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Chapter Twenty Four

Ever since the day that Molly kissed me, the world had suddenly become a lot more colorful. And my lips had suddenly become a lot less lonely.

I confirmed my suspicion that the world was finally righting itself a couple days after the visit from Ms. Hell. The phone rang while I was finger painting with Shelby. I was trying to show her that she could paint something other than decapitated heads. I wiped my hands on a towel and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"AJ, this is Jim."

I leaned back against the wall. I was being cautiously optimistic.

"Hi, Jim. Anything new?"

"I just received a phone call from Child Protective Services."

I closed my eyes. "And?"

"Mrs. Terhell reported that, while the house is a little chaotic, Alexis and Joe are being well taken care. Their emotional and physical needs are being met and you are more than financially capable to continue to give them the best care possible."

To sum up all the rest of the legal-ese that Jim began to spew, the conclusion was that Ro's mom could hop on her broom and take a one-way trip to hell. There was no need for me to do anything else. The visit from the hawk lady had proved that I could successfully take care of my kids.

Of course, Molly had a lot to do with that.

We had gone out to celebrate the night that I received the good news. Just me and Molly...and three kids. Completely romantic, I tell you.

Shelby had gone all out for the occasion. She had on huge clip-on earrings, fake diamond studded reading glasses, a purple feather boa, and a bright pink ball gown. To top it all off she carried a small silvery purse.

I felt like I was taking a five year old to prom.

And then there was Molly. She wore the same dress that she had worn to Kev's wedding. The same dress that had slid up onto my lap...until we had been so rudely interrupted.

We ended up at this little Italian place that had low lighting and soft music. Shelby seemed to sense this was not the type of place to throw wadded up straw wrapped in the air and announce it was snowing. She placed a napkin on her lap and folded her hands very lady-like on the table. Molly glanced at me; we smiled.

"You've got to tell me," I said as we ordered drinks. "Where did you get all of Shelby's...clothes?" I figured if I said costumes that Shelby would rip me a new one.

Molly laughed. "I made the outfits. Some of the little accessories are from when I was a kid."

I looked at her in surprise. "You made them?"

She blushed. I loved when she blushed. "Yeah, I love to sew."

"Mom's the best sew-ster!" Shelby added enthusiastically.

"You know," I said lightly. "I haven't mentioned anything about your ninety day trial period."

Molly looked at me in surprise. "Ohh--"

I smiled and reached out to cover her hand with mine.

"Let's just say I want you to stay," I said softly.

"Ew, are you gonna kiss again?"

Molly looked over at Shelby in surprise. We had tried our best to keep our little kisses out of sight.

"When have you seen us kiss?" Molly asked.

Shelby made a face. She took a big sip of her drink as if she needed energy to answer the question. Her little glasses slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up.

"Like all the time," she said. Her nose wrinkled. "Boys have cooties."

"What about Mason?"

Shelby looked at me like I had just insulted her.

"Mason would never try to kiss me," she said. "That's gross."

I laughed. The mind of a five year old was so damn cute.

"Well, do you mind if I kiss your mom?" I asked.

Shelby seemed to think a little longer about that. I heard her feet hitting her wooden chair as she swung them back and forth. Finally she shook her head.

"If mom wants cooties, go ahead," she declared with a sweep of her hand.

"Shelby, AJ doesn't have cooties," Molly said. She sounded like she was trying hard not to laugh. Shelby folded her arms and just shook her head.

It was a little weird knowingly kissing in front of a five year old, but after a few seconds that's exactly what we did.

-----------------------------------

October 16

I woke up early to head the studio. After the Chuck E. Cheese incident from yesterday in which Shelby told some woman she had a fat ass and Nick got stuck in a huge plastic Barney, we had unanimously voted to have one day without any extended family in the studio. Making sure Nick didn't do anything stupid was a full-time job in and of itself.

I stood at the counter chugging some coffee and Molly feed Alexis and Joe. Alexis finished first and looked at Joe. She stared at him with so much intensity that it seemed like she was contemplating ripping his bottle right out of his hands.

"So, I won't be back until about eight or nine tonight," I said. Molly turned to me and smiled.

"That's fine."

I set the coffee cup in the sink. "I was thinking that if you want to contact your storage company, I could get a hold of one of my buddy's at the moving company and he can get the rest of your boxes and stuff."

Molly had been taking turns feeding Ally and Joe some baby food to supplement the milk. She let the spoon drop back into the jar.

The room got quiet.

"Molls?"

She sighed. "That's all we had," she said quietly.

"What?"

She turned to me. I could see embarassment in her eyes.

"There's no other boxes," she said.

"But you only had two suitcases and two boxes," I argued. "At least three of those things had to contain Shelby's stuff."

Molly nodded. "Pretty much."

She turned around and dug the spoon back into the baby food.

It suddenly made sense. Most women would die to wear the same thing twice. Molly had what she called her 'favorite jeans,' which now I suspected were her only jeans.

And that dress she wore to the wedding and dinner...

"What happened to the rest?"

Joe opened his mouth as Molly swiveled the spoon his way. Ally took the opportunity to swipe his bottle.

"Well if you thought you had the mother-in-law from hell, think again. Clint's mom was a piece of work. She bought the house that we lived in. After the fire she took all of the insurance money for herself. She...blamed me for the fire."

I knew I was going to be late to the studio, but I seemed frozen against the counter.

"What?"

Molly turned. Ally began to suck on the bottle. Joe turned and began to wail. I walked over and took the jar of baby food from Molly and shoveled out another spoonful for him. This seemed to do the trick. Plus, I could see Molls face. Unfortunately, the usually pretty, happy face looked like it was about ready to crumble.

"But, what about Shelby?" I continued.

"She didn't like that Clint married me considering I was so much younger than him," Molly said quietly. "After Micah and Clint died, she decided to yank out her daggers and just start stabbing me. She insisted that the babies weren't Clint's and told me that I was going to have to learn how to make it in this world like all the rest of the bottom feeders."

"So what did you do?" I asked quietly.

"I found a crappy apartment, I got a job waitressing and I did seamstress work on the side. It was enough to get by. We lived right by the library and I was able to get those books on sign language for babies. A lot of my money was wasted on those damn psychologists."

"Is that what you were doing before this?"

Molly looked around and nodded.

"I didn't think I was going to get this job, but I knew I had to try. Our apartment building was expected to be leveled in a month and I was at a loss at what to do."

I closed my eyes. Sometimes things did happen for a reason.

"Well, you're not going anywhere," I said softly. She smiled at me and took the jar of baby food back.

"I really appreciate everything," she said. I brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. I could stare at her face forever and never get bored.

"I better get to work," I said. I reluctantly stood up. I turned, thought better of it, and turned back around and gave her a kiss.

Her face lit up like the Fourth of July.

"Ugh!"

Shelby walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. I laughed and scooped her up.

"Can I get a kiss?" I asked. She leaned back in my arms and wrinkled her nose.

"No!"

"Please?"

She bit her lip and looked around as if to make sure no strangers were watching. Then with the swiftness of an eagle, she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. I grinned.

"Thank you."

I grabbed my keys and headed towards the door.

"Mr. J!"

I turned.

"Yeah?"

"You're face is scratchy," Shelby announced. Then she ran back to the kitchen. I laughed and rubbed my face. It was time for another trim.

---------------------------

"Okay let me get this straight. You were late this morning and now you want to leave early?"

Kevin was giving me his no-nonsense look. I leaned forward.

"We got almost everything done today. We did more today than we've done since we started. And this is important."

"What could be more important?" Howie asked.

I was about to answer when I heard a hard knuckle tap on the window. My back was to the glass, so I swiveled around. Nick stood there with two long giant marshmallows yanked up on his teeth. He clapped his hands like a walrus. I turned around. I was almost immune to Carter by now. It seemed Kev and Howie were too.

"You know what's sad?" How said. He pointed back at Nick. I glanced back. He had pressed his face to the glass and was making circles of fog with his hot nostril breath.

"What?" I asked.

"He's probably going to end up having more kids than all of us combined. And they're probably all going to look and act like him."

"The world would blow up," Kev said lightly.

"Even worse, one of his kids could become President," I added.

We shuddered.

At that moment the door opened and Brian walked back in. He had taken off down the hall to find a bottle of water. Nick jumped behind him. With one quick movement he grabbed the sides of Brian's basketball shorts and yanked. Bri was in mid-step. He swayed as if in slow-motion, then crashed to the ground. Nick laughed so hard the marshmallows flew off his teeth.

Bri flipped over and tried to knee him. I was thinking that might have helped control the Nick population if he got a good hit in, but Nick was too fast. He grabbed Bri's ankle and twisted.

"OW! OW! OW!"

"GUYS!" Kev said. "C'mon!"

Nick reluctantly dropped Bri's leg and sidestepped him.

"What's next?" he asked. At that moment Bri's water bottle smacked him right on the back of the head. Nick's hands flew up in surprise.

"OW!"

"I told Kev I needed to leave early," I explained.

"Leave early? You came late!" Bri said. He picked up his bottle and took a seat.

"I know...but this is important."

"What's important?"

I had four sets of eyes on me. I sighed.

"I need to go shopping."

Howie snorted. "That's a good one. That's an excuse Nick would try."

"Hey!"

"It's not for me," I explained. "It's for Molly."

"Porn store?" Bri and Nick said at the same time. I swear, whatever happened in Kentucky had warped Bri. He looked excited.

"NO!" I said. "Just regular women's clothing."

I knew they weren't going to let me go without the whole story. I sighed and gave them the abbreviated version.

"So," Kev said thoughtfully. "What you want to do is buy her a new wardrobe?"

I nodded. "Pretty much."

"Er, I don't think she's the skull and crossbones type," Nick said. "You might not be the right candidate for the job."

"Well, I'm the only candidate for the job," I explained.

Bri and Nick shared a look. I didn't like it.

"Well if you leave early, then we all leave early," Bri said. My eyes widened.

"You guys aren't suggesting..."

Even Kev smiled.

I was in trouble.

------------------------------------

"What's her cup size?"

"Is she a thong girl?"

"Do these make my ass look big?"

I was surrounded by mad men. Nick was parading around holding up a tiny pair of jeans. Brian was at the bras and Howie was poking through skimpy underwear. I didn't know where Kev was but I sure hoped he was picking out stuff I could actually buy.

I headed over to Brian first. He was holding up a bra that could have been used to sail the Pilgrims over if the Mayflower had broken down.

"Dude, what the hell's that?"

He blushed and hung it back up. "I was just trying to help."

I flipped through the bras. I had been privvy to a couple nights of boob squeezing and I knew she was a C cup. I just prayed I got remotely close to the right number / letter combination. I picked out a little black lacy bra and a white one and hung them over my arm.

Next I headed over to Howie.

"No thongs," I said. I was pretty sure I would eventually be able to buy those for her, but I was trying to do this as a nice gesture, not a sexual one.

Which, coming from me, sounds abnormal, doesn't it?

After a couple minutes spent with Howie I added to the pile of lingerie in my arms. I walked over to Nick and just shook my head.

"I don't even know what you're doing."

He had one leg into a pair of women's jeans and was hopping around in them. I was pretty sure he was going to split them. Plus, I could see way too much of his bunched up package in front for my own good.

I paid for the lingerie at one of the service counters and then went in search of Kev.

Now the one thing about Kev is that women find him extremely attractive. Personally, I think the big bushy eyebrows are a turnoff, but it must be the whole 'tall, dark' thing. Kev was sitting in a big padded chair while two saleslady's modeled clothes. And by model, I don't mean just holding up things. These two girls were actually trying stuff on.

"How's it going?" I asked. Kev looked up and grinned.

"Good. I think the wardrobe portion of your plan is almost complete."

One of the girls that had disappeared just as I was walking up came back. She had on a low cut, red dress that flared around her knees. My mouth suddenly turned to cotton.

"I'll take one of those," I said.

"Wait," Kev said. He held up his hand, and like a peasant girl to her king, she stopped.

"Does it come in any other colors?"

The girl glanced at the tag. "I don't know...I could find out..."

"I'm taking the red," I told the girl with a smile. "I have no idea what he's taking."

The girl walked back into the dressing room. Kev laughed.

"I'm getting one for Addy. But white's more her color."

I crouched down next to Kev's chair and we finished off the fashion show. By the time the girl's changed back into their clothes and I confirmed the sizes as best I could, there was a mountain of stuff to be bagged.

"Where's the other guys?" Kev asked as we leaned against the counter. His solitary purchase was that dress (which did come in white).

"I don't---oh geesh."

Nick came prancing up. He had found the huge bra Brian was looking at earlier and had put it on and stuffed the things with thongs. I could see the little strings poking out everywhere. He was still wearing the woman's jeans.

"How do I look boys?" he said. He put a hand on his hip and turned.

Kev put his elbow on the counter and turned his head in the opposite direction. The woman ringing up my purchases just stared at him open-mouthed. She began to laugh hysterically.

"Do you know him?" she asked as Nick ran back around the corner.

"I've never met him in my life," Kev said cooly.

"He's with me," I said. I felt a little bad; someone had to claim Nick.

A half hour later we had Nick de-womanized and headed out to the parking lot.

"Let us know how she likes the surprise," Kev said. I grinned.

"Will do."

We got in our cars and took off. I was almost home when I did a short de-tour to the dollar store. I walked the aisles and got Shelby some more random accessories for her outfits.

Every little girl can use a Sherriff's badge.

And a beautiful red-headed mama deserved some nice clothes.