Chapter 26

As Jessy and Danika left school that day Danika asked if the could have pizza for dinner that night. Jessy agreed and they stopped to pick up a family sized pie. It was a take and bake so they could put it in the oven once AJ was on the way home.

After his last baseball class AJ waited outside the school's side entrance. It was the closest to Allen's biology class which was his last for the day. Allen came out and started across the parking lot. AJ called out his name and Allen stopped.

"Yes Coach AJ?"

"Allen I was hoping I could talk to you."

"Did I do something wrong Coach AJ?"

"No not at all I just wanted to talk to you about something Danika told me."

"What did she tell you?" Allen looked worried and he started backing up as if he wanted to get away from AJ.

AJ held up his hand and said, "Please wait Allen it's nothing bad. Danika told me that you were homeless…"

At that Allen turned his back on AJ and started to run. Because of all the running AJ did himself he had no problem catching up to Allen and getting in front of him to stop his escape. "Allen why are you running? I'm not going to hurt you."

"There are different kinds of hurt Coach AJ. As a manditory reporter you would have to tell DHS where I am. I ran away from my last foster home and if you turned me in I bet they would send me back there."

"Why would that be so bad? Did they hurt you?"

"Mrs. Pellton didn't but her husband did the day he came home early and caught us in their bedroom."

"Did she force you into the bedroom with her?"

"No she just told me that I had to have sex with her or he would beat me. But he never beat me til that day. It was the day I ran away."

"I'm glad you got away from that and I have a solution to you going back to that foster home. You know Danika Elkins, right?"

"I know a Danika that lives in her car out in the school parking lot, but I never knew her last name."

"Well I found out she'd been doing that earlier in the week and my wife and I have taken her in and are going to adopt her. When she told us that you are also homeless we asked her if she would like to have a brother. She said she'd be glad if we adopted you too."

"But I live with two other kids. They took me to live with them when the found me on the street."

"I know and if you introduce me to them we can invite them to the house to see if they'd like to move in and become part of the family too."

"You guys want to adopt four teenagers?!"

"Yeah crazy aren't we?" AJ chuckled. "But other than that what do you think?"

"I thought I heard you and Ms Roth were getting married in October Coach AJ but I really think you're cool and I'd be willing to give it a try if Bethany and Breen are."

"We were going to wait to get married until October but then we found Danika needed us so we got married Wednesday night after school so it would make adopting her easier."

"Wow you guys really do mean it huh?"

"We really do. Shall we go and find Bethany and Breen and talk this over with them?"

"Okay."

Allen directed AJ to the town park where Bethany and Breen were staking out benches next to each other. The boy with AJ called his friends over and made the introductions then left it to AJ to explain why he had wanted to talk to them.

The twins honestly thought he was pulling their leg when AJ had laid out his plan. But since he was offering to feed them all dinner they agreed to get with him to hear him out.

To be continued…..