Chapter 6

"Wait a minute, I don't understand!" Ty said as he tried to comprehend the algebra problem Emma was trying to help him understand. "If y isn't important, then why is it there?"

"It's just logic." Emma explained. "You can have x without having y, and the answer is still 14."

"But how can you have x without having y and still have 14? That doesn't make any sense! Y has to be important!"

Emma rolled her eyes. "OK, I really don't know how else to explain this to you. Maybe you should just ask Mr. Armstrong for help. He's a math teacher!"

"Here, let me try explaining it to you." Toby volunteered. Toby, Emma, Liberty and Ty had decided to meet in the school library after school to do some extra studying the Monday following Emma's babysitting job. By now Ty was becoming friends with lots of kids, and he hung out with Craig, Spinner, Jimmy, Marco, Emma, Liberty, JT and Toby a lot. He'd met Emma's best friend Manny, who Emma was fighting with, and he liked her, too, but not for the same reasons the vast majority of the other guys liked her for. She just really wasn't his type. He liked Emma, and that was that. He'd also met Sean, Emma's ex-boyfriend, and while Sean seemed like a nice enough guy, he just didn't know Sean all that well. Sean was more of a loner, not really talking to anyone too much.

"I'm gonna go to the washroom." Emma said as she got up from the table, leaving Toby to try and explain Algebra to Ty.

Emma walked out of the library and down the hall to the girls' washroom. As she was rounding the corner, she nearly ran right into Manny, who was heading towards the gym for Spirit Squad practice.

"Hi." Manny said, sounding nervous.

"Uhm, hi." Emma said, looking down at the floor. "Excuse me, I have to go to the washroom now." She said as walked past Manny.

"Em?" Manny said as Emma kept walking. "When are you ever going to start talking to me? Are you ever going to forgive me?"

Emma stopped and turned around to face Manny. Still bitter over the argument they had had when Manny decided she wanted to change her style so she'd be sexier, Emma retorted "Gee, Manny, you better not be caught talking to me! It could ruin your image!" Emma continued walking, leaving Manny standing there in the hall.

"Now I understand!" Ty said as Emma pulled her chair out to sit down again after coming back from the washroom.

"It's all very simple, really. You just have to think logically."

"Hey Em, after this you wanna go grab a burger or somethin'? I know you're a vegetarian, so we don't have to eat burgers if you don't want to. We can just order some fries and shakes or somethin', if you want." Ty suggested.

"Yeah, sure! I'll have to call my mom first, but I'm sure she'll say yes!"

"Great!"

***

"OK, and this one!" Wheels said as he held up the last flash card. He was at Joey's dealership, just hanging out. He'd decided to come and see Joey after finishing up with his group session and after finishing up some work at the hospital. Joey's five year old daughter, Angela, was also there, as she only had a half day of school that day and Joey didn't have anyone to watch her when she got out of school. So, Joey closed the dealership early for lunch and went and picked Angela up from school and took her back to the dealership with him. She'd spent most of the afternoon playing, coloring and being quizzed on her subtraction skills with the flash cards. In the middle of quizzing her, Joey had a couple of customers to tend to, so Wheels volunteered to quiz her. She was pretty good, and only ended up missing a few on the first try, so Wheels kept going over those ones with her until she got them all right. He could tell she was getting tired of the flash cards because he'd been working with her on them for almost an hour, and kids get pretty impatient when it comes to stuff like that! Still, this was important, and he wanted her to do a good job.

"Seven!" Angie yelled as she jumped up from her chair.

"You got it, Babe!" Wheels said he grabbed her around the middle and started tickling her. Angie shrieked with laughter. "Stop it!" She screamed while laughing. He let go of her, and she sat back down next to him.

"Gimme five!" He said as he held out the palm of his hand to her. "Good job!" He said as he gave her a thumbs up.

"You'll be a good daddy someday!" She told him.

"Why thank you!" Wheels replied.

"Wanna color with me?" Angie said as she reached for her box of crayons.

"Sure!"

"Here!" She said as she handed him a piece of paper and some crayons.

The two of them sat in Joey's office coloring until Joey finished up the last sale.

"Thanks a lot!" Joey yelled to his last customer as he leaned out of the office door. "You come back on Wednesday and she'll be ready for ya, OK? Thanks again!" He came back in.

"Sell any cars?" Wheels asked him as he looked up from his paper.

"Two of 'em!" Joey said, clapping his hands together. "You ready to call it a day and head home, Ang?"

Angie looked up and nodded yes.

"You need to pick your stuff up, then! Did you finish your flash cards?" Joey asked her as he shut down his computer.

"Not only did she finish them, but she got them all right!" Wheels replied, giving Angie a high-five. "This girl is on fire! She is hot!" He helped Angie put her crayons back in the box.

"That's the kind of stuff I like to hear!" Joey said as he put away some papers. "Looks like we're ready to go!"

Angie gathered up all of her stuff, and Wheels stood up. The three of them exited the office, and Wheels and Angie waited for Joey to lock up.

"I guess I'll see you guys later." Wheels said before they headed off to their respective vehicles. Angie came over to hug him before they left. He knelt down to be at her level.

"Bye Hon!" He said as he hugged her. "Be good and take it easy, OK?"

"Bye Wheels!" She said as they stood up. She waved at him, and he waved back.

"See ya Joey!" Wheels said as he started walking off to his car.

As Wheels was driving home, he started feeling pangs of jealousy towards Joey. Joey had almost everything he wanted. At one point in his life Joey had been married to Julia, Craig's mom, and she was an absolutely wonderful woman. Wheels had got to meet her a couple of times when Joey had come to see him when he was still in prison, and he liked her. Joey also had Angela, who he loved more than anything in the world, even more so now that Julia was gone. Everything Joey did, he did for Angie. Then there was Craig, and even though Craig wasn't Joey's biological son, he was the son Joey never had, and Joey was more of a dad to Craig than Craig's real dad was. Joey took Craig in and helped him when he discovered that Craig's dad abused him, and the two had really bonded since then.

Wheels wanted that kind of life. He had no close family of his own, just very distant relatives. Every time he saw Joey, Angie and Craig or even Snake, Spike, Emma and Jack together he got a little depressed; how nice it would be to have a family to belong to! He wanted a wife and at least one child he could call his own, someone who would look up to him and think he was the greatest person in the world, even though he knew he was far from it. But, in all reality, up until recently he'd always been pretty unlucky with romantic relationships, and in all honesty he really wanted to have a good, solid relationship with a woman before he even attempted to help bring a child into the world. He also wanted to make sure the child's mother wanted the child, too, as it wouldn't be fair to the child if he was the only one that wanted it. He knew first hand what it felt like to be unwanted, and it sucked! When he was a teenager, he'd run away from home to be with Mike, his birth father after his adoptive parents died. Mike basically told him he didn't want him, which hurt. A lot. He knew it wouldn't be fair for his own child to have to deal with having a mother that didn't want him or her.

Wheels pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex and parked his car. After he went in and checked the mail, he proceeded to his apartment. He decided to just spend the evening at home watching TV. Heather was working, and everyone else was busy except for him. Besides, he'd seen a promo for a movie the other day that was going to be on TV that night and it looked like it might be good.

"Here, Kitty!" Wheels called out to Sheba as he held the patio door open. Sheba came strolling up the fire escape and into the apartment. He poured some food into her bowl and gave her a bowl of fresh water.

Wheels was hungry, so he started looking for something to eat. He opened up the refrigerator to see what was in there, but it was pretty bare. He made a mental note of the fact that he really should buy some groceries sometime during the week. He raided the cabinets but didn't find anything that sounded good, so he found himself back at the fridge again, except this time he was rummaging through the freezer.

"Ah, cool!" He said as he pulled out a box of Spicy Chicken and Cheese Taquitos. He pulled the baking tray out of the toaster oven on the counter and turned the toaster oven on to preheat. While that was preheating, he placed a few of the frozen Taquitos on the baking tray. He put the Taquitos in to bake for about thirteen minutes and grabbed a cold can of Coke out of the fridge.

Wheels grabbed the remote for the TV and flopped down on the couch. He turned the TV on and pulled up the onscreen guide to find something suitable to watch. The only problem was he couldn't find anything that looked good! He exited the guide and just started flipping through the channels, hoping to find something good. He started wondering how you can have 200 channels and yet most of the time there was nothing on. It made him mad to think that he was paying so much money a month for digital cable and he hardly ever found anything worth watching on TV.

***

". . . .If you're not completely satisfied, you may cancel at any time and keep the free MP3 player! It's our gift to you!" The voice on the TV said.

A sleeping, snoring Wheels snorted and then woke up. A bit disoriented, he looked around the room, his gaze finally meeting the TV, which was now playing a late night infomercial. He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was twelve thirty. He had fallen asleep while watching the movie.

He got up and turned everything off, then headed to the bathroom, where he used the toilet and washed up before heading off to bed. He took his glasses off and put them on the night stand next to the bed. He turned down the blankets and collapsed on the bed, drifting off to sleep again almost as soon as he hit the mattress.