Chapter 8

Again, I don't own any of these characters

"So, Teddy, huh? Like the bear?"

Theo grins. "That's me."

"And whose word do I have on that?"

"Mine. Let me take you out sometime and let you find out firsthand."

"Hmmm...I don't know. How can I be sure there isn't a girlfriend back in Boston waiting for you?"

"Touche. All I can say is that there isn't..."

"I'll think about it..."

"What's there to think about?"

"Well, the fact that I just met you like 15 minutes ago..."

"Sometimes you just have to go with your gut..."

"Yet you are the one who said he needed time to decide if what I said was a compliment or not..."

Theo laughed. "Alright, I've finally got a sharp one here. I like that..."

"Trying to tell me something about your exes?"

Theo paused. "I would rather not get into them..."

"That's too bad. They say you can tell a lot about a guy by talking to his exes."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Well, how you treat them is an indication of how you treat women in general..."

Theo nods. "I can see that...But, my last ex was a real head case..."

Max laughs. "Oh really?"

"Well, she was one of those who was so into the pageant world...That kind is always a little off."

"As in beauty pageants?"

"Exactly..."

"So, what happened?"

"She was crazy. I couldn't tell from one day to the other who I was going to be talking to. Finally, I just couldn't take anymore..."

Max nodded in sympathy, but didn't buy his story for a moment.

"Tell you what. As much as I don't want to, I really do need to get back to my room to do some studying. I have a late class tomorrow night, but maybe we can meet Friday afternoon back here and talk some more?"

"Sounds good. Say about 7:00?"

Max smiles. "Perfect..."

With that Max gathers her things and heads on back to her dorm.

The next day, Cody and Bailey have just finished their Biology lab and have come home.

Bailey laughs. "That was a waste of two hours..."

"Tell me about it. Do they think we've never used a microscope before?"

"Especially the 15 minutes the TA spent teaching us how to focus it..."

"And it was like some people in there had never heard of an amoeba or paramecium before..."

"I know...And our lab report was ridiculous..."

Cody paused. "I won't complain though. Until this thing with Theo is settled, I'm glad we can kind of take it easy for a while."

"That's a good point..." Bailey is interrupted by the ringing of their doorbell. She goes over to answer it and finds Jo standing there.

"I just wanted to stop by to check in on you two."

Bailey smiled. "We appreciate that, but we're doing alright."

Jo smiles. "Good. I also wanted to let you both know that security was beefed up around here this morning. Motion sensor lights were added as well as motion sensor cameras. If anyone tries to break in again, they won't get very far."

Cody smiles. "Thank you, we appreciate that."

"Well, we feel bad that these weren't already in place."

"You have nothing to feel bad about. There hasn't been a moment that we've felt unsafe here."

"Cody's right. I've never been worried in least. Besides, turns out Porkers is a pretty good watch pig."

Jo laughs. "I never thought I'd see one of those..."

Bailey smiles. "Well, he's very smart..."

"Well, I just wanted to let you both know what the new changes were so if you came home one night and the lights came on."

"We appreciate that."

Jo left and Cody and Bailey proceeded to do their homework for the next day's classes. After they finished, they both began preparing dinner again. Cody turned to Bailey.

"You know, maybe we should take a lesson from what Jo and Bill did..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if Theo tries to do anything to the house now, we'll know. And since the SUV is out back, it will be covered by the cameras too..."

"Yeah..."

"Well, that leaves the only things we have to keep our eyes really open on are our persons and what we carry with ourselves..."

"You mean like our backpacks and my purse?"

"Precisely. Probably a good idea to never let them out our sights..."

"What do you think Theo would do with them?"

Cody paused. "I don't know, but I would rather not find out..."

Just then, they hear a knock at their back door. Cody and Bailey look at each other wondering who in the world it could be now. Cody goes over to answer it and finds Max.

"Max? Why are you coming to our back door?"

"In case someone followed me..."

Cody and Bailey look at each other again. "Why would someone be following you?"

Max pauses. "Look, I know you two told me not to get involved, but I couldn't help myself..."

Cody groans. "What did you do?"

"I saw Theo at an outdoor cafe. So, I sat down to see if he would try to hit on me..."

"Did he?"

Max smiled. "Oh, he tried alright..."

Cody sighed. "Max, you shouldn't have done that. This could end up backfiring on you."

"Its okay, I didn't give him my real name. He thinks I'm a girl named Lex..."

Bailey paused. "Did you learn anything?"

"Well, he does have plans to get rid of you two."

Cody nodded. "We kind of figured as much..."

"And he thinks he is God's gift to women..."

Bailey shuddered. "I got the same vibe from him..."

"Anyways, I made it seem like I don't like you guys either. I'm supposed to meet him Friday at the coffee place I met him. I might be able to get him to tell me what he has planned."

Cody and Bailey looked at each other. "What do you think?"

Cody shook his head. "I don't like it..."

Max tried to cheer them up. "Trust me, he likes me. He was even willing to tell me about his ex-girlfriend, the beauty pageant diva..."

"Huh?"

"And get this. According to him, its no longer Theo anymore...Its Teddy."

Both Cody and Bailey's eyes grew wide and the both just looked at each other.

To be Continued...