A/N Sorry for the long delay in updating. I was having a hard time with the ending of this chapter, and then after all the reworkign, I ended up cutting the problem ending out and pushing it into the next chapter. And while this chapter is now not critical to the story line at this point at all, when I realized the situation I put a certain character into, I realized I couldn't possibly deny you all of this image!

Thanks for keeping up with me!

Kelby

Chapter 3

They heard the little girl shuffling her feet across the floor in what was obviously an old pair of her mother's high heels. She had a small plastic tiara on her head and was wearing a costume dress that Collins knew was from one of the characters of a Disney movie. Which one he had no idea.

"Hi." She said looking up at them through the screen door.

"Hi." Joanne smiled down at her. "I bet you're one of Cindy's little girls?" The little girl nodded at her. "Well we're friends of you Uncle Mark. Is he here?"

"No." She shook her head back and forth causing her big plastic clip on earrings to shake.

"Oh. Well is your mommy here?" Collins asked her.

"No. She's with Daddy and Uncle Mark. You wanna talk to our babysitter?"

"Sure." Joanne smiled at the little girl opened the door for them.

"We're playing dress up. And having a tea party." She led them into the kitchen.

Once there Collins didn't know if he'd be able to contain himself. "You're the babysitter?" He laughed.

"Well that explains the six year old answering the door by herself and letting complete strangers in." Joanne told him in a disapproving voice.

Roger looked up at them. He wasn't sure if he should be grateful for back up at this moment or completely mortified they had seen him like this. All six foot two of him was sitting on a little kid plastic chair. He had about five plastic beaded necklaces around his neck along with one red and one blue fuzzy dress up boa. There were clip on plastic earrings nestled between his real earrings running up both ears. And to top it all off the four year old kept trying to put a pink and silver plastic tiara on his head.

"Roger you gotta wear it! You're the prince! The prince needs a pretty tiara too!" She told him, trying again to jam the small crown on his head.

"What are you two doing here?" He asked almost mortified.

"We came to check on you and Mark." Joanne managed through a grin.

"But since we see you've got everything under control," Collins laughed, wiping tears from his eyes, "maybe we should go and leave you to your tea party."

"Ha ha. Very funny." Roger grumbled, standing up.

"And Mark not around with his camera." Joanne smirked.

Collins was still laughing so hard he almost couldn't catch his breath. "Buddy I've got to tell you, I've known a number of drag queens, and you my friend would make a lousy drag queen." He was holding his stomach he was laughing so hard.

"Yes but think what fun Angel could have had trying. Roger would certainly have been a project." Joanne teased.

"Oh shut up! Both of you!"

"Roger! That's another bad word! You're gonna get in trouble." Six year old Brittany told him, hands on her hips.

"Another bad word? Roger!" Joanne scolded him. "So what are you guys doing?" She asked the girls.

"I'm a princess!" Four year old Ashlyn told her. "And Brittany's a princess. And Roger's the prince."

"Was he a frog first?" Collins asked breaking into a whole new fit of laughter.

Roger rolled his eyes at him as Joanne suppressed a giggle.

"Okay well King Roger says you guys should go watch TV for awhile."

"No! Tea party!" Brittany yelled.

"Yeah tea party!" Ashlyn chimed in jumping up and down.

"Not now. Here," he said reaching for his wallet and handing them each a dollar. Let me talk to Collins and Joanne for awhile."

With dollars in hand they ran off to the living room. Roger started pulling off the necklaces, earrings and boas. All of which sent fresh waves of laughter through Collins. "Oh shut up already." He told him.

"Now Roger, language." Joanne grinned.

"Yeah you shut up too. And not that I'm not grateful she's not standing here too at this moment to see this, but where's the mouth?"

This caused Collins to crack up yet again. Joanne gave both of them a look before continuing. "She's working. We just came up for the evening to see how you two were and if you needed anything."

"Oh. Well I'm glad you're here anyway. I'm running out of money. Either of you got any singles? This babysitting thing is expensive."

Joanne just looked at him for a second. "What do you mean? You're the babysitter. Babysitters usually make money."

"Roger, what's for dinner?" Brittany called from the living room. "We're hungry."

"Um, I don't know yet. I'll make you something in a minute." He called back as he walked to the fridge. He pulled out three sodas and took them over to the dining room table where Collins and Joanne had sat down.

"Yeah well," he handed them the sodas and went back to the kitchen. "First it was a dollar each to stop crying after Cindy left. Then a dollar each so they'd stop fighting over a Barbie. Two dollars for Brittany to go wipe Ashlyn's butt because for some reason she wouldn't and she wanted me to do. Then another dollar each so I wouldn't have to play some game called 'Pretty, Pretty Princess.' I don't know what it is, but I am not playing any game called that." He said while rummaging through the cabinets. "And then those two dollars there. That was it on my singles. At this rate they'll have to make me change."

"Roger you're not supposed too... never mind." Joanne shook her head.

"I think they caught on to the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing." Roger told them as he dumped something onto two plates.

"Ya think?" Collins laughed again.

"Roger, don't pay them any more money. You have to let them know who is in, wait, what is that?" Joanne pointed to the two plates in his hands.

"Dinner." Roger shrugged. "They said they were hungry."

"No. Forget it. Just because you and Mark act like a couple of little kids and you two eat like that, doesn't mean real little kids eat like that. You are not feeding them Pop tarts, marshmallows and goldfish for dinner. I'll make them something." She took the plates from him and headed back toward the sink.

Joanne made what she felt was a more appropriate dinner and took it, along with glasses of milk into the girls. After making them promise to be extra careful eating in there, she put a DVD in and returned to the dining room where Roger and Collins had begun munching on the marshmallows.

"They're cute little girls." She said sitting down.

"You made kind of a cute little girl yourself there Rog." Collins grinned, trying hard not to lose it again.

"Oh alright. Can we please drop it? If it was anyone other than Mark's nieces you know there's no way in hell I would have been doing any of that."

"Language Mr. Davis!" Joanne scolded. "But speaking of Mark, how is he doing?"

Roger let out a sigh. You know Mark. He keeps claiming he's fine. He hasn't said much. He did kinda lose it last night though. He thinks he's a horrible son because he never listened to his mom when she called. And he kept going on about how he's always been this huge disappointment to his parents and stuff like that. He's beating himself up pretty bad."

"Poor Mark." Joanne shook her head. "Where is he now?"

"Him and Cindy and Cindy's husband Martin are out making funeral arrangements. Martin's mom is over at the Cohen's cleaning everything up and getting ready for tomorrow. After the funeral everyone is going over there I guess."

"Okay. Are you two all set? Do you need anything for tomorrow?" Collins asked.

"No. Martin's mom took our suits to get them dry cleaned today. Cindy, Martin and the girls are going to come over there to the house tomorrow morning. The cars are going to pick us up from there."

"Okay. We'll meet you guys at the house tomorrow and just follow you from there." Joanne told him.

"Okay." Roger nodded. "Wait? If I've got your car, how did you get here today? And how are you getting here tomorrow?"

Collins shrugged. "I called Benny to tell him. He lent us his car for tonight and tomorrow. He and Allison are coming up in her car tomorrow. I expect both of you to behave. For Mark's sake." Collins glared at Roger as he said the last part.

Roger couldn't meet Collins' eyes. He knew Collins was referring back to what happened at Angel's funeral. He kept his eyes on his beer bottle as he spoke. "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine."

"So what exactly happened?" Joanne asked.

Roger sighed as he sat back in his chair and gave a little shrug. "The girls spent the night. Mark's mom made pancakes for breakfast and they left. They dropped the girls off at dance class and then got on the highway. The cops said Mr. Cohen was doing almost seventy. But apparently that wasn't fast enough for the idiot who pasted him on the right. I guess he was trying to just be an ass and cut right in front of him and he misjudged or something. The cops said Mr. Cohen must have seen it coming and tried to slam on the breaks. But the guy hit them just right and the car flipped.

"Meanwhile there was a delivery truck on the side of the road jacked up to change a tire. When the Cohen's car flipped it slid right into the jacked up side of the truck, bringing that truck down on part of the car. The cops told Martin they were both dead at the scene."

"That's horrible." Joanne exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's really rough." Collins added, shaking his head.

Mark was already in the bed when Roger flopped down at the foot of it, making the sofa bed pop up for a second. "Watch it!" Mark yelled at him as he grabbed at the couch's arm rest.

"Sorry." Roger told him as he flipped on the TV.

"Just be careful." Mark told him as he rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. I can't believe Joanne cut us off like that."

"Yeah I know. But at the same time she had a point. I mean do you really want to do tomorrow with a hangover?"

"No. I guess not. But then again I don't want to do tomorrow at all."

Roger flipped himself around so he was sitting next to Mark. "Don't worry." He told him as he put an arm around his shoulder. "I'll be with you the whole time."

"I know. And I really appreciate that."

"No problem." Roger gave him a little squeeze. "Now let's watch TV on the cable channels we can't afford. A little light porn will help take your mind off tomorrow!"

"You're crazy." Mark gave a little grin.

"Crazy like a fox Buddy! Crazy like a fox!" He gave Mark another squeeze around the shoulders before picking up the remote and flipping channels again.