say the least, but it was also kinda degrading to be a nine-year-old boy and have your mom make you sit naked in an empty tub while she slathers a baking soda paste into your hair. And now that I think about it, I don’t know why it never occurred to me to wear swim trunks all those times. Huh. I guess I just figured that if you’re gonna be in a bathtub, you’re supposed to be naked. I mean, those are the rules.

I think that’s partly why I went so over the top with using soap on my clothes and stuff when Camie and I took that shower and bath together. Interesting. I wonder if I could trace my disliking for the rules and a slew of my other issues back to that. I bet I could. I’ll bet I’m the way I am because of my mom and baking soda…

So having finished setting the girls up and getting changed, throwing clothes and crap everywhere in the whirlwind process, I discovered I’d lost my keys. “Keys, keys, keys…are you fucking kidding me? Where the hell are my keys?!” I asked the imaginary troll responsible for stealing my keys.

Oh, just to be clear, he’s not to be confused with the goblin that Jeff refers to as the Sock Monster who’s responsible for stealing one sock from each load of laundry either. They’re two entirely different species. And although they
can
be equally frustrating, sometimes even collaborating in their havoc wreaking, I contribute most of the reason why I now tend to forego wearing shoes that require socks to that second pain in the ass, and why I almost always hang my keys on a hook by my bedroom door to the slightly more annoying first one.

I was hunting for my keys in the mess I’d made on my bed, hoping to God I hadn’t absentmindedly dropped them in the recently used kitty litter box while I was filling it. Then the cats jumped up and thinking I was playing some great game, they started diving under plastic bags, magazines, CDs, books, clothes and sheets, trying to grab those things with their paws seconds before I did. I was about to politely hurl them both off my bed after Phineas snagged three of my fingers with her claw, but I stopped in mid-reach when I heard the familiar tinkling sound of my keys as Ferb jumped on top of my baby book. Yeah, I don’t know what my baby book is doing in my bed at the moment either, and I don’t think it was there last night when I went to bed, but whatever, I picked it up and lo and behold, my keys!

“Sweet! Okay, girls, I’m outta here…wish me luck!” I said to them and was about to toss the album filled with all the embarrassing naked pictures that Camie was dying to see back into the abyss that is currently my bed, but considering it, I stopped just short.

“Hmm…”
I pondered out loud. I could present it as a peace offering after I tell her I made a mistake… “Nah, not yet,” I decided and dropped the book back onto my bed where the cats were still playing and with a small chuckle, I watched it quickly disappear under a blanket as Phineas scrambled on top of the blanket trying to get Ferb who was under it.

It’s been a really long time since I even looked through that book, so I wanna make sure it doesn’t contain anything too untoward. I know, you’re wondering how a baby book might possibly contain something unseemly, but, I don’t trust my mom. I trust
her
mom even less… They’re both a little warped with saving every-little-fucking-thing which was more than confirmed three years ago after I found my shriveled up umbilical cord stump super glued next to a bath picture, and God only knows
what
my grandmother found during her last visit here that she felt just
had
to be included in the short biographical history of the young me. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find the wrapper of my first condom taped in there somewhere.

Aw fuck.
I just realized I’m as warped as they are! Because, of course, I wrote the “used on date” on it and still have that little souvenir…

Considering for a brief moment rifling through the layers of crap on my bulletin board to see if the wrapper was still attached to the postcard I sent Jeff from Hawaii that read,

The surfing is great, wish you were here.

Oh fyi, sex is really awesome too, you should give it a try.

-T