Where Did the Time Go? : Part XX
The hotel room was posh beyond most people's imaginations. It was the penthouse of the most exclusive resort hotel in all of Mexico. Even the 'bedroom' was huge and well appointed, having it's own sitting room a few steps down from the massive bed. Much of the room was decorated in real gold leaf and the only piece of furniture not made of fine glove leather was the bed itself.
The young man sitting at the desk was a prime example of fine European stock. He was extremely muscular, tall and robustly tanned. Over the last year he had grown his hair out slightly but it would still qualify as following the current fashion. He was dressed in his trademark yellow/gold shirt and black pants, though he had spent much of his time since arriving in a swimsuit, strutting around the pool.
He put his large hands on a small leather portfolio sitting on the gilded desk. Carefully opening it, he laid out the various newspaper clipping that were held within. Most of the clippings were pictures, taken from various international tabloids and all of those pictures had one thing in common…
…a red haired American girl.
Most of the shots were of her in a black top and olive cargo pants, though a couple showed her in other outfits, such as one showing her sunbathing in a very skimpy bikini, while another had her in white shorts and a t-shirt, holding hands with someone in a forest somewhere.
He picked one of the slightly faded pictures, studying it. The girl was wearing a blue dress and she was kissing a blonde haired young man in a similarly colored tuxedo. He picked up another one where she was sitting on a park bench somewhere, also kissing him. Putting the second picture back down he sighed.
"Ron Stoppable, you are a very lucky man." He commented in lightly accented English.
Kim sat down at her dresser wearing a bath robe and a towel around her hair. She pursed her lips, considering which color lipstick to put on. Despite her outer calm, she was excited to learn exactly what Ron's parents had been up to for so long on Tuesdays. A small part of her was disappointed their weekday 'love nest' would no longer be available, but like Ron said, they were only a few short months away from turning eighteen and if they wished they could secure some place private almost any time they wished.
That is, if some crazed bad guy didn't find a way to interrupt them every time they tried.
"Kim, you up there?" Monique called as she mounted the steps to her loft.
"Yeah." She turned her attention back to the mirror and her makeup.
Her friend took one look at her, sitting there making herself pretty. "This is Tuesday, isn't it?"
"Uh huh." Kim started with a touch of eye-liner.
Monique straddled the back of the desk chair. "So what's with the date prep? I figured you'd have gone straight to Ron's to commence the lip-smacking."
"Oh, I'm going to Ron's." She pulled the towel off her head and patted the last of the moisture out of it before starting with her brush.
"What is this, some weird kind of make out thing? Dress up like it's a date?" She narrowed her gaze slightly. "You're not thinking of calling another monster are you?"
"Do what?" Kim turned around to face her friend, confusion crossing her features.
"You know, get all ready, then some monster comes out of the woodwork."
"Oh lord, Monique, you are obsessed. No, I'm having dinner with Ron and his parents tonight."
"They're home? Like I asked, this is Tuesday isn't it?"
Kim pulled her hair into a high ponytail. It was finally long enough it wasn't popping free over her eyes. She considered the look a moment, then pulled the scrunchie off and started brushing it again, this time with a softer bristled brush to straighten it just a bit more and make it nice and silky. "They didn't go last week, or the week before. Ron and I just came here to do our studying together."
"I'm sure that was fun, with your brothers teasing you every time the two of you kissed."
Kim smiled as she pulled her hair back again, this time putting a stronger band on it. "Jim and Tim have mellowed on Ron a lot, plus I think they're just starting to notice girls themselves." She leaned toward Monique and whispered conspiratorially. "I can't wait for the day one of them brings a girlfriend home."
"Turnabout is fair play." Monique agreed, nodding.
Kim got up and started sifting through her closet, eventually coming up with her longer navy dress. She considered her slightly shorter cream colored dress, but decided that one was a little too summery, considering another light snow had fallen the night before and a couple flurries were still flying around outside.
"Did Ron seem a little weird to you today?" Kim asked, going behind her privacy screen to put on her dress.
"Weirder than usual?"
Kim looked around her screen and glared at her friend.
Monique laughed softly. "No, though the only time I really saw him he was busy reading some printouts he got out of your computer."
Kim sat down on the bed and slipped on a pair of leather boots with modest heels, zipping them up. "I know this is going to sound a little selfish but I'm actually hoping he's planning something for Valentines, though I'm willing to bet he's just going to give me chocolates."
"Dude-boy trying to fatten you up or something?"
"No, he's always given me chocolates for Valentines, ever since we were little. No, I'm hoping it's something more, even if it's one of his special dates. Chocolates would be, I dunno, kind of a 'just a friend' thing."
"Kim, you've got to be honest with yourself. Ron's not too good in the finances department and doesn't his car need work?"
"Yeah. He dropped it off at the garage today. It just needs a new clutch but that's going to tear a chunk out of what he's saved out of his allowance. A girl can dream, can't she?"
"Maybe he's going to pull a rabbit our of his hat like he did for your birthday."
Kim opened the larger jewelry box on her dresser. "Thanks for reminding me." She put on her earrings and turned her head to look at them. The emeralds didn't really go with the navy dress, but she had an automatic fashion pass since they matched her eyes. She didn't care anyway. They were the first really nice gift Ron had given her and she was going to wear them until the posts wore out and even then she'd take them to a jeweler to be repaired. Just about the only time she didn't wear them was school and on missions.
There was another piece of jewelry she was going to wear tonight. Kim had never been one to wear rings very much, mainly since she often wore gloves, but this one was special. It had a small ruby set into the carved base. She wished it was an emerald, but it was tradition for one of these to have her birthstone and since she was born in July and not May she opted for the proper gem.
"Is that your class ring?" Monique asked, coming over to her to get a better look.
Kim held out her hand, displaying the slightly chunky ring. She opted for the larger style instead of the tiny, more feminine type, mainly so she could wear the special copy Wade was planning to make for her, replacing the one she lost escaping one of Drakken's traps.
Monique pulled Kim's heart necklace out of the box and helped her put it on. "So when is Ron going to let you wear his?"
Kim held up her hand to the small gold locket hanging from its chain. "I'm not sure. He wanted to wear his 'badge of Seniorness' for a little while. Maybe Valentines, maybe Prom, I don't know."
"It's a good thing he got you a necklace to wear it on. I bet you could wear it as a bracelet."
"His hands aren't that big." Kim shot her a half glare.
"Big enough." Monique smiled broadly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, earning her the other half of that glare.
"I swear, Mon, you are obsessed with my man."
She shook her head, pulling a bit of her hair loose from behind her ear into a curly sideburn. "Only for gossip purposes, girlfriend, since I've got my own man."
"So how are you and Felix doing?"
Laying back on the bed, Monique sighed. "I can't complain, though it's going to be hell come fall, with me going to Duke and him up at M.I.T. Hey, what's the word on Ron's school deal? You know if the two of you will be able to stay together next fall?"
"Nothing yet. He's doing his part with the grades, but he won't be taking the SATs again until March."
"He stressing yet?"
"Not so much. It's still kind of out of sight, out of mind for him. So how are you two going to manage? Massachusetts is a long way from North Carolina."
Monique sat back up. "I don't know, Kim. I've never had a long-distance romance. I love him and I know he loves me but I just don't know."
"Can you keep a secret?" Kim asked, sitting on the edge of her chair.
Monique put her hand over heart. "Always, girl."
Kim leaned closer to her. "If Ron doesn't get into a school near me, I'm going to ask him to go ahead and marry me. That way, even if we're apart we'll still be together."
Her friend looked a little skeptical. "That's either really romantic sounding or the craziest thing I've ever heard. Kim, if the two of you get married this summer and he ends up going somewhere far away, can you imagine what that's going to put you through?"
Kim rolled her eyes upwards. "I'll probably make the local Edy's distributor very happy and gain fifty pounds in the process." She giggled. "Now you've gone and done it, I want ice cream."
"Sounds like you have an excuse to go out with Ron after dinner then."
Kim smiled broadly. "I like the way you think sometimes…oh, and since his car's in the shop, maybe we can borrow the Pontiac."
"There you go. So, if Ron's in planning mode like you think, are you going to try and get it out of him?"
"Well, that would spoil the surprise." She mused.
"Since when have you been able to stand not knowing. You could use the PDP."
"Monique, the Puppy Dog Pout is a powerful weapon, it is not to be used lightly." She said with mock gravity. "Beside, he's somehow building up an immunity, I don't want to waste it."
"No, say it isn't so."
Kim nodded. "If Daddy ever found out about it, he'd grill him non-stop for the secret and then Mom and me both would be powerless."
Monique got up and swung her hips slightly. "There are other powers, Kim, powers that are not to be trifled with." That set both girls to giggling.
Ron pulled up his checking account again, staring at the number. He was already dressed for dinner, wearing a royal blue dress shirt and a striped tie. In a few minutes he would head on down to Kim's house to pick her up. It was his idea they all dress nice for dinner since it really didn't happen that often. The last time his parents had invited her was Passover, before the two of them were even together. The big revelation he was expecting aside, his parents inviting her over was a huge deal. In fact, the last time anyone had been invited was Rabbi Katz and his wife and Ron had been out with Kim that night anyway.
The huge deposit was still sitting in the pending column. He called the bank earlier between classes and they told him it would take three business days for the amount to clear. Even so, he decided to go ahead and put his car in the shop. The clutch wasn't slipping badly yet, but other people he'd talked to said that particular car was bad about wearing them out, no matter how ginger he was with it. He already had the money in place to get it fixed and with the other on its way, he wasn't worried about the bill.
He almost went back to his father the night before to ask him whether he'd made a mistake or if he really did have enough in the fund to generate that much interest. Ron was out of his chair and headed for the door when he realized this might be part of the test his father was talking about.
What was he supposed to do? He figured it would be a few hundred dollars, maybe a thousand at the most. If he wanted to do what he was planning, that's how much it would take and if it wasn't enough, he'd have to rethink everything. Instead, he had enough money now to not only carry out the plans, but to even go buy a much better car. One of the neighbors had a daughter who just bought her own sports car and they wanted to sell her old SUV for two grand. Old it may have been, but it was a '92 model, where his car was an '80 and it was also much more practical.
Logic told him it was a good idea. Kim convinced him to buy the old Chevette simply because it was all he could afford. There were far better cars on that lot and they certainly had acquired others since he made his purchase. He needed a good, dependable car and that certainly sounded like a wise use for the money.
That would even leave enough for all the other special occasions his father was talking about as well.
Somehow, though, that didn't seem to sit right with him. If he did all those things the money would be gone or worse, he'd end up owing more money than he had in the first place. He learned the hard way after losing the first royalties money that all the nice things he bought needed upkeep and almost all of it involved property taxes as well. Every single thing he bought ended up sold to pay those bills and that was at pennies on the dollar.
Ron even wondered from time to time if Bonnie would perhaps give back the ruby belt buckle he bought her.
Yeah, right.
Thinking along those lines, he pulled up the website for his insurance and entered the information for the neighbor's truck. The figure it came back with was easily three times what he paid, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the fact he was a minor.
Ron was starting to get the idea. Without any real income to speak of except the allowance his father regularly transferred into his account, he'd be constantly drawing on that money just to legally keep the Ford on the road.
Then too Kim would ride him mercilessly about how SUVs were such gas hogs. Considering how gas spiked after a hurricane hit New Orleans, he knew it would also cost a great deal more actually driving the thing. It was also a four-wheel-drive and if anything went wrong with that transmission it would cost considerably more to fix than the three hundred he was plunking down for the new clutch.
Despite all the urges he had to spend it, he was starting to think his best course of action would be to treat Kim to his original plan and either put the rest into a savings account or give it back to his father so there would be no temptation at all.
Well, maybe not quite all of it. He did need some new clothes, especially pants since his growth spurt had been mostly in his legs.
Grinning slightly, he made a decision. He shut the computer off and grabbed his mother's keys from his desk. It was time to go pick up Kim and he was feeling really good about himself.
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