Chapter 4

"Hey, nut kicker," Heath grinned that night when they all came home. "So what happened, did Dad really let you have it?"

Audrey sighed. "If being grounded for a week is him 'letting me have it', yeah."

"Join the party. Mom grounded me for that fighting thing last week and wouldn't lift my 'sentence' even after Dad talked to her."

"On the good side of things, you won your first match!" Audrey said with enthusiasm. "So it was all worth it."

"Yeah, can you believe it? That kid I was wrestling was really tough and had about twenty pounds on me. I really kicked his ass, huh?"

"In more ways than one. Told you those tights of Daddy's would bring you luck. And even Daddy's taken down people bigger than he is. Remember that."

"Did I mention that you have a great left foot?" Heath laughed. "You know, you should have Dad train you and follow in his footsteps."

"I think I'll pass; I'm not that brave. So, asking a person with experience of being grounded, what does one do during that time?"

"Be bored as shit, kiss up to Mom and Dad a lot in hopes to have said grounding reduced, and read a lot. Of course, you're always reading anyway, so you should be okay."

Audrey ruffled his dark hair. "You're a smarty pants."

"Hey, talk about reading stuff, I got a secret. Promise not to say anything if I tell you?"

"Depends," she replied. "What did you do this time?"

"Found some of these magazines that I think belong to Dad."

"What's so bad about that that you have to keep it secret?" Audrey asked.

"Um….don't smack me, but these ones had naked people in them."

"Oh my God, you found dirty magazines? Daddy will kill you if he finds out."

"Which is why I don't want you to say anything."

"And where by chance did you come across them? You weren't going through Daddy's shit again, were you?"

"Um….when I was first looking for something for tonight's match. They were at the bottom of one of the boxes, but I didn't exactly pull them out with Mom in the room. I went back to check them out later when no one was around."

"Curosity got the best of you, huh?" Audrey let out a giggle.

"Makes you wonder why Dad has that stuff when he and Mom make weird noises and their bed creaks every night when he's home."

Audrey covered her ears. "LALALALALALALALALA! Heath Christian Kendrick, I do not need to hear the bedroom practices of our parents, thank you very much."

"What? With my room next to theirs, it's kind of hard to miss sometimes. Between that and Dad's naked magazines, it's better than sex ed at school. Besides, everyone does sex at some point in life."

"Seriously, Heath, stop right there or I'm going to kick something of yours."

"Okay, I'll shut up. Now since we're both grounded for our separate offenses, want to go down in the basement and watch movies?"

Audrey shrugged. "Why not? I'm in lockdown for the next week with my own little brother; we may as well make the best of our sentences."

Meanwhile:

"Boy had a good match tonight, huh? I think he's picking up some of my best moves," Brian crowed.

"Of course," Steffi agreed, "though I think your daughter has also picked up a couple herself."

"She's grounded for a week for that, by the way," he replied. "Make sure you enforce it. You and I both know Audi well; one look in those big blue-green eyes of hers and a person can forgive her almost anything."

"Just like someone else I know," Steffi smiled.

"Hey, I got a ring on your finger, didn't I?" Brian grinned. "So few guys are lucky enough to find a woman in their life that they honestly believe they can spend the rest of their life with, but I have. Shit, I chased you for about six months until I got what I wanted."

"Wow," Steffi laughed, "and here I thought you just felt sorry for me."

"I almost thought the same about you, sweetness," he smiled back.

"That and your winning personality," she teased. "And that I had a feeling back then that when and if I did have a child, you'd be a great father. Turns out, I was right."

"Question now is, are we going to be able to deal with both of them being grounded?"

"You'll be away for most of it," she reminded him with a laugh. "I'm the one that will have them most of the time unless they're at school."

"In any case, it's been fairly quiet upstairs so far, so I'm guessing they either haven't killed each other yet or they're plotting some kind of revenge against us," Brian joked.

"I was going to guess some kind of truce they made, but close enough," Steffi answered. "Hopefully, this sort of lesson will get through to at least Audrey."

"Yeah," Brian nodded. "Kicking guys in the nuts isn't my idea of my daughter finding a potential husband."