by Nikki Mays
We finally spot Danny standing with a few officers whose names I don’t remember since we work different shifts. Danny is standing in gray sweatpants, a long-sleeved black Henley, chucks and a backwards baseball cap.
He has his arms crossed and you can feel the anger radiating off of him from here. Even the officers seem to sense the air of danger that’s surrounding him because they make sure not to get too close.
At the sound of our footsteps he looks over at us and tries to give Sage a reassuring grin, which in all honestly looks more like a grimace, but I give him props for trying for her.
I let her hand go and she walks over to Danny and gives him a hug. A few months ago that might have bothered me. But after watching how they interact and how close they are, I can say that I’m really glad that they have each other. I know that if anything every happens to me, Sage will always have someone who will look out for her, no matter what.
He looks over at me while Sage is hugging him, most likely trying to gage my reaction to the contact. I give him a grin and a head nod to let him know that I get it. Only then does he return her hug.
“How bad is all of it?” I hear Sage’s mumbled question from Danny’s side.
“It’s nothing that can’t be fixed. Luckily no one was here, so no one was injured. That’s the most important thing.”
Danny makes the introductions between the officers and us, letting them know that Sage is one of the owners.
“Can you think of anyone who would do this?” Officer Tieaks asks.
I recognize him and Officer Randall as two of the newer rookies, hence the shitty shift.
Sage and Danny give each other a wary look and then look at me. I know exactly where their minds are at. I sigh internally. Somehow, I think we all have a feeling that our daughters being evil masterminds had something to do with this backlash. The blood red spray paint is just a little too coincidental.
“I’m going to kill all three of them when we get home.” Sage growls making the two officers standing in front of us look at each other.
“Ma’am?” Officer Randall questions.
Sage pinches the bridge of her nose. “So, between the three of us,” She signals between her, Danny and myself, “we have three teenage daughters. Danny and I have twin girls and JJ has a daughter.”
“And you think that they did this?” Officer Tieaks asks in a shocked tone.
Danny gives a humorless chuckle. “No, but my guess is that they are the reason this happened. You see, the girls don’t like when women hit on JJ and I, even though I’m single.”
“Totally not the time Dan.” Sage drawls.
Completely ignoring her he continues. “So, we had an incident where the girls convinced a group of smaller children to “accidentally” pour red paint on all the women they perceived to be hitting on us.”
Both officers are standing there with their mouths hanging open and just blinking rapidly.
Deciding I should be helpful. “By the end, it looked like that scene from the movie Carrie, which we later found out that they had just watched thanks to an uncle who is a horrible influence.”
“So, do we think that our girls did this? No, because all three are at my house in bed right now. Do we think that them being the evil geniuses that they are has caused this? Absolutely. The red paint is just a dead giveaway.” Sage calmly tells the poor rookies, who are looking at the three of us like we’re insane.
“I’ll get a list from Danny, what members the girls had the kids pour the paint on and I’ll make sure to get it to you guys within the next day or so.”
The look of gratitude that they’re giving me is comical.
“Are we able to start cleaning up the place and seeing what we’ll be able to salvage?” Danny questions.
They both nod their heads, likely seeing this as their chance to get the hell away from us.
After everyone else is gone, the three of us take a walk through the entire place. Danny scrubs a hand down his face. “Jesus, I knew that those women left pissed the fuck off, but it never occurred to me that they would do this shit.”
We both look over at Sage when she snorts loud as hell. “You men have absolutely no idea how petty us bitches can really be. Kayla and I have always been pretty tame.”
Danny and I look at each other with true smirks on our faces for the first time. Sage holds up her hand. “You’ve all had the displeasure of meeting Craig. In all honesty, the fact that she held out from doing that for so many years, shows exactly how tame she really is.”
Dan and I both tilt our heads in agreement because yeah, Kayla should’ve tried to drown his dumb ass years before she did. That woman has the patience of a damn saint. I mean she married Marc, only someone with infinite patience could deal with his ass on a daily basis.
Sage looks around with a frown marring that beautiful face of hers. She has her hands in the hoodie that I’m just now recognizing as mine. I swear this woman has stolen five of them in the few months that we’ve been together. I’m going to have to start hiding them from her thieving ass.
Sage looks over at Danny with a pleading look. “Can we please just hire someone to repaint all of this? I don’t want to do it again.” She whines worse than the girls.
He looks over at her with an obnoxious smirk. Here we go. Even when dealing with a serious issue, these two still bicker like they’re still sixteen. “I thought that those new painting things that you bought were “so awesome” and made painting “so easy, that we can knock it out in a day” huh? I thought that you were all for painting now?”
It is so damn hard keeping a straight face, especially when he’s doing such a bad imitation of her voice. These two are fucking ridiculous together.
Her eyes turn all squinty at him and she puts her hands on her hips. “It was awesome when we painted it in one day. But I am not doing it again because your cheap ass doesn’t feel like hiring anyone!”
“I am not cheap!” He growls. Eh, he kind of is at times. It really is so weird how he’ll splurge on certain things and not others.
“The only thing cheaper than you are hookers.” Sage deadpans.
He ignores the dig like a seasoned pro. “And we won’t be the ones painting. Since three teenage terrors caused this, then they will be the ones to repaint this entire place. After they scrub the place clean.” Danny says with an evil grin.
I almost feel bad for the girls but realistically they more than likely caused this gigantic clusterfuck. “I’m good with it. And I have a feeling that Paige is going to be with me, at least until after her mother’s wedding.”
Which reminds me that I have to call Jackie and see what the hell happened there.
Sage nods her head in agreement. “Yeah, the triplets of terror have a lot to atone for. I’m sure that there’s shit that they’ve done that we haven’t even figured out about yet.”
“That’s a scary thought.” Danny mutters.
He’s not wrong. How the three of them can look so angelic while being so devious is downright terrifying. I feel bad for anyone who ever decides to screw with one of them. The Three Musketeers have nothing on them. All for one and one for all is their motto.
The next morning after multiple threats – from the girls – we were finally able to get their asses in gear and over to the gym.
I’ve been in some dicey situations during my time in the Army and as a SWAT officer, but I’ve never been as terrified as I was staring down three pissed off teenage girls. I’m man enough to admit that I considered hiding behind Sage. They don’t teach you how to deal with teenage girls in boot camp.
Let me tell you, the car ride to the gym with them seething in the backseat was an amazing experience that I hope I get to experience over and over again. Is eight in the morning too early to start drinking? It’s five o’clock somewhere right? Boarding school is looking so fucking good right now.
The five of us walk into what remains of the gym and see Danny standing where the front glass counter u
sed to be. He has three coffees in his arms.
“Are those for us?” Missy asks in a hopeful tone.
Danny stares blankly at her. “You’ve got enough energy. These are so that the three of us can deal with you walking hormones of horribleness.”
I walk, possibly quickly, towards him. “Did you happen to spike these?” I ask him in a whisper.
“Dude, it’s eight in the morning.” He says while looking at me incredulously.
“Have you never met them before? Have you never dealt with nasty balls of pissed off teenage girl?”
He blinks at me a few times. “I have a bottle of Johnny Walker Black in my office drawer. We can hit it up once we get them situated.”
I’m starting to wonder who’s stealing more of my heart, him or Sage. “Sounds good to me.” I state.
Sage is looking over at us with narrowed eyes. “What are you two talking about over there?” She asks with a voice filled with suspicion. Not that I blame her. We are definitely up to no good.
“Figuring out where we should have the triplets of terror start out.” Danny lies seamlessly.
“Well?” Sage raises an eyebrow, still somehow knowing that he’s full of shit.
“Why don’t we start with having them scrub off the spray paint?” I chime in.
Paige gives me a nasty look and places a hand on her hip. “Why would we do that if we’re just going to repaint everything anyway?”
“Yeah.” The twins mutter in unison. Nope...that’s not still creepy at all.
“Because it’s red spray paint, Cagey Paigey,” He starts, using the dumb nickname he gave her a few weeks back just to piss her off. “It would show through if it’s not scrubbed off first.”
Her eyes are like tiny little slits. “Then wouldn’t it make sense to just paint everything white and then use the real color on top?”
Danny places his hands over his heart. “I would never want to make you girls paint twice! That’s just too much painting for such delicate little angels, such as yourselves.” He says in mock horror.
The look that all three are shooting him would be comical if we didn’t know how truly evil they can be. Payback is definitely going to be a bitch.
Two weeks later and these girls are still bitching about all the work they had to do at the gym. How it could’ve exhausted them so much is beyond me. They’re teenagers for fuck’s sake! At their age they have endless amounts of energy. I swear every time one of them complains, I picture that stupid boarding school that their fathers want to send them to with more and more fondness.
“I don’t want to go!” Paige yells for the thousandth time. Since Jackie is pretty much a useless bitch, Paige and JJ have been practically living here.
Not that the twins and I mind. We love having them with us all the time. It’s just times like this, when I don’t really feel like dealing with yet another annoyed teenager, when I miss some of the quiet time I used to have.
“You have to. It’s your mother’s wedding and you’re her maid of honor.” JJ tells her patiently, even though, we all kind of agree that she shouldn’t be forced to do anything that she doesn’t want to for that woman.
“She only made me that to make herself look like a good mother who actually gives a shit about me!” Can’t disagree with that one.
“Language!.” Obviously JJ can’t either since that’s all he can come up with. Paige rolls her eyes knowing that none of us are going to disagree with her.
Like I said, Paige and JJ have pretty much become permanent fixtures here. The one reason being that Jackie is “too busy planning her wedding to have any time to devote to Paige” and I swear that’s what the useless cow said...verbatim.
I still can’t believe how she has absolutely no desire to spend any time with Paige.
So Paige has become like one of my own. We do home spa days and girls only movie nights at least once a week. I couldn’t imagine missing out on this time with any of them.
Except the week we all seemed to have synced up our periods...I would have liked to give up all three of them at that point. Any woman with any sanity wouldn’t want to deal with their hormones when she’s already dealing with her own.
Poor JJ looked so frightened last time, that I’m pretty sure he lied about having to work overtime and just went and stayed with Rocco. Not that I blame him, but he could’ve at least stocked the house with ice cream and chocolate before he left. Just saying, it would’ve been the considerate thing to do. But, whatever.
JJ is rubbing his hands up and down his face. I know that he’s tired of this conversation. We all are at this point. I would love nothing more than to tell Paige to say fuck her and not go.
But unfortunately, we have to teach them how to be well-functioning adults. It sucks, but being an adult means that a lot of the time you have to do shit that you really don’t want to do. That doesn’t mean that we all can’t be petty as hell and hope that Jackie falls face first walking down the aisle. We’re teaching them to be adults...not saints.
“It’s not even like you have to stay there babygirl.” JJ says with infinite patience. Well and what I’m pretty sure is a small amount of glee since he’ll no longer be forced to pay the money hungry bitch alimony.
“All you have to do is watch her get married, give a few fake smiles for pictures, wait for them to cut the cake and then text me so that I can pick you up. And just think, you won’t have to deal with her at all while she’s on her honeymoon. It’s just a few hours to be rid of her for a while.” Honestly, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
You can see that Paige is even catching onto the appeal of this. Just as quickly she goes back to scowling. She holds up the garment bag that holds her dress and I can’t even hide the grimace. “Have you seen this monstrosity that she’s forcing me to wear?” She screeches like a true teenage girl.
The dress is what nightmares are made of.
“I look like cotton candy met a hooker unicorn! Uncle Declan looked better than I do in this thing!” Sad part is, she isn’t wrong. “Only a prostitute would wear something this horrific!”
We’re all standing here wishing like hell that we could disagree with her, but we can’t. That dress, if you can even call it that, is the tiniest scrape of fabric that I have ever seen. Add in the fact that it’s metallic and bright pink and blue. Yeah, it’s an absolute nightmare and I cannot even fathom what the fuck Jackie was thinking.
When we asked Paige if all of the other bridesmaids have similar dresses, she told us no. The rest of the women are wearing a gross neon pink but at least theirs are floor length. So, she is purposely doing this to her daughter. Jackie told her that she wanted to make sure that Paige stood out so that everyone knew that she was the maid of honor.
I call bullshit on that one. I think Jackie is so threatened by Paige’s beauty that she’ll do anything to embarrass her.
“Trust me.” JJ says in a growl. “I’ll be having a very long discussion about this dress with her. And I’ll also make sure that she is never to have any say in your clothing again.”
Paige physically deflates. “Whatever. Let’s get this shit show over with so that I don’t have to see her for a long time.”
She grabs the garment bag and makes sure that it drags on the ground much to everyone’s amusement. The twins wrap their arms around her murmuring hopefully words of encouragement, instead of what is most likely words of how to get away with murder.
She does her death march up to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Love you Sage.” And there goes the rest of my heart.
“Love you too sweet girl. Make sure you do the opposite of whatever the twins told you to do.” I say while placing my hand on her cheek and ignoring the matching glares that I’m currently receiving.
Once she walks out the door, JJ comes up and gives me a toe-curling kiss. “Love you babe. We’ll be home later. Make sure that you take your own advice and don’t do anything the twins tell you to.”
Becca gives him a gla
re that would make a lesser man cower. “Ya know, it’s extremely insulting that you guys joke about how evil we are all the time. You don’t know. We could’ve told her to just suck it up and smile.”
JJ gives her a smirk that says he knows that she’s full of shit. “Did you?” He asks with a raised eyebrow.
Missy snorts. “Of course not. We told her what she could put into everyone’s food and drink to make them sick but not kill them.”
JJ blinks a few times and then looks down at me. I give him a sheepish grin. “At least they took murder off the table. I consider that a win for their maturity.”
“Nah.” Becca drawls. “There’s just too many people who know how much of a shitty mother Jackie is. Paige would be the prime suspect. But if it’s something in the food that affects everyone, they’ll just blame the caterer.” She shrugs like she isn’t the least bit evil.
I give both the shitheads a glare. “You couldn’t have kept that to yourself until after he was gone at least?” Seriously, why JJ sticks around is beyond me.
“Baddass back up dad needs to know realistically what he’s getting into with us. It’s only fair if he ever gets stuck with us all for good.” Missy states calmly like we’re talking about the damn weather. I blame Danny for how they are. I swear he must’ve been saying some weird shit to them when they were little. I take absolutely no blame for them.
“On that wonderfully terrifying note, I’ll see you all later. Hopefully, with a daughter who is not spending a night in jail for attempted murder.” He gives me another panty melting, dimple filled smile and walks out the door.
I turn towards the twin terrors. “Really?” I throw my hands up.
They both creepily blink in unison. “What?”
“You two are so fucking creepy some days. You guys make Damon and Declan look normal.”
They both frown. “I’m pretty sure they kill people and dump their bodies for fun.” Missy states.