Senior Year Box Set

“Kevin will be able to get away with that sort of thing for a few years, especially if he makes it to the NFL. But even then, he’s likely to get a significant suspension before his first contract runs out. You, on the other hand, don’t have that cushion, even in college.

“You need to start thinking about your future. At some point, ‘college fun’ impacts us later. I know for a fact that my HR department checks potential employees’ social media accounts. I’ve read articles about people who’ve been shocked that they didn’t get jobs because of their social media past.

“For my companies, I think of these people as representing me. If they do things that the general public will turn their noses up at, how will the public view me for hiring them to represent me?

“So, my concern is threefold. The first is, I don’t want to see some ‘college fun’ collide with the real world for you. The second is, I suggest you need to slow your roll. Don’t hear that as me saying to stop having fun; I’m just saying that sometimes regular sex is pretty dammed nice,” I said with a smile.

“I agree,” Cindy conceded.

“Finally, you need to dump Kevin.”

“What? Why?”

“He’s a great guy; don’t get me wrong about that. But he’s too much of an enabler. He is never going to regard anything as too much or going too far. You need someone who will tell you ‘no’ every once in a while,” I explained.

“You’re saying Kevin’s a doormat?” Cindy asked with a scowl.

I shrugged.

“I wouldn’t use that exact word. In fact, now that I think more about it, I believe Kevin’s more than an enabler; he’s an instigator. He doesn’t mean anything bad by it, I’m sure. But the fact is, he’s been steadily leading you into more and more troublesome situations.”

“If you ever start a rock band, you should name it ‘Heavy Meddle.’”

“You know me. I don’t do many things by half measures.”

The sidewise look she gave me told me she was trying to decide if she was mad at me or not. Before we could get into a fight, I put my earbuds in and left her alone to her thoughts.

◊◊◊

Fritz met us at the airport to drive us home. I called shotgun and let everyone else ride in the back two rows. On the roof of the SUV, towards the rear, I spotted a box. When I got in, I asked Fritz about it.

“When you called about the problems in Greece, I happened to be in town. I came because Darius has a new drone idea that we decided to implement.”

“I knew he was going to play around with that over break, but I had no idea he was so far along,” I admitted.

“He calls it ‘The Swarm,’ Fritz shared with a smirk.

I saw a theme starting. The drones we’d installed to watch the house were a ‘flock.’ Now we had a ‘swarm.’

I didn’t take the bait and just rolled my eyes at Fritz.

“It’s actually worked out well. In the box on the roof of the car are two stacks of four small drones and one larger control drone he calls the ‘queen,’ for a total of nine. The battery life on the smaller ‘worker’ drones is shorter, so when the swarm launches, you only do four at a time with the controller. Then you swap them out when their power starts to drop,” Fritz explained.

“Do they do the same sort of tasks his original drones do?” I asked.

“Dare claims they do, but he bought some upgrades, so they should do even more. I guess the Russian programmers have been working on new features. I plan to be here this week to test them out. But don’t ask me for details; I had to promise Dare I wouldn’t reveal all his gadgets before he’s ready to show you,” Fritz said.

It sounded like Dare had spent money, and he hadn’t shared that info with either Megan or me. He and I would have to have a talk about that when I saw him next. I would wait until I saw what he bought before I took his head off. There was always a chance it was something I would like.

To be honest, I considered what Dare was doing as fun research. If he exceeded his budget a bit, I was fine with it. I just wanted to make sure he had some constraints in place, or he could spend money faster than Brook on Black Friday. Especially, just like Brook, if he thought he was getting a deal.

On the ride, we caught up. Fritz was based in California and said that my Malibu house was starting to come together. I’d been told my parents would move after I graduated, with everyone else joining them this summer. Greg was going to live in our house. Our cook/housekeeper, Melanie, had agreed to move into my apartment to help my brother with his kids.

He made no mention of Angie, so I let that go. I would ask my dad about it when I got home.

It seemed that my parents had firmed up their plans in the week I was gone. Fritz was called in to help coordinate security at the new place. The idea was to remove a lot of the video surveillance and the drones from our current house when Greg moved in and transplant it to Malibu. If I were Greg, I would want the reduced security. Some security made sense, but he didn’t need the level I seemed to require.