A Story of Us

by Kadi

Rated T

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. It's just my favorite sandbox to play in.

Chapter 35

On the weekend of Nicole's wedding several festivities were planned. The rehearsal and dinner had taken place on Thursday evening, while the actual ceremony was planned for Saturday afternoon. Friday was put aside as a spa day for the ladies. Emily had arrived prior to the rehearsal and was joining her mother and stepsister for a full day of pampering at a local hotspot. Sharon and Andy had both arranged for the time off, and though it was tentative depending upon either of their teams getting a case that could not be handled without them, neither was anticipating having to miss the wedding.

Andy was spending that Friday with Joey. Rusty had gone to school as usual, dropped off by Sharon on her way to meet the others, and Andy would be picking him up. The rest of the day was being spent with his boy. They had done a few errands, picked up the dry cleaning and stopped by the market. The most significant activity of the day had come when they'd strolled past a pet shop. It was sponsoring an adoption drive for a local animal shelter. The moment that Joey had spotted a black and brown, floppy eared puppy of only eight-weeks-old, there was no turning him away from it.

It was love at first sight, for boy and dog. The pup was a little bull dog mix, American bull dog from the papers, although his build and coloring led the shelter attendants to believe that there was some doberman mixed in with it. The puppy, a male, was good natured enough, and stood on hind legs, tail wagging, and yapping happily to get their attention. He certainly managed to get Joey's.

Sharon was going to kill him. His only defense was going to be putting kid and dog in front of her and letting her see the cuteness for herself. While he ran for his vest.

They were at least fully equipped now. After getting the dog, he had at least gotten food and water bowls, puppy chow, some toys, and chew biscuits. Those probably wouldn't save their shoes, but it was worth a try. Oh yes, she was definitely going to kill him. Andy didn't really mind so much, especially as he sat watching Joey and the pup chase each other around the back yard. The dog was already half his size and had knocked him over a few times, but Joey would squeal and laugh and get right back up again. It was worth it.

It was even worth the odd look that he had gotten from the teenager when they picked him up from school. Dog and all. Rusty had agreed that Sharon was going to shoot him, but now he was tossing a ball while Joey and the dog chased it down. At least if he was going down it was in good company and for good reason. They were boys, they needed a dog, what was the harm in it?

Andy shook his head as he walked across the backyard carrying a shovel and a bag of potting soil. He had also stopped at the plant nursery and picked up the replacement azaleas for the corner of the flowerbed that they had destroyed putting in the sandbox. That might just get him out of hot water with the wife. Either way, he had promised to fix it, and he was doing that.

As he dug out that corner of the flower bed, Andy kept an eye on the boys. Rusty was pretty good at watching Joey, but the dog was new, and they were both distracted by it. He chuckled quietly as he listened to them. Rusty was trying out names for the dog and getting Joey to try and say them. It seemed the general theory there was that whichever one the kid could say, the dog would actually get. When the side gate opened, Andy didn't immediately turn. It was late afternoon and he half expected it to be his wife and her daughter, but the voice didn't belong to either of them.

Jack stood there for a few minutes without speaking. His eyes swept over the backyard. He spotted the teenager, the foster kid that he heard Sharon had taken in, first. Then he found the little one. The baby that Sharon told him was his, and then wasn't. His eyes narrowed as he watched the boy running around. He was big for a two-year-old, but Ricky had been too as he remembered. Jack studied him closely. With that mop of dark hair and the solid, sturdy build, he could have been looking at Ricky. The smile, and the laugh, those were all Sharon he realized. Much of his build had come from her side of the family, he looked a lot like her brothers. The face, however, the shape of it, the chin and the set of the eyes... Jack's teeth ground together. Yeah, he looked like Ricky alright, too much like Ricky to be anything but his.

He spied the other guy too. The one that was supposed to be his friend, his drinking buddy, and had ended up screwing around with his wife instead. He was working in the yard like he owned the place, and when the kid ran, squealing and laughing, and calling out for his daddy, it was Flynn that he ran to.

Jack's eyes narrowed. "That's an interesting turn of events," he said. "Don't know about you, bud, but I'm a little confused on the timing of it all. I mean, I could have sworn that Sharon said that kid was mine. But damn..." He shook his head. "She had to be sleeping with both of us if she really didn't know, and that just doesn't sound like her. Funny thing about all of it, though, I'd swear that kid looks a hell of a lot like the pictures I've got of me and my brother Grant when we were that age. Kind of like Ricky did, you know, the one that I know is mine. Unless you want to tell me you were screwing around with her back then too?"

Andy lifted Joey into his arms. He felt the familiar tightening, the build of tension between his shoulder blades that made them ache. His blood pressure was beginning to rise, and after several weeks of keeping an eye on it and taking the damned pills the doctor had given him for it, Andy could recognize the feeling when it started. He held on to Joey and glanced at Rusty. "Hey, grab the dog before he realizes the gate is open, will you?"

"Sure." Rusty was looking between the two men, even as he walked over to retrieve the pup's leash from where it had been left on the porch. He called the puppy to him and clipped it to his collar. Rusty held on to it, but stayed near the porch, watching the two men.

"Jack, you got something to say, maybe it can wait." Andy stared hard at him. The temptation to put a fist in his mouth was still pretty strong, but with the boys present he could keep a leash on his temper. "Sharon isn't here right now, and we're not going to talk about this in front of my kids."

"Your kids?" Jack openly laughed at that. "Claiming a lot of things that aren't really yours, these days, aren't you Flynn?" His gaze moved to the other one, the teenager. "Pretty sure I heard Sharon was trying to put herself up for Officer of the year by taking in the little witness, I don't remember anyone saying anything about him actually belonging to anyone. I mean, street kid, right? Not sure how that equates to yours, unless your past is finally catching up to you. Finally rolling in the muck with the rest of us lousy drunks, eh?"

"Rusty." Andy ignored him. "Take Joey inside." He walked over and shifted the toddler toward him. "Take the pup with you, just don't let him chew on anything."

"Yeah, okay..." Rusty was watching Sharon's ex warily. "Should I call anyone," he asked quietly.

"No." Andy watched him take Joey. "Just stay in the house. Got it covered." He stood back and shoved his hands into his pockets. He waited until Rusty disappeared inside the house before he strode slowly, purposefully toward Jackson. "Alright listen, we're going to have this conversation once. You want to talk to Sharon, you do that on your time. You don't do it on mine, and you don't do it when our kids are here. You call her, you arrange a meeting, and you stay the hell away from my house." He watched the other man's eyes flash and smirked. "That's right. Mine. Both our names are on the title now, it's a little something that Sharon likes to call having a marriage. Something I know that you're a little confused about. Especially since yours is over."

"Someone is awfully defensive all of a sudden." Jack smirked at him. "Tell me something, do you and Sharon think I'm blind? He's got my chin. Looks like Ricky did at that age. I don't see any of you in him at all. Come to think of it, I don't remember you being around a whole lot when he would've been made. Actually, what I remember, well... I guess you know all about how Sharon can be now, don't you? Unless she's already gone cold. That happens, you know. It's all hot and fun in the beginning, but after a couple of months the new wears off and she gets bored. Especially when there's a kid around."

Andy inclined his head, but didn't deign to answer. Instead, he arched a brow. He shrugged. "I guess that's for me to worry about now, isn't it? As to Joey, well, you're welcome to find out if he's yours or not. I think you'll be a little disappointed in the answer. Doesn't really matter though, does it? You don't want him. You never did, and I'm not going to let you use him." He took another step forward so that he loomed over the other man. "See, I'm remembering another conversation that you and I had, the day he was born, and I'm thinking... you're not going to want to come anywhere near him again. You're not going to want to talk to him again. I'm pretty sure his Uncle Fritz feels the same way. What do you think?"

"I think..." Jack took a step back. He shrugged and tried to look nonchalant about it. "I think I'm going to sit back and watch you screw it up. It's what you do best, Flynn. It's only a matter of time." He wasn't getting the answers that he wanted. It was Sharon that he needed to talk to. He had a way with her, but maybe he'd do it when Flynn wasn't around. Especially if he was serious about getting that FBI agent involved again. That wasn't trouble that Jack needed.

"Maybe." Who knew what could happen. Andy would try like hell to make sure it didn't, but no one could predict the future. "In the meantime, my wife and our kids are no concern of yours. You want to talk, maybe call your own damned kids. For something other than money this time." He growled the last, and really if he were to beat the hell out of him, that would be reason enough. What kind of man called his own daughter for money? The one he was looking at, apparently.

"We'll see..." So Emily had told on him. Well, she was her mother's daughter. Jack strode toward the gate. "Tell Sharon I'll be calling her."

"Oh, believe me, I will." Andy watched him go. The hands that were shoved into his pockets were clenched into fists. They didn't relax until he heard a car engine start and then pull away. He let out a breath and it hissed between his clenched teeth. Andy shook his head. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. He walked over and closed the gate that Jack had left open. As he returned to his chore of repairing the flower bed, he stopped by the base of the porch steps. "You can come out now, Rusty." Andy knew that kid, he was waiting in the kitchen, listening for any sounds of trouble. He allowed a small smirk as the back door slowly opened.

The dog burst out first, and then Rusty moved into sight. He glanced around, still looking wary. He held onto one of Joey's hands as he crossed the porch. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Andy shrugged. "He's gone." He picked up his shovel again. "He never sticks around for long. That's the one thing about Jack we can always count on."

Rusty stepped down off the porch with Joey, then he let him go. The toddler was completely unaware of the tension still hovering over the yard. He went back to chasing and being chased by the puppy. "What did he want?" The teenager asked carefully.

"I'm not really sure." Andy dug into the flower bed with a little more enthusiasm than was needed, but it was just as well. If he couldn't beat Jack with the shovel, he might as well take it out on the dirt. "It doesn't matter, he's gone now."

"Yeah but..." Rusty walked over and took a seat on the old, wooden picnic table. "What about all that stuff he was saying about Joey?" He squinted at Andy. "I mean, I thought..." It made it sound like Sharon and Andy had an affair, while she was still married, and that just didn't sound right. Not to him. Not with everything that he knew about them.

"Rusty." Andy sighed. He leaned against the shovel and looked at the boy. "It's kind of a long story. I'm not sure it's one you should hear."

"Isn't it better I hear it from you?" The teenager shrugged. "I mean, if it's going to come out eventually. He didn't sound like he was going anywhere anytime soon. Like, he would be back. I just..." Rusty glanced at his hands. "I feel like, if there's some weird family secret out there, maybe you should tell me now."

It was always harder when the kids used logic on them. Andy thought about it for a moment. Yeah, Sharon was going to kill him. His lips pursed for a moment, then he shook his head. "I adopted Joey. We told Jack he was mine. There's no way that he could be. Jack knows that, he knows on some level that Sharon was faithful to him. He left her while she was pregnant. She and I got together afterward, but before Joey was born. Ricky and Emily know the truth, so do Sharon's parents. Provenza and Agent Howard are in on it too, but that's it. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Joey is mine. In a way, he is. Jack didn't want him, but I did. That was all that mattered."

Rusty rubbed his hands against his jeans. So he could just choose that? Just like that? "But..." Rusty blinked a few times. "Why?" He didn't understand how someone could just make that choice and be okay with it. Most parents were busy ditching their kids. There weren't a lot of people going out of their way to choose to be parents to kids that weren't theirs.

Andy tugged the shovel out of the dirt. "Why not?" He shrugged again. "Rusty, sometimes when you love someone, the past doesn't matter. You want a future together anyway that you can get it. It really is a long story, maybe someday I'll tell you all of it, but right now... we'll just say that Sharon and I went through a lot. By the time that Joey was born and I made the decision to call him mine, a lot of things happened, and the way that it happened, well it just already felt like he was mine. That was it, we went from there."

He decided that maybe it was better to leave it at that. Rusty nodded slowly. "Okay. But no one else knows? Just those few people?"

"That's right." Andy said. "It's the way we want it. When he's old enough, we'll tell Joey the truth. Until then, none of that matters. He's still my kid. Whether he or anyone else knows or not. Got it?"

"I think so." Rusty figured he would have to wrap his mind around it, but it made an odd kind of sense. Especially some of the snippets of conversations he'd heard in the time that he lived with them. Some of it was really coming together in his head and making a lot of sense. Maybe they weren't so weird after all. "Are... uh, you going to tell Sharon that you told me? I can like, not tell anyone. If you don't want her to know-"

"We don't keep secrets, Rusty." Andy grinned at him. "I'll tell her. She'll probably shoot me, but I've got time to get my vest out of the car before then. It'll be fine."

Rusty snorted. He took it back. They were weird. He shook his head, however, and sighed. "Yeah, but sometimes... secrets are necessary." He pushed off the table with that and walked across the yard to pick up the ball and toss it for the puppy.

Andy watched him with a frown. Something in his tone bothered him. He made a mental note to poke more at that later. In the meantime, the flowerbed wasn't going to fix itself... and Sharon would be home soon. He'd work out his frustration about Jack with the manual labor. Then he'd tell her about it, and what he discussed with Rusty... and maybe they'd talk about what kind of secrets Rusty was keeping that he thought were so necessary. Something about that just didn't bode well.

MCMCMCMCMCMC

When Sharon and Emily got home later that evening, they walked into a house that was not quite in the same condition that it was in that morning. There were toys littering the living room floor, and that was not quite an anomaly. It was the kind of toys that were littering the floor that drew Sharon's attention. Along with the chewed throw pillows. There was fabric and stuffing spread all over the place.

Sharon picked carefully through the wreckage. When she reached the other side of the sofa, she cast a look at the individuals seated on the floor between it and the coffee table. The coffee table that had been pushed aside to make more room for playing. Her brows lifted. She pointed at the animal that was laying on its side between them. "What is that?"

The lower inflection of the voice had Joey's head shooting up. He might be very young, but he knew that tone. They all did. Andy cast a look at Rusty, his brows rose. He shrugged at the teenager before he looked up at his wife. A crooked grin curved his face. "It's a dog. We've decided to name him No-No. What do you think?"

She cast a very pointed look at the two destroyed throw pillows. "Why is it in my house? You realize those are two hundred dollar pillows, right?"

Andy looked at Rusty again. He made a face. "Who the hell buys two hundred dollar throw pillows?"

While still holding the rope bone that the puppy was chewing on, Rusty pointed at Sharon. "She does." He was grunting and growling and rolling to and fro while trying to get it away from Rusty.

"Figures." Andy looked up at his wife again. Dinner was ready, had been for a little while. Sharon had called earlier to tell him that she and Emily were headed home, so they waited on them. While they were waiting, he and Rusty were keeping Joey and No-No, as the toddler was now calling him, occupied. That two throw pillows were sacrificed to the cause was unfortunate. The dog hadn't been upstairs yet, so really, it could have been a lot worse. Andy inclined his head and grinned at her. "He's Joey's puppy. He picked him out. The pet shop over in the market center was doing a sidewalk adoption drive. It was love at first sight. There was no separating them. What was I going to do?"

Her brows lifted again. She stared back at him. "You didn't think we should discuss this?" Sharon tossed a hand toward the mess. "You just made an executive decision to bring home a dog without asking me about it?" She tossed her purse into one of the arm chairs and glared at him. "Andy, really!"

"Quick." Andy poked his son. "Assume the position."

Joey grinned widely. He lay down against the puppy's side and hugged his neck. Then he looked up at his mother and smiled sweetly. "Momma pease?"

She rolled her eyes at her husband. "That was low." She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. "It's not working."

"It's working on me." Emily knelt down beside them. She ran a hand over the puppy's head. "Come on mom, it's just a dog. How can you say no to these two faces?"

"It is pretty great." Rusty looked up at her again and smiled. "He's not so bad. The pillows were kind of my fault. I left them on the floor." He shrugged at her. "Sorry."

Sharon looked from one face to another. Then she groaned. "I do not believe this." She snatched up her purse again and strode away from them, headed toward the stairs. "Clean that up!"

"Hm." Andy looked at Rusty again. "I thought that went surprisingly well."

"She didn't shoot you," He pointed out with a smirk. "That's always a plus."

"The night's not over yet," Sharon called back, having heard it all.

"I should…" Andy jerked his head toward the stairs.

"I really would if I were you." Emily grinned at him. "Before she has a chance to get her gun out of the lockbox."

"Right." Andy stood up and started toward the stairs. "Hey, Rusty can you—"

"On it." He nodded. "Although, in hindsight, maybe I should have cleaned up the living room before Sharon got home?"

"That would have been good." Emily smirked. "He is in so much trouble." She laughed. "Mom never let us have a puppy. Let Ricky have a hamster once. That didn't work out so well."

Rusty's eyes widened. "What happened?"

"It got out of its cage, got loose in the house…" Emily shrugged. "Dad stepped on it. It was one of those times when he actually lived with us for a while. You know, like his regular drive-by-family."

"So he really is a Jackass. No offense." Rusty rolled his eyes. "He was here today." He stood up and walked over to begin picking up the remains of the pillows.

"Really?" It was Emily's turn to flash a wide-eyed look. "Andy's not in jail, I guess that mean's my dad is still alive? Or at least, not in a hospital somewhere?" She moved to her knees and began gathering up the toys that were scattered across the floor. "And no offense taken. He has acted like a real jackass the last few years."

"Yeah, no kidding." Rusty shook his head. "He said some things while he was here. Andy ended up telling me the truth, you know, about Joey." He shrugged. "So a lot more stuff makes sense now. I understand now why he's not really… liked by a lot of people. Sounds like he was a real jerk."

"He was." Emily moved around the room, picking up toys and placing them in the toy box. "He wasn't always like that, and sometimes he can be a really great guy. The rest of the time, though…" She sighed. "Well, I guess you got a dose of that today. I'm sorry he shook things up around here today. I know Mom and Andy really don't like talking about what happened, or that Joey wasn't always his."

"Don't be." Rusty dumped the stuffing and chewed fabric in a waste basket and came back to help her pick up the toys. "Not your fault. We can't really help it when our parents suck."

Emily looked up and smiled sadly at him. "No, I guess we can't." Together they moved the coffee table back to its rightful place. Then she sank onto the sofa. Emily pulled Joey up beside her and laughed when the Puppy joined them. "I don't think mom is going to like him on the furniture, pal."

Joey wrapped his arms around the puppy's neck. "No-no puppy!"

"That's exactly how he got his name." Rusty smirked. He sat on the other end of the sofa and drew his legs up. "He calls her the pushover."

"It's completely mutual." Emily laughed. "Joey, you've got them both wrapped around your little finger and you don't even know it."

"Oh…" Rusty shook his head. "He knows it. Believe me, he knows it." He dangled one of the rope toys in front of the dog again. "So, how was the spa?"

"Amazing." Emily grinned. "I think it was exactly what everyone needed. Mark's mom is kind of a riot. I think I get now why Nicole likes her so much. I am sore just from laughing so hard all day. It was really great. Mom really needed it too. She won't say anything, but all this stuff with our dad really bothers her. Doesn't matter how great or how smart she is, or even how strong, there's always going to be a part of her that's going to wonder what she did wrong. So it was great to just get away and hang out, and not really have to think about any of that."

"I guess I just didn't really know it was a thing." Rusty shrugged. "You know, they don't really talk about it. At least, not in front of us." He glanced toward the stairs. "She's not really going to be mad about the dog, right?"

"Annoyed." Emily grinned. "He'll get off easy. I mean, like she can say no to that little face." She reached over and ruffled Joey's hair. "Don't worry about, Rusty." She added a smirk and a wink. "Andy's got it covered. He never would have gotten the dog if he thought she would really be upset about it. He's got mom figured out. It's going to be fine. At least… so long as she doesn't lose any shoes to it. Otherwise, all bets are off!"

Andy followed Sharon into their bedroom. He watched her drop her purse on the dresser and toe out of her shoes. Then she walked around and took a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt out of the dresser. Andy dropped onto the bed and propped his head in his hand, watching her. "On a scale of one to screwed, how much trouble am I in?"

"For getting a dog without discussing it with me?" She glanced at him. "Or getting a dog without discussing it with me and letting it destroy my house?" Sharon made quick work of changing her clothes. "Odd, but these were the kinds of decisions that I thought we were supposed to make together."

"Yeah." He grabbed her arm when she walked by and tugged her onto the bed. "It was an impulse thing. Joey saw him, and not bringing him home seemed like a bad idea. The dog is not even the worst of it." He wrapped an arm around her waist. "Jack came by the house today."

"Yes, I know." Sharon shook her head. "He called me. After the fact. He wanted to discuss visitation rights for Joey… although the words Paternity Test and Child Support changed his mind very quickly. I don't think we'll be hearing from him again anytime soon. I didn't fold, I didn't give in, and I did not feel sorry for him. He's really unaccustomed to that. Jack will go and lick his wounds for a while."

"Good." He reached up and rubbed her back. She was seated on the mattress beside him. "Rusty knows," he said. "Jack was running his mouth. The kid had questions. I told him the truth. It was bound to come out eventually. The kid's not an idiot."

Sharon sighed. "I was afraid of that when Jack said that he came by the house. The more people who know…"

"I think the kid is alright with it." Andy shrugged. "He knows we've all got stuff in our past. I don't think he'll talk about it." He sat up and nudged her shoulder with his. "It's alright, Sharon. Rusty understands and Jack is gone for a while. I'd call that a win."

"I suppose that it is." She smiled at him. "It's one that I'll take, anyway." She leaned against him. "You waited dinner?"

"I did." He wrapped an arm around her. "Pot Roast," he said, before she could ask. Andy grinned. "I figured bringing home a dog without asking would warrant some major points."

"You figured right." She shook her head at him. Sharon groaned. "A dog? Really?" She was already picturing all of the chewed shoes that would result from that. It wasn't a pleasant image. It was hard to weigh that against the image of Joey hugging the puppy, however. She shook her head again. "I don't believe this."

"They're boys, they need a dog." Andy kissed the top of her head. "He's young, he needs a little training. It will be fine." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Andy swept a thumb across the screen, then scrolled through a series of pictures. They'd had quite the eventful afternoon, Joey and No-No. "It was kind of hard to say no to."

Sharon rolled her eyes at him. "Fine, the dog can stay." She nudged him with her elbow. "You are definitely the pushover now."

"Yeah." Andy grinned crookedly at her. "I'll take it. It was kind of worth it." He stood up and held out a hand. "Come on, let's go feed the boys before they destroy the house looking for food."

Sharon let him pull her up and when he tugged her close, she wrapped her arms around his waist. "Just do me a favor… no more pets, okay?"

"Deal." He held onto her for a moment longer. "At least, not without discussing it first…"

"Andy." She shook her head slowly. "No."

His grin widened. "Come on, Sharon. Just think… fish aquarium." He laughed when she shoved him away. Andy caught her and pulled her back, his arms sliding around her from behind. He lowered his lips to her neck. "I guess now would be a bad time to mention the tree frog he found this afternoon…"

Sharon just sighed as she leaned back against him. "You're horrible," she decided, but she laughed when he nuzzled her neck.

"You love me," he rumbled quietly. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yes." Her eyes closed when his lips moved up her neck to just behind her ear. "Nicole is a lot less frazzled than she was last night. The nerves will be back tomorrow, I'm sure. It's a big day. I think she'll be okay, though. Emily is going to pack an overnight bag and drive over to Nicole's tonight. The bridesmaids are all keeping her company while Mark and the boys camp out at his parents' place. We'll meet Emily at the country club with the others." As the stepsister, Emily had made the list of bridesmaids for the wedding.

"I can't believe it's really tomorrow." He tucked his chin against her shoulder. "I swear, yesterday she was just a baby."

"Hm." Sharon turned in his arms. "They do grow up. Sometimes a little too fast." She smiled up at him, eyes sparkling playfully. "Just think of it as gaining another son. Oh, and a pair of grandsons."

"You know," He smirked at her. "Since it means we now out number you all two to one, I'll take it."

Sharon groaned. "I was afraid you would clue in to that." When one of their phones began to vibrate, she sighed. She walked over to the dresser where hers waited. "It's me." She lifted it. "Damn." It was Provenza, that could only mean one thing. Her shoulders slumped and she looked back at him. "Plan B?"

"I'll take the boys to the country club. You'll work the case. I'll have your dress so you can come straight there. Ricky will be here in a couple of hours. It's fine." He was driving down. "Go, deal with the old guy. He gets cranky when you make him wait."

"Cranky doesn't cover it." Sharon shook her head. It was on the tip of her tongue to apologize, but then she was reminded that she was with the one person who would understand. She walked over and kissed him quickly before answering the phone. "Yes, Lieutenant," she said as she walked toward her closet. "What can I do for you?"

Andy watched her for a minute, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder while she pulled out something more appropriate for the office than yoga pants and a t-shirt. He still missed not being able to join them. Still, if he was with the squad, he'd end up missing a good chunk of the wedding activities the following day, and someone would get stuck babysitting. No, he would stay with the boys, wait up for Ricky, and hope his wife at least got enough of a break in her case to meet them the next day. She'd make it work, he knew, of that he had no doubt. Andy made his way downstairs while Sharon got ready to go to work.

There was just one question left on his mind… what the hell were they going to do with the puppy while everyone was at the wedding?