Chapter 3

Wordy's oldest daughter tells a lie that gets Spike into hot water.

Wordy, with Shelly in tow, stormed into his old haunt, the SRU building. He stalked past Winnie barely saying hello and barked, "WHERE THE HELL IS SPIKE?" Stunned by his uncharacteristic behavior, Winnie merely pointed towards the locker room. Ed and Greg exchanged surprised looks when the Wordsworth's strode by them without a word and entered the locker room. They could see the proverbial smoke coming from Wordy's ears and the fire in Shelly's eyes. They followed, arriving just in time to watch Wordy slam Spike hard into the locker, and then throw him into another locker and gut punch him. As Spike collapsed onto the floor with a surprised and confused look, Ed grabbed Wordy and hauled him out of the locker room into the gym.

Shelly followed them crying, saying, "How could you Spike? She's my baby".

Greg went to Spike's aid. "Spike! What the hell was that all about?"

"I have no idea," Spike replied as he lay doubled over in pain on the floor confused as to why Wordy was so mad at him. He hadn't even seen or talked to him in weeks.

In the gym, Ed held the punching bag as Wordy hit it. Ed asked "What did Spike do?"

Wordy took a deep breath and through clenched teeth said, "He is dating my fifteen year old daughter, Helen! Where did that asshole go?" He turned on his heels to go after Spike again but was stopped by Ed. Ed thought that Wordy had certainly got this wrong; Spike would not date someone underage. However, he had provided the boys with alcohol not too long ago, but this was different.

Determined to get to the bottom of this, he had Wordy, who held a sobbing Shelly, wait in the briefing room while he got Greg and Spike. Ed returned to the briefing room with Greg and Spike following. As soon as Spike walked into the room, Shelly walked up to him and slapped him across his face and Wordy was rounding the end of the table. Greg got between the Wordsworth's and Spike.

Spike stared at Wordy and Shelly not knowing what to do or say. This was his brother and sister-in-law so to speak and they were both beyond mad at him. "Why?"

Ed told everyone to take a seat while he pushed the seal button on the door, and the doors to the room closed quickly.

"Wordy, what is all this about?" Greg asked in a gentle voice.

Wordy just stared at Spike. "What you got tired oftrolling the bars for women or have all the females in your zip code turnedyou down sothat you had to go after my Helen?" he demanded as he started to lean across the table. Ed put a hand on his should to guide him back into his seat.

"What? Helen? What about Helen?" Spike inquired with a confused and weary look.

"She'smy baby Spike? I trusted you with my girls. How could you do this to us?" Shelly sobbed.

"I ... I don't know what you are talking about," Spike said.

"Sure you don't!" Wordy snarled with anger.

Wordy flung a handful of photos on the table. As Spike reached for one of the photos, Wordy started to grab his arm to pin him to the table but Ed and Greg were able to interrupt enough for Spike to retreat.

"Spike, do you know anything about these?" Ed snapped glaring at him.

"Great now Ed's mad too," Spike thought.

Looking at the photos Spike was still confused but becoming defensive he said, "Yes, they were taken about two weeks ago when I took Helen and her friends to the outdoor concert they wanted to go see. You knew about it."

"What do you mean I knew about it?" Shelly snapped back.

Wordy produced the printed emails and text messages for Greg and watched his eyebrows raise while he read them. A shocked Greg passed the papers to Ed as he watched Spike fidget in his chair. "What the hell? This can't be true, Spike wouldn't be messing with kids. Something else is going on, but what?" Greg was thinking.

Ed read them and decided maybe he should just let Wordy take his swing at Spike for him being stupid.

"Oh this day is just getting better by the minute, now the Boss is mad. What the hell is going on?" Spike thought as he watched the boss and Ed read the messages.

Spike waited uncomfortably for the papers to be passed to him. When he finished reading them he still had a confused look on his face.

"Wordy, I really don't understand why you are mad?" Spike said.

Wordy jumped to his feet which made Spike leap to his feet just in case he had to crawl under the table or move quickly out of the way. Ed pushed Wordy back to his seat.

"Spike! Explain these then." Ed barked pointing to the messages and photos.

"These are about TV shows, movies and make believe; well for the most part; some is true. She kind of has a soap opera storyline book she is working on. I read it, it's actually good. I was giving her some input. Did you know she wants to write a book and be a bestselling author one day?" Spike stated while tossing the papers on the table, as he hung his head and frowned. He was feeling like his private thoughts and conversations had been violated and used against him.

"Spike, Helen's school counselorcalled us into the office today to tell us about an older male that Helen is dating. Do you know who that is?" Wordy said sarcastically.

"No! Who? I haven't seen anybody and she hasn'tmentioned anyone. Other than that Eric dude in her Math class that she has a crush on." Spike replied.

Wordy and Shelly, stunned by Spike's answer, both started to speak but Greg held up his hand to stop them. He knew Spike just needed a moment to digest all the information presented to him. He could see the wheels in Spike's head turning.

"Spike, think about the photos, the texts and the emails for a moment. Can you see why Wordy thinks you are dating Helen?" Greg asked.

"I'm dating Helen?" Spike was horrified by the insinuations. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened with disbelief as he stood up.

"How could you think I would do something like that?" he said in a hurt voice. His body started to shake, on the verge of his emotions showing. Spike started to pace, mumble to himself, rub the back of his neck and run his hands through his hair, all habits he did when he was stressed.

"Okay, why are you hanging around with Helen?" Wordy said in a slightly calmer manner, holding Shelly's hand, as he saw and heard the hurt in Spike's speech and body language. "Something is definitely off."

Spike explained that he had been at the mall buying new gym shoes and had stopped by the food court when he had spotted Helen by herself. So being the "Best Uncle Spike", he had offered to keep her company if she wanted.

Helen had been at the mall with her new friends; she desperately wanted to be part of the group but they were going to shoplift a blouse and purse and Helen had not wanted to get into trouble so she had stayed in the food court. She had told them, in order to sound cool, that she was going to be meeting some guy she had met online. Helen had spotted Spike at the shoe store next to the food court and had decided that she would catch him when he came by the food court so she could back up her lie.

When Helen's friends had returned and met Spike they had just assumed he was her date. Spike had then taken the three girls to the movies and had allowed Helen to cling to him. She had held his hand as they walked, shared her popcorn with him and even rested her head on his arm during the movie.

Spike had not thought that there was anything wrong with this since, when he would watch Wordy's girls on an occasional evening or weekend, they would watch movies and the girls would pile onto him. They would even sleep on the couch or in the blanket fort they built with him but this was before the group of teenage girls accepted Helen into their group. Helen had never told her friends that Spike was her 'uncle' nor that he was a cop.

Since then, Helen had been texting, emailing and calling Spike often. Spike had picked her up at her school or met her at the coffee shop, the mall, or the arcade. He had helped her and the other girls with homework and, as the good sweet uncle with his gentlemanly upbringing he had given Helen a quick kiss on the cheek goodbye, just as he had always done since he had met her years before. Spike had been unaware he was being used as Helen was trying to make her friends think she was seeing this older good looking guy and was making up stories of their activities

The school counselor had heard the rumors and had contacted Wordy and Shelly. Upon hearing of the older guy, Wordy had started digging into Helen's cell phone and computer and had found Spike's texts, emails and phone number as well as photos of Helen and Spike holding hands against Spike's car, Helen leaning against Spike's arm, Spike with his head leaning against the top of Helen's and others of Spike with Helen and her friends making goofy faces for camera. Add this to the text messages and emails, without their accompanying verbal conversation or any back information, had made it easy to jump to the conclusion that there was an inappropriate relationship going on.

After having listened to Spike's side of the story and after having confronted Helen at home that evening about the rumors and texts, emails and photos, she confessed that it was just a big lie to be one of the popular girls. Wordy and Shelly felt bad for what they had said and done to Spike.

Despite their profuse apologies and attempts to make amends, Spike was still very hurt that the man he considered his brother would think that he would do something with Helen or anyone underage. This just added to Spike's depression and loneliness. He had rather enjoyed their conversations about movies, TV shows, music and books but now he felt like he couldn't or shouldn't talk with Helen.