The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. Not so industrial, I guess,” he said as he tried to make out what kind of factories he was looking at. “Does that say meat packing?” he asked, squinting his eyes at the largest building he could see. “What’s that smell?”

  “You should remember this next time you order steak or a burger in a restaurant, cowboy,” Fiona teased. “So, where to? This is not a big place, if you haven’t noticed already.”

  “We should go straight to my dad’s place, I guess,” Andrew said.

  “We could check out Old Town,” Fiona said, referring to the street sign. “Wanna see what the O.K. Corral actually looks like?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Andrew said nervously. “We should go see my dad. Get it out of the way…”

  “Are you nervous? About seeing your dad?”

  “What if he doesn’t want to help us?” Andrew asked, more of a fear than a real question.

  “Of course he’ll want to help you! He’s your dad. You guys still talk, right? Still stay in contact?”

  “Birthdays and Christmas, sure. Rest of the year, not so much.”

  “Well, he’s not going to turn you in, is he?”

  “Course not!”

  “Then, worse-case scenario, we’re on our own. That’s not so bad, is it?” Fiona asked, trying to sound supportive.

  “No, that’s not so bad, at all,” Andrew answered.

  “You’re afraid that he’s going to be disappointed in you? That maybe you won’t make him feel proud, is that it? Something like that?” Fiona asked gently.

  “Yeah, something like that. I guess.”

  “Well, according to the GPS, this is the place,” Fiona said, pulling to the opposite side of the street.

  “Yeah, it looks familiar,” Andrew said, not recognizing anything.

  “What do you need to hear?” Fiona asked as she placed a comforting hand on his. “Even if he doesn’t help us, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. Just maybe, with his new family and everything, maybe it’s not possible for him to help. He’s your dad; no matter what, he still loves you.”

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Andrew said, feeling panicked. “I mean, why get him involved, you know? What if the cops have already been here? What if they’re staking out the place?” he said, looking around wildly. “They could have his phone bugged and they’re inside right now, waiting for us to show up?”

  “Andrew, relax,” Fiona said softly. “Look at me,” she said, holding his face in her hands and looking him in the eyes. “You’re feeling scared and that’s perfectly okay; that’s perfectly normal. But you need to chill, alright? Why don’t you take a few deep breaths and get more into your body, okay, sweetie?”

  “Okay,” Andrew agreed as he forced himself to breathe deeper.

  “It doesn’t work that way, with the cops, I mean,” she said reassuringly. “Cops don’t work with each other across state lines. This is Kansas,” she said gently, like she knew what she was talking about. “The cops here don’t give a crap what happens in LA. In fact, the cops here hate the cops in LA. Let‘s face it, everybody hates the cops in LA,” she said and smiled when Andrew laughed.

  “Of course they do,” he agreed, smiling. “I’m sorry, I was kinda losing it there for a bit,” he said, coming back to his senses. “It’s just been so long, you know? He’s my dad,” he said without further explanation.

  “I know, Andrew. I know he is,” Fiona said softly.

  “Thank you,” he said meaningfully. “You’re the friggin’ best!”

  “You’re my one and only, sweetie,” Fiona said and smiled. “We gotta look after each other, right?”

  “Yeah,” he answered and kissed her lips. “Yes, we do.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Fiona said, playfully punching his shoulder.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” he then said as he opened the car door.

  As they walked to the house, Andrew looked around to see who might be watching them. Apart from the odd passing car, the street was quiet. Taking a final deep breath, Andrew rang the doorbell. The house was silent and there was no sign of life or movement inside. “You think they’re home?” Fiona asked.

  “I don’t know,” Andrew answered, secretly relieved no one had opened the door.

  “Try again,” Fiona said, looking through a window. Andrew rang the doorbell a second time. He then gently knocked.

  “I guess they’re not home,” he then said as he leaned his face closer to the window to get a better look. “Could be out shopping or something,” he said.

  “You have his phone number?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah, of course,” Andrew answered. “I figured he’d be home, I guess.”

  “Do you want to call him?” Fiona asked, unsure why he wasn’t reaching for his phone.

  “Later, maybe,” he said, looking like he was thinking of a plan. “We should check into a motel for the night and get something to eat, first. You hungry?”

  “Sure,” Fiona said, even though she wasn’t.

  On the way back to the car, Andrew checked the internet on his smart phone. “The nearest motel is just a few blocks from here,” he said.

  “Okay,” Fiona answered as they got into the car.

  Right behind them, Simon's SUV turned the corner. Keeping his eyes on the house numbers, he stopped. As Fiona’s SUV pulled out, Simon casually looked over. His eyes widened when he instantly recognized it.

  “Hello, hello,” he said out loud, not believing his luck. Keeping a discrete distance, he followed them to the motel and parked. Unsure of his next move he remained in his car. He watched Andrew and his daughter as they left the registration office. Climbing the stairs, they entered their motel room on the second floor.

  Relieved that he had found his daughter looking healthy and happy, Simon weighed up his options. How could he possibly persuade his daughter to come back home with him? He knew how headstrong his daughter could be. He had learned that the way to get her to do what he wanted was not to demand her to do so. Any time that he demanded that she do something specific, she would either do the opposite or just downright refuse to do anything. Making suggestions and giving her time to think them over was usually the most successful ploy.

  However, he hadn’t had a situation before that involved a boyfriend of hers. He wasn’t sure her behavior would or could be in any way predictable. Affairs of the heart were different for everybody, he considered. Even more so when it involved teenage, puppy love, such as it was.

  Considering that he was going to need a place to stay for the evening, he decided that he would go ahead and check in. As the young couple were also staying the night, he figured that he had time to think things through and come up with a plan that he could be happy with.

  If he could get her alone, maybe if she came out to get some ice or something, he stood a better chance. Then again, if he approached them when they were together he could get a good sense of their true connection. Were they still in love or was there any kind of underlying tension between them? He would get a room close to them and bide his time.

  Inside their motel room, Fiona ran a bath while Andrew stretched out on the bed and flicked through the cable channels. Seeing a bunch of local restaurant menus on the bedside table, he picked them up. “Hey, sweetie,” he said loudly so that she could hear him in the bathroom, “what kind of food are you hungry for?”

  “Nothing special, maybe just a salad or something,” she answered. “What are you in the mood for?”

  “Pizza?” he answered with a question.

  “Sounds good. Anything veggie for me would be fine,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said, like he wouldn’t have considered anything different. “Want to eat in? Have it delivered?”

  “Sure. We could watch a movie,” she said enthusiastically.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said, smiling in anticipation.

  Disembarking from the bus, at
the local Greyhound station, Professor Dowling scanned his unfamiliar surroundings. On the edge of town, he noticed that there was a train station close by but not much else of note. Making sure he still had the address of Andrew’s father, which he did, he wondered if he lived close by.

  “What do you want first?” the bus driver asked when Dowling showed him the address. “Good news or bad news?”

  “Bad news first, I guess,” Dowling answered.

  “Bad news, that address is way over the other side of town,” he said with a frown.

  “Oh,” Dowling said, saddened by the news.

  “Good news is, it’s a small town,” the driver said cheerfully. “But no, you couldn’t walk there,” he then quickly added, as if reading Dowling’s mind. “Public transport here sucks and by the time you call a cab and wait for it to arrive… know what ‘m saying?” he said, making a forget-about-it gesture with his hand. “Best bet, you rent yourself a car.”

  “Oh, I can do that,” Dowling answered, brightening.

  “Bad news, there ain’t any close by,” the driver then said. “You’d pretty much have to rent a car to get to the car rental place, know what I’m saying?” the driver said, sounding amused with himself.

  “Yes. Is there good news?” Dowling asked hopefully.

  “Good news, there’s a truck rental place right over there,” he said, pointing.

  “I don’t need a moving truck…” Dowling said quickly.

  “I get that,” the driver said, looking at Dowling like he was a bit slow on the uptake. “You could rent out a pickup truck… you okay to drive one of those?”

  “Oh, sure,” Dowling answered, considering it now a good idea.

  “Good news it’ll cost you about half the price of a rental car, depending on your mileage, which in this town…” he said, again making the same hand gesture. “Know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Dowling said, happily looking straight at the truck rental office. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the driver said and turned his attention away. “Have a good one.”

  “You too,” Dowling said and walked towards the rental office.

  With the rental logo boldly and colorfully emblazoned along its side, Dowling drove a pickup off the lot. It really was a small town, Dowling thought; he had driven to the address in no time.

  “They’re away on vacation,” a neighbor duly told him as he rang the front doorbell several times.

  “Oh, thanks,” Dowling replied, stumped for his next move and returning to his rental truck. Checking his smart phone for the nearest motel, he had the GPS direct him to it. He was soon parked in the parking lot of the very same motel that the others were staying at. Entering his room on the second floor, he had no idea he was rooming right next door to Andrew and Fiona. First thing he did was run a nice hot bath.

  Watching a corny B movie on the TV, Andrew and Fiona sat on the floor while munching away on take-out pizza. “The pizza sucks, the movie sucks and I’m having the best time ever,” Andrew said smiling.

  “I know, right?” Fiona said, picking off the green peppers from her pizza. “I can’t wait for us to be living together.”

  “You think this will wear off, after a while?” Andrew asked.

  “What, the novelty?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah, you think it will get less amazing, over time?”

  “Of course not,” Fiona replied, her answer surprising him nicely, “it’s going to get more and more amazing the deeper we get to know each other.”

  “You think so?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t being sarcastic. “Don’t most couples go through, I don’t know, get bored with each other, over time?”

  “Let me tell you something, Andrew,” she said smiling. “We’re not most couples.”

  “Cool,” Andrew said as he lifted another slice of pizza to his mouth.

  “Not going to happen,” Fiona said. “Forgetaboutit,” she said in a bad New York accent.

  “You’re so weird,” Andrew said, smiling.

  “You can talk,” she said, dumping her unwanted peppers onto his pizza.

  “I never really knew how weird you were,” he said, then rethought his comment. “I did know that you were weird, like, all along, but in the beginning I thought that you were weird, in a different way.”

  “You can sure use a lot of words to say not much, Andrew Cox,” she said, taking a swig from her soda.

  “No, don’t get me wrong, I like your weirdness, I love your weirdness but it’s like the more we hang out, I’m finding different layers of weirdness; like, you’re not just one kind of weirdness, you’re many different kinds. You’re complicated, I guess, is what I’m saying,” he said, still not looking happy with his long evaluation. “You're right; I could have put that much better,” he then said.

  “I’m not so weird,” she then said. “Honest, maybe but what does it mean to be weird, anyway? I think what you’re mistaking weirdness for is fearlessness,” she then said, lowering down the volume on the TV while the commercials played.

  “Fearlessness?” Andrew asked, not following.

  “Yeah, like we’re all so socially conditioned to be polite to each other, right? We tone done our impulses and our humanity in order not to offend or push people away. We want to be liked and included, socially, so we don’t say what we’re thinking most of the time. Like, have you ever told someone that you just met that their breath stank?”

  “No, of course not,” Andrew replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, assuming that their breath really did stink, I… no, I wouldn’t mention it,” he said imagining the situation in his head.

  “Under what situations would you tell a stranger that their breath stank?” Fiona asked, enjoying the debate.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Suppose the person was an employee and you were their boss and maybe you owned a health salon or something and an influential reviewer, a blogger with millions of followers was coming in for a facial, would you say something then?”

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Andrew answered.

  “If you were a sergeant major and some smartass private you didn’t like was jerking you around, would you tell him his breath stank?”

  “Maybe,” Andrew conceded. “What’s your point?”

  “I guess I’m just saying that we’re more likely to speak our minds to someone that we think is inferior to us in some way than to speak our mind to someone that we might feel is superior to us; someone who could hurt us socially.”

  “That’s your point?” Andrew asked, looking confused. “What are we talking about?”

  “We’re just discussing, that’s all. I’m saying that maybe we hold ourselves back in social situations that we think might hurt us; whereas being “weird” is not giving a rat’s ass and saying what we’re thinking, without censorship, that’s all. I don't care if people like me.”

  “You don't give a rat's ass if people like, you, is that it? I don't believe you."

  "I don't. And by the way, have I told you lately, your breath stinks," Fiona said, smiling.

  "No, it doesn't not, weirdo,” Andrew said, laughing.

  “I can be normal,” Fiona said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Andrew warned.

  “Like you’re the normal one,” she said, teasing.

  “You know what I want,” Andrew said, suggestively.

  “I know what you want,” Fiona said back cheekily. “But sometimes what you want and want you get are two different things, homeboy.”

  “Homeboy?” Andrew laughed. “You don’t even know what a homeboy is, do you? Admit it.”

  “Of course I do. I know lots of home boys in the hood.”

  “You are so full of it,” Andrew said, moving towards her on his hands and knees.

  “Oh, yeah? What are you going to do about it, tough guy?” she said, playfully.

  “I’m going to run my hands all
over your body,” Andrew said, grabbing hold of her arms. “And tickle you!” he said quickly. Despite her laughing and screams, Andrew tickled her sides and her tummy.

  “Don’t! Stop! Let me go!” Fiona laughed and screamed with laughter and struggled until she heard a knock at the front door. “What was that?” she asked, sitting up to attention. Another knock soon followed. “Who could that be?” she asked as Andrew got up to answer it.

  “Some dude,” he said, having looked through the spy hole in the front door. When there was another knock, Andrew opened the door to the length of the security chain. “Yes?” he said to Simon.

  “Hello, Andrew,” Simon said.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Dad?” Fiona asked as she walked closer to the door.

  “Hello, pumpkin,” Simon said sweetly.

  Brushing past Andrew, she unlocked the door to let him in. “What are you doing here? How did you know?” she asked, totally perplexed.

  “Never mind all that. I found you, that’s what matters,” he said, looking around the room suspiciously, “Are you alright? I heard you screaming.”

  “I’m find, we were just playing,” Fiona said.

  “Playing?” Simon repeated.

  “I was ticking her,” Andrew admitted sheepishly.

  “I don’t understand? You had us followed?” Fiona asked, still incredulous.

  “I care about you, Fiona,” Simon said sternly. “You left without as much as a goodbye! I was out of my mind with worry! I may not have been the best father to you but you should know that your welfare means everything to me!”

  “I’m fine! I’m great!” Fiona said, her arms raised in exaltation.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I wasn’t going to rest until I saw for myself. I’m very relieved to see you… safe and sound,” Simon said, wondering if he should sit down some place.

  “I can’t believe…” Fiona said, looking at Andrew with a puzzled expression. Andrew shrugged, as if he didn’t know what to say or know how to respond to the situation.

  “Do you have anything to drink?” Simon asked, as he sat down on the side of the bed. “I’m parched.”

  “Yes, of course,” Fiona said, quickly moving to the fridge. “Is a can of cola okay?” she asked nervously. “That’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid. Or tap water?”