Junior Year Box Set

My knee-jerk reaction was to do what I always did and say, ‘hell, no.’ But if Pam wanted to make her friend’s case, I would hear her out. I nodded to let her know I would listen to what she said.

“First off, Tracy has no idea I’m here making her case. I don’t want you to think she pulled a Tami and sent me to do her bidding,” she said with a little smile.

Pam was playing dirty. I liked that.

“What Tracy did to you was uncalled for. I might consider giving her a pass since she was mentally unstable at the time, but I honestly can’t see doing that. I will say that Tracy knows what she did both times and isn’t proud of herself for doing it. Personally, I think she didn’t know how to handle the situation and blew it up. I believe Tracy’s grown up a lot since then,” Pam reasoned.

“I’ve forgiven her for that, but I’ll never forget,” I clarified.

“Yes, I know you have. She wouldn’t be such a good friend if you hadn’t. I want to focus on the friend part of your relationship. I think if you looked at it, you’d see that she’s one of your best friends. Not once have I seen her try to take advantage of you. She has always been one of your biggest defenders. Believe me, I know. I had to listen to her during the troubles we had with my dad. She never stopped supporting me, but she didn’t back down about how I was mistreating you.

“The sad part was I never wanted to do anything to hurt you. I love you too much. Even then, I was in love with you,” Pam said, and the waterworks started.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ve talked about this and agreed that we were past that,” I said, pulling her to me.

“I know. That’s part of the reason that I know that Tracy would never hurt you again. She and I’ve talked, and we recognize we both made terrible decisions. I’m just grateful you were willing to put it behind us and help me raise our son. I know that we may never get married, but Coby will always know that his parents love him.”

“You never have to worry about that. You and I are a team. We will make sure that little boy is loved and given every chance parents can give him. Plus, with your mom and my parents and Peggy, we can’t go wrong. They’ll keep us in line so we don’t mess up with him.”

“David.”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll consider Tracy.”

“I will,” I said, meaning it.

Maybe she was the wild card Tracy had been talking about.

“Something else I want you to consider,” Pam said as she ran her hand up my arm.

This had to be big for her to be using her womanly charms on me like this.

“You should consider working things out with Alan. I never liked him, but he was one of your best friends for years. I think you need to sit him down and work it out. It would be a shame if the two of you lost that friendship.”

I just blinked at her.

Pam kissed me again, and Mr. Happy took control of the body. Sadly, Alan was soon forgotten.

◊◊◊ Friday August 12

My mom and dad summoned me for breakfast, just the three of us. This couldn’t be good, especially when they took me somewhere other than the hotel. They didn’t want any interruptions.

“David, we want to talk about the tiger cubs,” Dad said.

“We need to find them a good home,” I said.

Mom and Dad looked at each other in shock. Then Mom’s eyebrows came together.

“I am so disappointed. I had all these plans to bend you to my will, and you just took all the fun out of it. What made you decide to give them up?” Mom asked.

“I know the cubs are cute now, and I would love to keep them, but at some point, they’re going to get big. We need to find a zoo or somewhere we can send them where they would have a good life. I was hoping we would figure that out.”

“I guess my work here is done. He’s starting to sound like he’s growing up,” Mom admitted to Dad.

Dad just laughed and shook his head.

“By noon, he’ll have done something that’ll change your mind. I think we’d better keep on him for a while longer,” Dad suggested.

“Dang it. I was going to go motorcycle shopping when I got home,” I said with a dramatic sigh.

“Thank you. I need to feel useful,” Mom said.

“Anything for you, Mom.”

“I’ll figure out what we have to do to donate the cubs somewhere. I’m sure it’s not as easy as it sounds,” Dad offered.

“Thanks. I’m pretty sure we can’t just put them in a pet carrier and fly them home. We might have a problem at customs.”

“That might get you arrested,” Dad agreed.

I told them about my interview with Jeff this morning. Mom said she would get the cubs and bring them to baseball practice.

“I got a call from Cindy Lewis,” Mom said. “She heard you were buying the house in LA and that it needs to be remodeled. She plans to be an interior designer. Long story short, Cindy has talked with one of her professors, and they would like to tackle your home as a project. It would be an intern type of deal. She said that it would be a tremendous help when she started doing this professionally to be able to say she did your place.”