Chapter 23—Phillip Banks Apologize?

Charlie's POV

I had been dragged over to the Banks after school and was surprised to see Ollie and Annie there. I could tell there was some tension between Ollie and Gunnar. I didn't know what was going on.

"God how I hate the feeling of living in a museum," Adam said.

"It's okay Adam, I know," Gunnar said.

Just then Seraphina walked in from the kitchen area and said, "Oh my boys, my boys."

"Hello mother," Ollie said.

"Oh, Oliver look at you, so handsome. "You look just like your father at that age," Seraphina said.

"Thank you mother. May I introduce my fiancée Annie Thomas," Ollie said.

"Annie, it's so nice to meet you, how did you meet my Ollie?" Seraphina asked.

"Uh General Chemistry Class, at the U. We were lab partners," Annie said.

"Yeah and we discovered that we had some Chemistry," Ollie said while raising his eyebrows.

"Oliver stop," Annie said.

"Oh my… my oldest is getting married," Seraphina said.

"Yeah, but not for a while, Annie wants to be done with college before we get married," Ollie said.

"Oh, what are you studying, Annie?" Seraphina said.

"English. I want to be an English teacher," Annie said.

"Oh, that was what I was going to go to school at the U for and then I met Ollie's father," Seraphina said.

Just then Phillip walked in followed by Bertie with our refreshments. I took one look at Ollie and the next look at Phillip and found there were lots of similarities between the two of them. In fact, Ollie was the spitting image of Phillip. Adam looked more like Seraphina then Phillip. Bella was all Phillip right down to the color of her hair with Seraphina's curls.

"Well, this is quite the surprise, I see why we had to move the meeting from the Breakfast nook into here," Phillip said.

"Yes, just a few more people then we were expecting," Seraphina said.

"And just who is this lovely young lady, Oliver?" Phillip asked.

"This is my fiancée Annie Thomas," Ollie said.

"Enchanté , Mademoiselle," Phillip said.

"It's nice to meet you sir," Annie said.

"Oh Adam, you have gotten so tall now," Seraphina said.

"Hello mother," Adam said.

"And who is this?" Seraphina asked, making a hand gesture to Gunnar.

"This is my boyfriend, Gunnar Stahl," Adam said.

"Gunnar… Gunnar Stahl. Not from team Iceland in the Junior Goodwill Games?" Phillip asked.

"Yes," Adam, Gunnar, Bella, and I said.

"Mmm… I see," Philip said.

"I knew it was stupid of us to come," Adam said as he started to get up.

"Adam Jonathan Banks, sit down," Phillip said.

"I am not a Banks, I don't even understand why I am here in the first place," Adam said.

"Adam that was my doing. See your father has something he wants to say to you," Seraphina said.

"Yes, I want to apologize to you kids. I am sorry that I wasn't the father that you all deserve," Phillip said.

"Excuse me?" Adam said.

"Yes, I apologize, I should have accepted you for who you are and not forced you into what I wanted you to be," Phillip said.

"It's okay, Daddy you were only doing what you thought was best for all of us," Bella said.

"Thank you Bella. I should have been better, see when I was growing up we didn't talk about things, a lot of things. A woman belonged in the home and not at the office. If you were strange then you didn't belong and there was no need for psychiatrists," Phillip said.

"Yeah so," Adam said.

"So, the world is different now and I am sorry for trying to force my old-world values on all of you kids. If I could go back and tell my younger self to stop I would but I can't," Phillip said.

"Yeah well apology not accepted, let's go Gunnar," Adam said.

"Adam please hear him out," Gunnar said.

"NO,' Adam said. 'I need your keys for the Jeep, Charlie."

"Right," I said.

Adam and Gunnar had gotten up and quickly left the house.

"Oliver?" Phillip asked.

"I am torn, as much as I want to believe you, I need to look out for my younger brother. Bella can do what she wants, but I am going to stick with Adam. Let's go, Annie," Ollie said as he got up and walked towards the front door.

"It's nice to meet you," Annie said as she followed suit.

"I suppose you are going to follow your brothers Bella," Phillip said.

"No, I accept your apology daddy. Not all of us are perfect," Bella said.

Phillip smiled before he said, "Good I am glad. Charles I want to apologize to you as well. I am sorry that I treated you, the way that I did," Phillip said.

"That's okay, Mr. Banks," I said.

"Good, there is something that I have for you," Phillip said and then he stood up to grab his wallet out of his back pocket, once he found what he was looking for he handed it to me. I opened the piece of paper and my eyes bugged out.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Charlie, it's a check for 250 thousand dollars," Bella said.

I have never ever held that much money in my hands before. I thought it was a mistake and I handed the check back to him.

"No, you keep it. You are going to need it for your father, I left the pay to blank so that you can write in what you feel is appropriate, if it goes to the private detective or if you write it to yourself to stick in a savings account, to pay the private detective. It's up to you Charles," Phillip said.

"We wanted to make sure that it was enough to give the private detective a good start on finding your father. Since you don't have any clue where he might be, it might take some time. At one hundred dollars per hour, this check will pay for 2,500 hours. Assuming he spends 40 hours a week this check will pay for 62 and 1/2 weeks of private eye work, we wanted to make sure that it was going to be worth for over a year," Seraphina said.

"This is too much," I said.

"Charlie take the check," Bella said.

"Well, it could be awhile before I pay it back," I said.

"Well, if you take good care of my daughter, we will call it even," Phillip said.

"What happens if we break up?" I asked.

"Well then I will sue you to get my money back and at 35,000 a year that you will make, I should expect full payment back by 7 years," Phillip said.

I gulped before I said, "I can't take the money."

"Charlie take the money, you can use it and we will figure out how to deal with it later," Bella said.

I didn't have a choice. I stuck the check in my wallet. I knew that I was going to have to have a chat with Coach about this later.

"So, what about me?" Bella asked.

"Well, I have a question for you, you said that you're a Banks plain and simple. You intend on changing your last name upon your 18th birthday. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you want to do or avoid someone or something," Seraphina said.

"Yes, Coach's Daughter Kelly is coming home soon from the hospital, I don't want to live in that house anymore. Adam may be a Bombay, but I am not and as much as I love Adam. I feel like I belong to the Banks family," Bella said.

"Oh Bella, you have no idea of how much I want you home," Seraphina said.

"Mom, you have no idea of how much I want to come home," Bella said.

"Unfortunately, the agreement between us and the courts is iron clad and there nothing that can be done to break the agreement," Phillip said.

"What…. I…. I can't come home?" Bella asked.

"I am sorry honey. To be honest with you, I should not be within a 1,000 feet of you," Phillip said.

"But you came to my hockey games, you cheered us on," Bella said.

"Yes, because I love you," Phillip said.

"So, I have to stay with the Bombay's, this sucks," Bella said.

"I know at least until you are 18," Phillip said.

"Seven months?" I asked.

"Yes, but Gordon, Michele, your mother, and I are going to work out a little deal to get the 1,000 feet restraining order struck down by the courts. We are going to go and meet with them tomorrow at 9:00," Phillip said.

"Oh," Bella said, dejected.

"Wait a second if you can't come within a 1,000 feet of Bella, how can you get around the law," I asked.

"Because I would have to be caught by Gordon or Michele if I come within 1,000 feet of Bella out in public. Or Bella would have to squeal to Gordon or Michele," Phillip said.

"Can't be caught if I made the phone call to see my daughter," Seraphina said.

"When I go to your hockey games I go incognito," Phillip said.

"Well as incognito as you can manage dear," Seraphia said.

"That makes perfect sense," I said.

"So, you wore a disguise?" Bella asked.

"Yes I did," Phillip said.

"Oh," Bella said.

"I know, but there is something that I think that you should have," Seraphina said as she stood up to pull something out of her pants pockets and handed them to Bella.

"The keys to my car?" Bella said.

"Yes, it's your car. I don't know why you left it Saturday night," Seraphina said.

"After the argument between Daddy and Charlie, I didn't feel right to keep the car. We walked back to Eden Hall that night," Bella said.

"Oh, Issy you could have frozen to death," Seraphina said.

"Um I was there, I did protect her, we did stop in a few places to warm up for a little bit along the way," I said.

"Yeah we were fine," Bella said.

"Oh, I found the car yesterday morning, I was so worried about you," Seraphina said.

"I don't feel right about this," Bella said.

"Don't worry about it Ace, we will work out all of the details," Phillip said.

Adam's POV

After Gunnar and I left the house, Annie and Ollie followed us out of the house.

"Oh, Great what do we do Ollie, Charlie and Bella's car is blocking us in?" Annie said.

"Can't Adam move it?" Ollie said.

"No, because it's a manual transmission and neither can Gunnar, only Charlie can," I said.

"Well, this is the perfect time to work out the feud that you two are having," Annie said.

"What feud?" I asked.

"The argument that Ollie and Gunnar got into the night of the dinner at your house, before Thanksgiving," Annie said.

I had to remember what happened that night.

{Flashback November 14th, 1999}

All of the sudden we heard, "OOOOWWWWWW! VHAT HURTS!"

"What was that?" Grandma asked.

"It sounded like Gunnar," Draupnir said.

"Gordon," Mom said.

"Yep," Dad said.

Dad quickly made my way down to my bedroom and then we heard him said, "Boys what in the hell is going on around here."

"Ask that to the little snot nosed cheater," Ollie said.

"I am not a vheater vou snake," Gunnar said.

{End of Flashback}

"Gunnar what is going on?" I asked.

"Fine, but it doesn't go anywhere further than this because I don't know for sure," Gunnar said.

"What is it Gunnar?" Annie asked.

"Charlie and I suspect that Dean Buckley is taking bribes from the government of Iceland, in hopes of winning a championship," Gunnar said.

"But that doesn't make sense, Varsity has won 13 state Championships in a row," I said.

"I know, but we don't know for sure, and Connie hasn't found the paperwork that we need to prove our theory," Gunnar said.

"Yeah and I don't believe him, I think that Gunnar and Charlie are shacking up on the side," Ollie said.

"That is not true, Gunnar, tell me that it's not true," I said with tears in my eyes.

"It's not true Adam. I love you; Charlie loves Bella that is plain and simple," Gunnar said.

"Yeah right. Annie, please tell me that you do not believe Gunnar's side of the story, I thought that you sided with me. Besides, you were not even there that night," Ollie said.

"Oliver Gordon Gregory Bombay," Annie said.

"What Annie? I don't believe him and that is that" Ollie said.

"Gunnar?" I asked.

"Adam I am telling you the truth. That is all I know. Besides, you have seen me with Charlie," Gunnar said.

That was true I didn't see Gunnar alone with Charlie at all, period. Usually there would be somebody else in the room with them.

"Yeah well I will believe you when I see some evidence, let's get in the car Annie. As soon as Charlie and Bella get out here, I want to leave," Ollie said as he opened the door for Annie.

I and Gunnar went to Charlie's jeep. We were in the middle of a make out session when we heard, "I am not interrupting you, am I?"

"Hey Charlie, no," I said.

"Good," Charlie said as he put his seat back into the position to let himself in the Jeep and climbed in.

"Where is Bella?" Gunnar asked.

"She is taking her car back to Eden Hall. Seraphina gave her the car back," Charlie said as he followed Ollie and Bella out of the driveway.

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