Page 62 of Roll With The Punches
Grace smiled, waved, and stuck her tongue out at them before Jeff tapped her on the shoulder and shook his head at her.
“Hey, I didn’t flip them a bird,” she muttered.
She might have been a tiny girl for her age, but she made up for it in spark and spirit, for sure.
The next time Jeff glanced over at them, just before he started filming Emma’s first event, he noticed Corey wasn’t sitting with them. He finally spotted him wandering around the pool deck, over to the far side where the different swim teams had set up, where he got turned around by one of the coaches and sent back to the bleachers.
Little shit.
From what Emma had told them about his behavior, he was definitely one toe over the line away from his first perp walk.
He tried not to focus on that, or the fact that his headache had returned today, along with the body aches. He’d managed to hide how he felt from Stuart the past couple of nights, but if this was that bug returning, he might have to break down and go to the doctor. He didn’t want to be sick, especially not when Brandon was out of town and depending on him to take care of things in his absence.
Maybe Pat wouldn’t cause trouble for them or for Emma. The longer the man sat there and kept his mouth shut, the more relieved Jeff felt.
By the time the event ended nearly two hours later, it was close to dark and Jeff was glad he and Stuart had ridden together and there were plenty of leftovers at home for them to eat without having to cook or take Emma and Grace out to eat after the meet.
He felt like utter shit.
Emma had grabbed her bag and was heading toward the building when Pat called out to one of the staffers talking to a coach. “Hey, grab her. She stole my son’s phone.”
Jeff and Stuart looked at each other in shock, but Grace apparently had the reflexes of a vampire to go with her exploding in the sun capabilities. She immediately ran over and thrust herself into the fray before the men could get there.
“What the hell? Are you on drugs? Em wouldn’t touch his phone with a damned hazmat suit on.”
Tracey looked shocked. “Pat, what are you talking about?”
Emma also looked torn between shocked and horrified. “What?”
Jeff sympathized with the staffer and the coach, who both looked confused as hell. “What are you talking about?”
“My son said she stole his phone, and—”
Emma shoved her bag at the staffer. “Here, search it. I haven’t touched his damn phone. My phone’s in there. It has a Hello Kitty case.”
The staffer held the bag but didn’t unzip it. “Um—”
“I’m her stepfather,” Pat said. “I demand you look.”
Tracey tried to derail whatever the hell this was. “Pat, I’m her mother, and I don’t know what the hell is going on, or what you think Emma did, but she would never take Corey’s phone!”
“Didn’t she break that one?”
“Yeah, after he tried to film her. Frankly, I don’t blame her now.”
“You’re her mother, ma’am?” the staffer asked.
“Yes.”
The staffer handed her the bag. By now there was an interested gathering starting to pay attention to what was going on. Kids, parents, and coaches.
Tracey unzipped the bag. “Pat, I don’t know what the hell your—” She froze, her face falling.
“What’d you find?” he crowed.
She pulled out two phones—one with a Hello Kitty case.
One without.
