Well, this one has turned out to be a bit of a sleeper hit. I've gotten a lot of requests to keep this story going, and I am sorry it took as long as it did. I hope to be updating all of my stories a little more regularly in the future (real life was getting in the way the past few months), so if you've been waiting ages to read more, fear not.

Hori out.

Within minutes, Bobby regretted his harsh words. The uncomfortable sensation of embarrassment and anxiety quickly outweighed and then snuffed out completely the anger he had felt toward Scott. Toward the X-Men. Toward his own malfunctioning abilities. Toward everything, really. He felt a churning, twisting sensation in his guts, as though he had been placed in an endless loop at the apex of a roller coaster's descent. The burning of stress-induced sweat prickled under his shirt collar and made him itchy and uncomfortable.

He was not unaccustomed to this reaction. For as long as he could remember, his body had never responded well to outbursts or actions born of impatience or malevolence. Even as a child, whenever he had raised his voice or his hands in anger, the feeling had diminished almost as soon as it had come, leaving nothing but a hollow, sour pit where it had coursed through him. Anger felt inherently shameful to Bobby. He was a decent person at heart, or at least, as decent as he could make himself, and he was a joker at that. He was usually the one disarming tense situations, not creating them. To Bobby, anger felt dirty, like a coating of slime, unnatural and uncomfortable and achieving nothing.

And yet, there was that place in his heart, the place that seemed to radiate cold indifference, that played Scott's shocked expression back on an endless loop in his mind, enjoying the older boy's astonishment at Bobby's harshness.

Several times, he had to stop himself from turning on his heel and making his way back to the alley behind the coffee shop where he had left the other Xavier students in quite a bewildered state, he imagined. The urge to apologize, to smooth over the whole misunderstanding, was palpable in its vigor. But no, apologizing would be admitting some fault, which he did not think he had committed, and what was more, it would almost certainly mean explaining the trouble he was having with his powers, which he still had little to no intention of doing. He would work it out on his own, the way he had always done where his powers were concerned. He would find time later, when some distance had been created from the event, when he could make things right again.

Fat chance. You challenged King Scotty's authority in front of the others. He's gonna resent you for awhile.

Bobby made a sour face, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and set about making a lap around the grass-covered square that the coffee shop, as well as several other boutiques and eateries, sat adjacent to. He really did mean to make his way back to the coffee shop and take another go at chatting with Lacey the barista, but first he had to wait out his abruptly tempestuous mood, lest he simply make an ass of himself a second time and freeze something more important than coffee and the contents of his wallet.

In truth, he felt there was some validity to what he had said to Scott, even if he had to admit that he had not said it in the right way, at the right time, or at the right place. The field leader of the X-Men had become almost insufferable in his domineering, contemptuous attitude towards the other students ever since he had moved on from high school and taken on more of a teaching role at the institute. Bobby could understand that, at least. Scott above all others was expected, and even yearned, to make an example for everyone else to follow. Eyes were on him constantly to be the consummate leader, diplomat, and mouthpiece of Xavier's message. But it still did not lay to rest the fact that he could be a real prick about his position in the imagined hierarchy of the X-Men when they were engaged in activities that in no way related to the team. Bobby fumed over this awhile longer, but just as his momentary anger had faded, the lingering bitterness also began to wane, until all he felt was a sharp annoyance at the older boy.

Of all of his faults, Bobby would argue that one of his worst was not being able to hold a grudge in any capacity. It left him constantly feeling bad about criticizing anyone, even those who deserved it.

At the center of the parkway, which was only about the size of a Bayville block, which was to say not much larger than perhaps forty of fifty yards per side, there was a fountain. It was nothing special. White stone carved in a series of pleasing, greco-roman-inspired shapes. There was no real centerpiece to it, no cherubs or hewn statue of a long-dead political or military man of note, just layers of cascading acanthus leaves carved in bas-relief. With the heat of the summer day, it should have been crowded with young couples, small children, parents and pets. But, for whatever reason, at this moment it was only sparsely populated. Without knowing exactly why, Bobby walked toward it.

The moisture that seeped into the air where the bubbling, splashing water misted it into the atmosphere hit him in a way that other humans, and most other mutants, would never understand. His power was over the cold, that was true, but that counted for very little without moisture to manipulate into the shapes he pictured in his mind faster than his consciousness could follow. The place inside him that could make cold was hyper-alert and finely tuned towards moisture of any kind, and when the air was thick with it as it was now, a place in his brain sang some tuneless, joyful noise. He was always aware of water.

If this 'hero' thing goes south, I could always make a decent living dousing in the boonies like some preacher, showing people where to dig their wells.

Bobby held up his hands and regarded them for a long while, chewing lightly on his bottom lip in thought. He had no earthly idea what it was that was causing his reign over the cold to falter, to occasionally spin out of his control, but it was becoming clear to him that neither time, nor willful ignorance of the problem was going to help. He needed to become acquainted with the deeper, darker aspects of his powers, the side of his abilities that he had not known existed mere weeks ago. The side that flared with power and untamed ferocity whenever he least expected it.

He put his hands down. While he did use his hands as a gesturing mechanism, a tool of concentration, his hands actually had nothing at all to do with his ability. It was not his hands that were acting out some mysterious impulse. It was the cold place inside of his mind.

Bobby thought about that. The cold place inside of his mind. What was that exactly? He had always had such a natural, easygoing time with his powers that he had never bothered to examine them with any real interest. Hank's experiment had been the first time anyone had tried to really investigate the mechanics of what he did, Professor Xavier and Bobby himself included. He turned his unconscious mind's eye inward, taking stock of his mental facilities. He tried to compartmentalize the mental muscles, the habits and feelings and instincts, that controlled every aspect of his body, not just his mutant abilities. It was no easy task; Bobby could not be sure of what he was thinking was a real approximation of his inner workings, or just something he was imagining. He supposed that it really did not matter.

Where are you? He asked himself, feeling only a little bit silly. Where is the place that loves the cold?

He tried to picture himself creating cold. Creating the ice that was usually at his absolute disposal. He tried to feel the place in his brain where that specific exchange of impulses took place, where just the right neurons fired at just the right time to make the impossible possible. He closed his eyes and imagined the inside of his head as a long corridor, with doors labelled with things like walking, running, mathematics, long-term memory, speech and so on. As the hallway stretched onward, the corridor became darker, the labels on the door becoming more esoteric as his knowledge of their inner-workings waned. Dreams, fears, love. Finally, at the end, almost entirely shrouded in darkness, bathed in a layer of frost, was a final door: Cold.

Bobby felt a tingle, and odd rush of gooseflesh up and down his spine, and his eyes snapped open. He had touched on something. Some unconscious hotbed of information and energy that he had never known existed. He tried to find it again, but it was like holding on to the strands of a dream, with each detail fading the harder he tried to fasten a grip on it.

He looked at his hands again, halfway expecting to see them covered in a thin sheen of ice, but they were thankfully warm and fleshy, as he had intended them to be. Whatever was happening with his abilities, it seemed to be born of distraction, anxiety, anger, lack of control. As long as he could maintain a high mental awareness of what his powers were or were not doing, being careful not to let himself slip into unconscious habits or lackadaisical use of his mutant ability, he might just be alright.

The sound of the fountain, the water splashing against the stone, was soothing to him. He stared into the random patterns formed by the ripples in the pool for a long moment. The mutant-specific part of his mind still hummed and throbbed, alerting him to the plentiful supply of moisture that was ready for his use. But there was something else now. Something he had either not noticed or never considered before. His mutant powers were trying to alert him to some other source of abundant moisture. It was pulling at the side of his mind. At the corner of his vision. He let the subconscious instinct direct his gaze, and felt a lump in his throat begin to grow.

A little boy, maybe four or five, sat on the edge of the fountain about three yards from Bobby. His mother was nearby, planted on a bench, her eyes lazily washing over the pages of a paperback novel. Bobby turned his head away from the boy, testing the validity of the instinctive moisture targeting that pulled at his vision. He turned back. Sure enough, as soon as his line of sight crossed the little boy, the instinct flared up, chattering with a noiseless voice inside his head.

Moisture. Moisture. It's there. Moisture. Make ice. Make ice. Moisture. Make ice. It's there.

The boy looked up at Bobby and grinned, putting both of his small, chubby hands into the water, splashing, contented by the structureless play. Bobby snapped his head away, disgusted with himself. Never in his life had his ability to track moisture extended to the very moisture in people's bodies. The thought to freeze the water in someone's flesh, someone's blood, had never even occurred to him. Nevertheless, his mind was now telling him, pleading with him to use the moisture, all the moisture in the surrounding area if he required it. And Bobby had no doubt that he could.

He shook his head, as though to physically clear the disturbing notion away. It wouldn't come to that. Not ever. It was just something that he had never realized was possible until now. That's all it was. It was not as though he would ever do anything with that information.

There was a crackling noise, like someone popping the joints in their fingers, and Bobby looked down into the basin of the fountain.

The top of the water was freezing, the forming ice creeping over the surface, radiating outward as though his body was the center of some invisible, rapidly-growing circle.

Bobby frowned, balling his hands into fists as he stared down into the water. When he exhaled, it came in a curl of white vapor, like smoke from his nostrils.

Stop it, he demanded. Stop it. Now.

His whole body seemed to hum from the exertion. He had felt this before. On Hank's examination table as he watched the digital thermometer plunge down and down and down. His abilities swelled, flexed like some powerful, involuntary muscle, exerting a will and desire that was alien to him.

NOW! He shouted the command into the depths of his mind.

It took a moment, and every bit of willpower that he could muster, but finally the growing circle of ice slowed, and then stopped. It did not retreat, or turn back into water. Could not. Bobby's powers lay in creating cold, not drawing it back in. But nevertheless, it was a small victory. The ice would melt soon enough. He breathed a sigh of relief, and this time it was not a cloud of supercooled air.

"Okay," he said under his breath, "Now we understand each other."

Bobby glanced back to the little boy, and was surprised to see him staring back at him. The little boy looked at him, looked down at the small, thin floe of ice that was already melting into the fountain, and looked back at Bobby. Then he smiled. Bobby smiled back.

Stay focused. Stay in control. Bobby repeated it in his head like a mantra as he walked away from the fountain, back to the coffee shop. He felt better, and not just about his outburst at his fellow X-Men. His powers were not so dark and mysterious to him now. He had found at least a portion of where it lived in his head. He could shed at least a little light on what had been happening to him, even if he could not yet understand it. He had a problem, but he was a step closer to coming to grips with it. He had control.

The alternative was something he didn't care to consider.

Twenty minutes later, Bobby was rounding the corner onto Fifth Street. He paused, searched the block, found what he was looking for, and resumed walking.

He had returned to the coffee shop, only to find that Lacey, the young barista he had meant to talk to, was nowhere to be found. In her place was the older barista who had seen Bobby's coffee fall from its cup in a solid hunk of ice.

At first, she had eyeballed him warily when he entered, but the subsequent time gap between his first and second visit had apparently been enough to subdue any urge she might have had to call him out on her suspicions. Or maybe she simply valued her job too much to risk it by making a scene and openly accusing a teenager of being a mutant with no proof to substantiate it, beyond what only she had seen but had no actual evidence of. In either case, Bobby felt confident enough to walk to the counter, grinning pleasantly at her. Well, maybe it was more deliberate, adolescent arrogance than confidence, but there was a fine line between the two.

"Hi," he had said. "I'm looking for the girl that was here before. Lacey."

"Her shift is over. She had another job to get to," the woman said, her face contorting noticeably in an odd combination of annoyance, suspicion, and hesitation.

"Where?" Bobby asked.

"I'm not sure I should tell you that," the woman said, pursing her lips guardedly.

Bobby sighed. "Look, I just want to talk to her. It's not like I'm asking for her home address or her phone number. You can tell me where her other job is, or I can just keep showing up here every day until I see her again. It's summer vacation, and I've got a lot of free time."

It was not even close to a threat, but Bobby had a hunch that the woman would much rather have Bobby bothering someone else at some other location when the alternative was seeing him there every day for the foreseeable future, turning who knows what else into blocks of ice.

"She's a nice girl," the woman said finally. "She works hard. I don't want to hear that you were being a pest."

Bobby knew then that she was on the verge of surrendering the information. He put his hands up slightly in a gesture meant to showcase his harmless nature, giving his best Norman Rockwell, all-American-boy smile. The woman shrunk back the tiniest amount, almost imperceptible, as though she unconsciously feared that he would use those hands to cast some magic spell. Bobby found her reaction both amusing and slightly disconcerting at the same time.

"I'll be a perfect gentleman," he promised. He meant it, too. He might not have much experience with girls, but between his mother's almost religious insistence on he and his brother to never disrespect or slander females, and the crash course in the complex workings of teenage girl's minds that he had received since coming to the institute, he had a fairly solid set of instincts on how to not be a jackass to girls he liked. While most boys his age might taunt or tease or avoid their crushes altogether, Bobby was intent on being the shining example of gentlemanly conduct.

He then learned from the older barista that Lacey split her time between working at the coffee shop and on a food truck, both of which were owned by her father, incidentally. It was no wonder a girl as young as her had felt so comfortable dealing with Bobby's awkwardness, and delivering him some sass to boot. She was probably as at home in the coffee shop as one could be. The older barista didn't know exactly where the truck was scheduled to be, but it did have a twitter handle that he could look up, which would tell him where it had parked for the day's late lunch. He had been relieved to discover that the truck, which specialized in tacos and bore the clever if a little tedious name 'Something to Taco 'Bout', was set up for its afternoon shift only a couple of blocks away, which had led him to Fifth Street.

He had spotted the truck easily enough. He had expected some obnoxious, pseudo-Mexican-appropriated color scheme and decorum, but he had been wrong. It was noticeable, but nowhere near as gaudy and tiresome as he might have guessed. The large truck was painted brick red, with its logo and trim in a light, tangerine orange that popped vividly off of the surface, making it hard to miss. The truck apparently did very well for itself. Already Bobby could see that there was a crowd of maybe a dozen people waiting to place orders, despite the proper lunch hour being well over. As he drew nearer, he could guess why; The food being prepared in the cramped confines of the panel truck smelled delicious, and all at once Bobby's stomach reminded him that he had neglected to eat anything since that morning by growling noisily, and filling him with a hollow, acidy feeling in his gut.

I guess I'll get a chance for a do-over, then.

Bobby frowned then, and reached into his pocket. He touched his wallet, found it not covered in a layer of frost, and sighed in relief. No more ice-based slip-ups. Or so he hoped. He took a place at the end of the line and waited, frequently craning his neck to see around the man who stood in front of him, trying to catch of glimpse of the service window of the truck.

He saw her then. She had changed her shirt for one that matched the bright orange of the truck's accents, with a black cap, her auburn hair pulled back into a bun. When it caught the light, he again saw the subtle, purple tint in the slightly unnatural brown of her dyed, choppy locks. Combined with her peachy skin tone, and the heart-shape of her face and her pointed chin, it gave her an elvish, imp-like quality that Bobby found intriguing, as though she would just as readily cast a hex as take an order for tacos or coffee.

She was too occupied by the incoming orders to take notice of him immediately, even as he came to the front of the line. Despite the volume, she was handling everything smoothly, as far as he could see, but the tight quarters of the truck meant she was required to move and lean at odd angles in order to hear customers' orders over the din of the interior, then simultaneously relate the items to the cooks and ring up the receipt and take payment. There was a thickening sheen of sweat on her brow, and the undersides of her thin, toned arms were slightly damp. Nevertheless, she exuded an attitude of ease and control. Bobby could not guess why, but there was something alluring in her sweat-slicked, business-first demeanor. There was something about a girl in control of a situation that he liked. Maybe it had something to do with being a member of the X-Men.

"Hi again," he smiled, having to look up slightly into the truck's window.

Lacey faltered for a moment, his familiarity apparently throwing her off of her rhythm for a beat. She cocked her eyebrow for a second, then Bobby saw the recollection in her eyes.

"Short movie?"

It was Bobby's turn to hesitate, and he almost completely blanked before remembering the lie he had used to explain his hasty departure from the coffee shop.

"Yeah," he said quickly. Then, "Well, I mean no. We actually missed it. My friends headed home."

"While you just had to get your hands on a taco, hmm?"

Bobby grinned and touched his chest over his heart. "It's like you're seeing into my soul."

Lacey laughed. "Your stomach, at least."

"I'm Bobby," he said. "Bobby Drake."

"Well, Bobby Drake," Lacey rested her hands over a tablet in front of her, which she used to write up orders, "what can I get for you?"

Bobby realized that, during his entire time in line, he had not once given the menu any serious attention. He had been too intently focused on catching glimpses of Lacey at work. He was momentarily panicked by the prospect of holding up her line for the second time, at the second location of the day, but then he realized that no one had joined the line behind him for the moment, though that was certain not to last.

"I, uh..." he stared searchingly at the menu for a moment before looking back at Lacey and smiling. "I'll take whatever you favorite is. Provided it doesn't have whipped cream and sprinkles."

"Damn," she said, "I thought for sure I'd be able to get you with that one again. How was the coffee, incidentally?"

"Fine," Bobby lied. "I think my eyes have stopped shaking from the sugar."

Lacey smirked and began tapping the surface of the tablet.

"Wait a sec," Bobby put a hand up, "Not that I don't trust you, but I think this time I want to know what I'm getting. Coffee is harmless. A taco with eight kinds of fiery death hot sauce...not so much."

"No adventurous spirit?"

"More than you might think," he shrugged, "But fool me twice, shame on me, you know?"

"Fair enough," Lacey said, leaning herself out the window, craning her neck, and pointing at the menu. "Pork belly taco. We don't make them often, but when we do, I eat about a dozen of them. Then I have a food coma for two days."

"Sounds good," Bobby said, reaching for his wallet, "But put me down for just two."

He was about to hand her another ten dollar bill, when a man, one of the line cooks, turned away from the heat of the cooktop inside of the truck and leaned into the window so that his face was occupying the same small space as Lacey's.

"What's the holdup, Lace?" the cook said. He was an older man, his face a latticework of leathery wrinkles that were a product of living in the thick of sun and wind and too much smiling, rather than the sinking, papery wrinkles of old age. He sported close-cropped hair and a thick, dark mustache that dominated his face, with expressive, intense eyebrows that came in at a close second.

"I got it, Dad," Lacey said, almost biting off the last word of the sentence, dropping the volume of her voice an almost undetectable level, as though it was a secret that she had not realized she was giving away until it was already leaving her mouth.

Bobby's heart fluttered with fresh anxiety. Not for any specific reason. There was nothing about his behavior up to this point that would warrant him to feel embarrassed in front of Lacey's father, which apparently this man was. He was simply surprised to suddenly be face-to-face with the immediate family of the girl he had been scheming to ask out for the better part of an hour now.

"Well," Lacey's father said, glancing down at Bobby, "What does he want, already?"

"Two PBTs," Lacey said quickly.

"Coming right up, chief," her father gave Bobby a curt, friendly nod and began to turn back to his cooktop.

"I was also wondering if I could ask your daughter out on a date," Bobby blurted out, practically shouting it, his words many times louder than he had originally intended.

There was a pause between the three of them then. Bobby knew that he had just taken an extreme gamble, that he had just gathered up his chances of successfully landing a date with a young, cute, witty girl, put them in a revolver, spun the chamber, and put the barrel to his head. It was just a matter of seeing on which side his fate would fall now that the trigger had been pulled.

Lacey's father's attitude changed then, ever so slightly. His relaxed, jovial posture straightened slightly, not in a threatening manner, but in the way a batter at practice might reassess a pitcher who had just served him a scorching fastball. There was a scanning quality to his gaze now as he sized Bobby up, a sort of grim smile playing in his thin, wrinkled-lined eyes more than his mouth.

"What's your name, son?"

"Bobby Drake."

"Does Lacey know you from school?"

Bobby glanced at Lacey, both of them searching for an answer in each other's expressions. He certainly didn't remember ever seeing her at Bayville High, but that meant almost nothing. He had only attended for a year, it was a large school, and he was nearly certain that she was at least a year older than he was. Then again, Bayville and the surrounding townships had more than their fair share of private and catholic schools, and she might attend any of those. Lacey shrugged slightly, then shook her head.

"No, sir," Bobby answered, taking Lacey's subtle gesture as a confirmation of what he already suspected. "At least I don't think so. We only just met today. I was at your coffee shop with my friends and she was at the register."

What Lacey's father thought about this information, Bobby could not begin to guess. His expression remained one of inscrutable, bemused authority as he once again looked Bobby up and down, pursing his bottom lip slightly, his eyebrows jumping up and down. Finally, he stripped off the white latex glove he had been wearing on his right hand, reached out the small window, and offered it to Bobby.

"Well, Bobby, I'm Donald LaMonica. Pleased to meet you."

Bobby took the outstretched hand in his own. He was prepared for the murderous, knuckle-breaking grip of a man meaning to assert some kind of domineering attitude, but Lacey's father's grip was merely friendly and firm. Bobby could feel the thick, meaty callouses of his palm and fingers. It was the hand of a working man, like Logan's. He was suddenly and painfully aware that his own hands were smooth and soft and most likely not at all impressive.

Bobby tried to break off the handshake after what felt like an appropriate amount of time had passed, but Lacey's father did not loosen his fingers. Instead, he stared measuredly into Bobby's eyes.

"Do you drink?"

"No, sir," Bobby said.

"Smoke?"

"No."

"If I decide to call your parents for any reason, am I gonna get the runaround?"

"No sir. You can call them any time." That answer was a bit trickier, but while Bobby did not want to lie, and indeed hadn't, he also didn't necessarily need to reveal to this man that his parents lived in another state, and their opinion of him at the moment could be described at best as trepidatious.

Finally, the man's grip relaxed, and Bobby withdrew his hand.

"Well then," he said, "the ball is in Lacey's court. I used to harbor this fantasy that she wouldn't date anyone until she was in college, but if you just can't hold yourself back any longer..."

"Dad!" Lacey snapped, eyes widening at her father's candor.

Her father chuckled again, reaching into a box and producing a new latex glove that he snapped onto his hand.

"As long as I know where you two are and what you're up to, it's fine by me, Mr. Drake," he smiled as he turned back to the truck's cooktop. "Two pork belly tacos coming right up."

An awkward silence passed between Bobby and Lacey, both of them mildly shell-shocked by her father's forthright attitude and apparent approval of Bobby.

"So... Where should we go on our date?" he asked finally with a grin.

Lacey cocked an eyebrow. For the first time, Bobby noticed how she had apparently inherited her father's tendency to express herself primarily with her impressively mobile brow.

"Hey now," she said, "My dad might have said it's okay, but you still need to ask me out properly."

Bobby smiled, slightly abashed. "Okay, okay, I jumped the gun a little. Lacey LaMonica, would you like to go out on a date with a guy who doesn't own a car and hasn't passed his driver's test yet, and probably can only afford like... half of a fancy dinner?"

"Wow," Lacey said, leaning onto the frame of the window and drumming her chin in mock thought, "when you put it like that, it's pretty hard to say no."

"What can I say," Bobby put his hands out to his sides, looking down at himself with mock self-admiration, "I'm the total package."

Lacey laughed. "You know, Bobby, you're cute, but you might be too much of a smartass for your own good."

"Says the girl who served me a coffee that could potentially give a healthy person diabetes."

She smiled. His wit was as effortless as it had ever been, but secretly his stomach had flipped when she said the word 'cute' in reference to him. He sincerely hoped that he wasn't blushing.

"Eight bucks."

Bobby blinked, not knowing what to make of that statement. "You want me to pay you eight bucks to go on a date with you?"

Lacey rolled her eyes playfully. "For your food, space-cadet."

He realized that he was still holding the ten dollar bill wadded up in his left hand. By this point it was slightly damp from being cramped up in his fist for so long. Bobby chuckled nervously, attempted to smooth the note as best he could, and handed it to her. She handed him two singles in change, which he shoved into his jeans without bothering to put them in his wallet.

"Well, Bobby," she said, leaning out of her window again, "I like movies, cheap restaurants, and spending time outside, so don't worry about draining your finances on my account. So, I guess all you have to decide is when you're taking me out."

Bobby shrugged and tilted his head to the side. "Saturday? Afternoon?"

"Sounds good," she smiled. She reached into her back pocket and produced a phone. She swiped a finger across its screen to bring it to life. "What's your number?"

They spent a minute exchanging information, punching each other's phone numbers into their phones.

"Please don't text-bomb me," Lacey said. The tone was playful, but with a stern edge to it. "I don't know about other girls, but I still enjoy actually hearing the voice of the person I'm trying to have a conversation with."

"Same," Bobby nodded.

"And please," she added, "I know what your face looks like. You don't need to send me twenty pictures of it. Or your abs. Or anything."

"Wait," Bobby's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "How many guys do that to you?"

The second window of the truck opened suddenly, and Lacey's father's head poked out. In his hand was a small paper dish, inside of which were two of the best-looking tacos that Bobby had ever seen. He was reminded again of how hungry he was.

"Enjoy, Mr. Drake," he said with a smile. He glanced back and forth between Bobby and his daughter for a moment, then leaned closer and whispered loudly: "Did you guys set a wedding date yet?"

"Ugh!" Lacey crowed in frustration, "Dad!"