by Kay Lyons
"I understand. I'm sorry, sir."
"Don't be sorry. I told the police you'd see that he was punished. I want to know how."
"How, sir?"
"How are you going to fix the mess that's sitting over there sobbing into his T-shirt when he’s not vomiting and stinking up the place?"
"Boot camp," Frankie said softly, earning the attention of both men. "Whenever we got into trouble, we got boot camp. You always said we were better able to focus if we were too tired to act out and talk back. If he's running or exercising when he’s not working to repay what he owes, he isn't stealing."
Grayson met her gaze and held it a long moment. "You think it'll work?"
"It did with us."
"Does that mean you'll help me with this? It might help with your—"
"Stress," she said before Grayson could tell her father about the PTSD. "Sure. I'll help."
Her father's thick eyebrows had lifted high at Grayson's question, but she ignored the too-keen awareness she found there after she'd cut Grayson off.
Like it or not, Grayson was right. The time spent exhausting herself might help her sleep so… why not?
"I have to agree, it worked with my girls," her father said. "Though, I should probably confess it was also a way for me to spend quality time with them. What?" her father said with a small smile at her. "The older I got, the harder it was to keep up. It was a win-win. And since you're helping, I'll pitch in, too. I can improvise some things under the pier house on the beach," her father said. "It's old-school but effective."
Grayson looked shocked by her father's offer, but she wasn't at all. In the military, family was family. But she had a feeling it was also a way of getting to know her… friend.
"Thank you, sir. I'll cover the damages to the machine and Christopher can pay me—"
"That’s not acceptable. He did it; he will work it off."
"Uh, Dad, you might want to—"
"I'll do it," Christopher said from behind them while hugging the trash can. "It's okay. I'll do it."
"Well, if you two are done making eyes at each other, I suggest you take your son home. Oh four hundred comes early, especially when he'll be working here after school for the next few years to pay for that machine he broke."
Christopher moaned. "Years?"
Chapter 10
Grayson left Christopher in the truck and walked Frankie to her Jeep parked at the garage.
The moment they were out of viewing range, Grayson pressed her against the side of the vehicle and lowered his head, taking her mouth in a kiss that left them both breathing shakily by the time he lifted his head. "You are an amazing woman."
"Because I agreed to help with boot camp?"
"That and because you got your father to keep the police out of things," he said, kissing her once more. "The part, London's, now the pier house. I thought things would be different when we moved here. When I got him away from the crowd he was running with back in Charlotte."
"He's struggling to find his place, but you can do this. He needs structure. Discipline."
"He needs the fear of God put in him, but you do that these days and the parents wind up in jail."
"Thus, boot camp. You've got this," she said, palming his cheek and smiling when he turned his face into her hand.
"Text me when you get home so I know you made it safely."
"I'll be fine."
"Text me anyway," he ordered.
Frankie slid her hands up along his neck and behind his head.
"You're awfully bossy. Maybe I don't want to—"
He ended the complaint with two more kisses and then reluctantly pulled away. "No take-backs," he said. "But I would understand if you're not up for boot camp after a sleepless night." The last thing he wanted was to add more stress to her overly stressed life. He wanted to pamper her, help her heal.
"I'll be up. I rarely sleep past three."
Such a telling statement, that. He brushed the hair from her face and stared down into her sparkling eyes, rubbing his thumb lightly over her full lips. He wished he was there for her in the middle of the night when she was awake and sleepless. Wished he could hold her and take the nightmares and images from her.
"You can do this, Grayson. He won't like it now, but later, when he isn't serving a prison sentence, he'll be grateful."
He kissed her one last time and forced himself to step away so he could open the door for her to climb in. The Jeep roared to life, and he watched as she drove away, the loud engine doing nothing to drown out the sound of Christopher dry heaving and then hurling in the backseat of his truck.
Grayson returned to the vehicle and grimaced at the smell emanating from the back. "You're going to clean that up," he said, slamming the door as hard as he could.
"Ow. Dad. My head hurts. I need medicine."
"Nah. You’re not getting any. I'm going to let you feel every ounce of happiness you get from underage drinking and then… we're really going to have some fun."
* * *
At 3:58 the next morning, Grayson entered Christopher's room and began banging two pots together. The clanging had Christopher jackknifing upright in his bed and then falling back against the wall, hands holding his head as he whimpered.
"Dad! Dad, stop!"
"Nope. Get dressed."
"What? Why?"
He banged the pots again and Christopher covered his ears. "Get dressed. Gym shorts, running shoes. You've got sixty seconds or you go barefoot in your boxers."
"Go where?"
"Fifty seconds." He banged the pots a few more times. "Forty."
"All right. Stop. My head."
Chris pulled on shorts and shoved his feet into his shoes but didn't tie them.
"What's wrong? Is there a fire?"
"There will be if you don't get going."
"What's wrong? What'd I do?"
"Think about it a second."
Christopher stared at Grayson a long moment before his expression began to change. "There you go. Yeah, you're in deep, too."
"Dad—"
"Save it. You are officially in boot camp," Grayson stated, using his ex-military outdoor voice because of the way it made Christopher cringe. "You will do what I say, when I say, where I say, or the photos of you stealing items from London's Lattes, selling stolen property at the garage, and vandalizing and breaking the machine at the pier house will be added to what the cops already know of your underage drinking."
Christopher's eyes went wide.
"You don't remember the cops?"
"N-no."
"Ah, well, you made quite the show of yourself, which is why, if you don't do what I say, I’ll let them charge you and you’ll be punished by a judge. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, but… Dad, I'm sorry. And the part… I needed the cash for Cat’s gift."
"Do you understand?" Grayson shouted.
Christopher groaned and held his head. "Owww! Yeah, whatever."
"Last night was a courtesy. From now on, you'll sleep in the spare bedroom."
"What? There's no furniture in there."
"This room is a privilege I am not required to offer. A mattress, food, clothing. Those you'll get, but privileges like in-room television and gaming systems must be earned. Things cost money, Chris. The items you keep stealing? Those were earned, but not by you. As of now you get what I give you."
"Dad—"
"Downstairs. Go."
Christopher took a wide berth as he passed by Grayson, but the kid still muttered under his breath.
"You will not complain," Grayson continued in his most authoritative voice. "You'll reap consequences for complaining on top of those you're receiving based on your recent criminal activities. You will be monitored at all times. School, work at the pier house to repay the debt you owe Mr. Cohen, chores here to repay me for the part you stole, and boot camp. Those are your activities. Your only activities."
"What? For how long?" Christopher stomped down the stairs. "What about Ca
t? We're supposed to go to the beach today."
"Maybe you should've thought of that before you turned into a delinquent. You won't have time to date. You'll be too busy working to pay off the damages. You don't work and you will be charged. Do you understand?"
They made it to the front door. Grayson opened it just as Frankie exited her Jeep in the driveway.
"I'm glad Mom took a bat to your stupid bike! You wanted rid of her! That's why you killed her! You didn't want her anymore just like you don't want me!"
"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love you," Grayson growled. "I'm trying to keep you out of—"
"That's a lie! You don't want me. You're not even my real father, but you're stuck with me because she's dead! You hate me as much as I hate you!"
Shock rolled through him, sucking the breath from his lungs. "Christopher, enough."
"Send me away! Call the police! See if I care!"
Frankie raced up the steps toward them. She met his gaze briefly and must have sensed what he couldn't say, because she turned Christopher to face her.
"If he wanted rid of you, the easy thing to do would be pressing charges," she said softly, calmly. "Not listen to you have a temper tantrum and whine because you got caught. Now shut up and run, and don't stop until we tell you to."
Christopher hesitated a long moment before he sobbed and stomped down the stairs. He walked to the sidewalk, but after a look over his shoulder, the teen broke into a slow jog.
"I… I didn't know he knew I wasn't…" Grayson inhaled. "Daria said we'd tell him together one day, but as far as I knew…"
"It doesn't matter how he found out. You need to do damage control because now he feels he's been lied to his entire life. Let him calm down and then try to explain. Until then"—Frankie grasped Grayson’s hand and pulled him toward the stairs—“we run and pray we can keep up with him. Angry kids run the fastest."
Chapter 11
A week into their morning boot camps, Frankie found herself alone with Christopher when Grayson got a call from work saying he needed to report for an emergency. She assured him she'd be okay, but she could tell Grayson was nervous about leaving her to face Christopher's anger and angst alone.
She kept pace with the kid for a while, but when it kept getting slower, she decided a little egging was in order. "You really gonna let a girl outrun you? Pick up the pace."
"I hate this. I should just let them take me away. He'd be happy then."
"If you really believe that, you're more clueless than I thought." The early-morning sunrise was just beginning to lighten the sky in purple hues.
"Whatever."
"You don't believe me?"
"No. He's not my dad."
Grayson told her he'd tried multiple times to talk to Christopher over the course of the last week, but Christopher would rather sit in the empty spare bedroom staring at the walls than hear him out. "Look, kid, do you think he’d fight for you like he has if he didn’t love you? Work so hard to keep you out of trouble with the police?"
Christopher huffed and puffed.
"He just doesn't want to look bad by getting rid of me."
"Uh-huh. Clueless. Word to the wise, kid, no one cares these days. Everyone has something they're dealing with whether it's sickness or jobs or kids in trouble. It would be easy for your dad to pawn you off, but that's not what good parents do. Do you know how hard it is to keep going when you aren't grateful? Thankful? When you spew hate more often than not? To get up in the morning and do this when he's got a super stressful job and a slew of other responsibilities where people’s lives depend on him? That's love in action. Now pick up the pace."
"But—"
"Pick up the freaking pace!"
Christopher picked up speed as ordered and they fell into a more natural stride. The kid's endurance had increased dramatically in a short amount of time. After they sprinted to the halfway mark and turned to go back, Frankie said, "What do you know about that bike of his?"
Christopher cursed and Frankie ordered him to stop, drop, and give her twenty.
"What?"
"You will not use that kind of language around me or around my father's business and employees. Drop."
Christopher glared at her and Frankie knew she was pushing him hard, but she was sick of hearing him complain and didn't want him to be the kid her father's customers talked about later.
And she could use the breather from the spasm in her side and twenty would give it.
The teenager glared at her and counted off the push-ups. When he finished, they started running again. “What do you know about your dad’s bike?”
"Only that I'm glad my mom took a bat to it. He loves it more than he ever loved us."
Frankie shook her head. "Once again, clueless. Yeah, he loves that bike, but it's painfully obvious that you don't know why."
Christopher ran a ways in silence. "Tell me."
"Uh-uh. Not my story to tell but it's one you'll want to hear. So ask. Got it?"
They made the left turn onto K Avenue and headed toward the pier just as the sun was starting to truly crack the surface. "We're going to miss it. Beat me there and I'll buy you breakfast after we meet the colonel on the beach."
The boy kicked it up big-time and Frankie was no match for his long legs as he booked it toward the pier. Christopher was stretching and staring out at the water when she finally caught up.
"I want the works," he said, grinning at her with full-blown teen ego. "Bacon, eggs, waffles. Everything."
She leaned her hands on her thighs and bent, trying to catch her breath. "Yeah, yeah. But now that I know what you can do, that pace is going to get faster even if I have to ride a bike beside you to keep up."
* * *
That evening, Grayson knocked on Frankie's door and waited, flowers in hand. The door swung wide, and he smiled at the way her eyes widened at the surprise.
"Going to a funeral?"
He chuckled at her statement and dropped a kiss on her forehead before lowering his head to steal a kiss. "Brat. I'm sorry I left you to face his bad mood this morning."
"Yeah, well, that kid can run. You need to get him into track or cross country when all of this is over. I, um, didn't expect to see you."
"Your dad called and asked if Christopher could work, so I don’t have guard duty." He peered over her shoulder, frowning when he spotted Tank's dog bowl on the floor beside the coffee table with a spoon in it. Tank sat by the bowl, licking his chops. "Is this a bad time? What's happening here?"
"Hmm? Oh, nothing."
Somehow he didn't think that was nothing. "You going to take these?" Grayson handed over the flowers and watched as Frankie paused to take a sniff before moving to the kitchen. She found a vase and put them in water before moving to join him on the couch.
"How's the patient?"
"Okay now." He shifted to lean sideways, facing her. "How was your day?" He liked this. This seemingly unimportant important conversation that couples had every day. Frankie might argue their conversation was friendly, but he'd take this in whatever form it came in.
"Got some new business today, which is always good. And I finally hired a new mechanic to replace the one I had to fire."
"Another vet?"
"You know it."
Something else to love about her. Frankie fiercely wanted to help those who'd served their country and returned to find jobs had been lost, or those who struggled with PTSD symptoms and struggled to keep afloat because of it. It was something the colonel had mentioned in passing several times as only a proud papa could. "You sleeping?" he asked, brushing his thumb gently over the shadows beneath her eyes.
"Ah, Dr. Grayson is in the house."
"I'm no doctor, just a concerned boyfriend."
Her dark eyebrows rose. "Boyfriend, you say? As in you're a boy and a friend?"
"For now," he said, letting her think whatever she needed to so long as it kept conversations like this one going. He slid his hand along her neck and gently
tugged her toward him, brushed his lips over hers while holding her gaze. "Until I can get you to agree to more."
Wariness flashed over her features, but he refused to let it daunt his determination. He sealed his lips over hers, relishing the hitch in her breathing and the tiniest of moans she released when he deepened the kiss. "Come here."
Tank grumbled from where he sat nearby. Grayson ignored the dog, but when Tank went on a minute-long grumbling spree that left Frankie groaning, he ended the kissing and turned his irritation to the dog. "Yes, I'm macking on your girl. What's the problem?"
Another low grumble from Tank left them both laughing.
"Ignore him. He's hungry."
Grayson eyed the bowl full of food. "So why doesn't he eat?"
Frankie groaned and tried to bury her head, but the blazing color filling her face had Grayson pulling away to see the sight and determine the source. "What?"
"It's awful. You'll laugh."
"After this week, I need a good laugh. And you are crazy adorable when you blush. I don't think I've ever seen you do that."
"Stop it."
"Why won't he eat?"
"Because… he wants me to feed him."
"Feed him?" Grayson stared at her, not comprehending until he looked back at the bowl and spotted the spoon once more. "You mean you actually…?"
Frankie burrowed her head into his chest as Grayson laughed so hard he shook the couch. She lightly punched him and he laughed harder, squeezing her tight and burying his smile in her hair. His rough, tough, military brat and mechanic girlfriend was a total pushover when it came to her highly trained war dog. It gave him hope that he'd wear her down and she'd forgive him completely for being an utter fool.
"Stop already. I know it's crazy."
He kissed her head, her cheek, stole another kiss from her lips before he pushed her away. He grabbed the bowl from the floor so he could slide off the couch and then pulled her down beside him. "I have to see this."
"You can't tell anyone. Ever."
He handed her the bowl and watched as she hefted the spoon in Tank's direction.