Chapter Twenty-Nine
"So I guess even fake blondes can't figure out how to lock their doors," said Nikki cattily as she sauntered into the room.
"Intruders are generally intelligent enough to come at night," quipped Mom.
"Quicker than I remembered you," said Nikki.
"Nikki, what the hell are you doing here?" asked Daddy, standing up.
"I came to see our daughter," she said.
"Oh, our daughter?" he asked, gesturing toward Mom and himself.
"No Jake, ours. Come on, it's been eighteen years!" she protested. Seductively.
"Actually, it's been sixteen," said Mom.
"And it's still illegal. Is she with you?" asked Dad.
"What? She's not with you?" asked Nikki. I could see the wheels in her head turning.
"Yes, so you'd best start working on some crackpot story about how we're not fit parents," suggested Dad.
"Yeah, I'll get cracking on that," said Nikki snidely, thankfully departing. I exchanged puzzled glances with Lauren from across the table before she remembered that she was mad at me.
"Callie, where's Lauren?" asked Daddy, turning to me almost immediately. I did my best disconcerted shrug.
"Oh come on. You do know. You know where she hangs out, who she hangs out with, where she'd go to hide," said Mom. I tried to keep my gaze steady. It was difficult, because I did know. I knew exactly. Jenny would not hesitate to go to her boyfriend, Rhys, in such a situation. His parents wouldn't notice or care, her parents would never think to look seeing as they thought they'd broken up, she could spend several days away without steam blowing out of her ears. She'd done it before.
"Callie, if you don't tell us, Nikki might find her first. If Nikki finds her first, she actually has an argument in her favour. She could take Jenny away from us," wheedled Daddy.
"That's not fair-you're just saying these things so I'll feel guilty and tell you," I said. It was working. My mind was already starting to wonder what was more important-keeping my sister's secrets or keeping her from her mother.
"So you do know!" said Mom triumphantly. Lauren was looking painfully at me. She knew too.
"She doesn't," spoke up Lauren. Daddy half turned his head to look at her.
"So you know." Lauren quickly shook her head and he turned back to me.
"Jenny's been gone a day already. Even in a more normal situation, without a whore involved you should be obligated to tell us," said Mom.
"Stop it," I warned.
"We know she's not at the Scott's, we already looked in to that. So where else could she be?" asked Mom.
"Rhys'," I blurted out, my tongue once again ahead of my heart.
"She's still with him?" burst out Daddy in a similar fashion.
"Yeah, and there's nothing you can do to keep them apart. They're in love. So stop trying," said Lauren in exasperation.
"Are we being Deb and Dan?" asked Mom of Daddy.
"What?" I asked curiously.
"Oh-after Nathan and Haley got married, Nathan's parents tried very hard to keep them apart," explained Mom.
"Where does he live?" asked Daddy, turning back to me. I thought hard for a moment.
"Tell you what. I'm not going to tell you. So if you promise you won't tell Jenny I broke her promise, and shut up for once about Rhys, then I'll go, get her to come home, and we can all stop worrying," I said. Mom looked to be stifling a giggle.
"Fine," she answered before Daddy could say anything. He laughed and put an arm around her.
"You two are plotting, and I don't care for it," he declared.
"Get used to it," advised Lauren.
It took surprisingly little effort to convince Jenny to come home. She wanted to, underneath it all. And with luck, she was finally convinced of how much she should stay away from her birth mother.
Author's note: I'm sorry this is so short, but I need to go to sleep. And don't feel guilty, because I love writing this. It's just that it's almost the end of term and my teachers are going crazy with the end of term projects (I'm in ninth grade). Argh!
And an announcement: I'm going away this weekend to Montreal so I won't be able to post any chapters, though it's possible I'll get one up on Thursday. By the way, how could 'People' magazine (which I don't own) POSSIBLY have Tyler Hilton on it? That's just so wrong! When they could have had Nathan!
Rant over.
A special spoiler! Stop reading if you don't want to know. Someone is pregnant…
