Chapter 27

Saturday, my practice with Chef was moved to the early morning, before Chef needed to start getting food ready for lunch. I’d tried to beg off completely, but apparently, a date isn’t a good enough reason to skip training. Even though I wasn’t going to do any more competitions, both because I hadn’t enjoyed the last one that much and because of possible injury that could end my music career, he still insisted I keep training with him, pitching it as valuable to my mental and physical well-being. Considering all he’d done for me, I couldn’t really say no, and besides, he wasn’t wrong. I felt the best physically I had in my entire life and it was kind of effective as a form of therapy.

Not that I would have minded missing a week. I ended up having to rush home to take a shower and get all of my stuff in my car for the show that night. Since my ‘show clothes’ were essentially my best non-church clothes, they also doubled as my dating clothes, which meant at least that part was covered. I’d dropped Sydney off once at her house, so I knew how to get there. She’d arranged for a ride home from the Blue Ridge, so we’d agreed I’d pick her up at her house and she’d go with me to practice.

I pulled up to her house and jogged up to the door, equal parts nervous and excited as I waited for someone to answer the door. When the door opened, all of that excitement rushed out of my body as I realized the sheriff was standing in front of me.

Most of my run-ins had been with his deputies, but we had crossed paths a few times, including when he arrested Aaron, although that had mostly been Mom reading him the riot act. The one thing I did know about him was he was friends with Kat’s father, who was absolutely not a fan of mine.

“Nelson?” he said, looking equally as shocked to see me standing on his porch as I was seeing him open the door.

“Sheriff?” I replied, stunned.

It had been a question, but my brain was already doing the calculations to explain what was happening, and I didn’t like the answer I was getting. I’d briefly met Sydney’s mom, but her dad had been out the last time I’d been here, and I hadn’t really gone inside so I hadn’t seen any pictures or anything. She’d mentioned her father, but we’d never really talked about him. I was almost positive it hadn’t been a purposeful omission. She didn’t strike me as the kind of girl to try and hide that kind of thing or to be talking to me to get some kind of reaction from her father.

From the look on his face, she hadn’t spelled out to him who I was either.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to pick up Sydney.”

“You’re her date?”

“Uhh ... yeah.”

“No. Nope. No way in hell. Sydney! Get your butt down here. Meredith!” He yelled back into the house, addressing none of it toward me.

After a moment Sydney appeared, followed closely by her mother, and a girl who looked like a younger version of Sydney.

“Yes, Daddy?” she said, looking confused by her father’s anger.

“What is he doing here?” he said, pointing at me.

“That’s Charlie,” Sydney said, confused.

“Joel, what’s all the yelling about? That’s Sydney’s date.”

“Do you know who this is?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes. I met him when he dropped Sydney off the other day.”

“But do you know who he is? He’s the kid who plays up at the Blue Ridge. The one that got Samuel Moore’s daughter taken away from him and hurt Aaron Campbell.”

“Maybe I should go,” I said, seeing this going rapidly downhill.

“Maybe you should,” he said, finally saying something to me.

“Wait!” Sydney yelled as I started to back away from the front door. “Daddy!!”

“Charlie, please don’t go,” Sydney’s mom said, much calmer than either her daughter or her husband. “I think there has been some miscommunication that needs to be straightened out, but I don’t think my daughter wants to cancel your date. If you could just wait a few minutes, we’ll go inside and sort this out.”

“I don’t need to work...”

“Joel, please,” she said.

Surprisingly, it worked. He didn’t take defeat well, but he took it, frowning and stomping back into the house.

“Don’t leave yet. Please,” Sydney said, on the brink of tears.

I really, really did not need to be involved in yet another crisis, which dating, or even going on dates with the daughter of the sheriff who clearly hated me, definitely was. Between new managers and rogue fathers, I had enough on my plate. But ... I also liked Sydney, and I felt bad because she didn’t deserve this, either.

My struggle only lasted a few seconds, and it really was probably a foregone conclusion. I was, apparently, a glutton for punishment. At least where a pretty girl was concerned. I made an ‘I guess’ hand gesture and nodded before turning and heading towards my car. I didn’t look at them, but I heard the door shut as I went to my car and sat on the hood.

The yelling was pretty intense, because I could hear it all the way out by the curb. Not so much that I could make out words, but enough that I could hear her father yelling. To her mom’s credit, I couldn’t hear her yelling back, but maybe that was just because his voice carried more.

I sat there for almost ten minutes and started wondering if they’d decided not to allow our date after all, but hadn’t bothered to tell me, when the door was flung open and Sydney came running out. Her mom followed behind her at a much more reasonable pace. Her father was back in the doorway, arms folded, apparently trying to see if it was possible to stare a hole through someone.

I thought for a second Sydney might leap on me in a hug, but I think the realization that her parents were watching, especially her father, made her think twice since she skidded to a halt next to the car, putting her hands behind her back and rocking slightly on her heels. It would have been a funny sight if it wasn’t for the commotion that had just happened.

“They said I could go,” she said, beaming.

“Good,” I said, smiling back at her, before again looking past her to her mother and father, who were sending very mixed signals.

I pushed myself off the car and tried to stand in a friendly posture as her mother walked up. Of Sydney’s two parents, she was apparently the closest thing I was going to get to an ally, and I didn’t want her to get the impression I was being dismissive or rude.

“So ... everything’s okay, ma’am?” I asked her mom when she walked up.

“Yes. You two go and have fun. Her father has agreed to let her see you as long as she abides by our curfew rules, although I think it best in the future, if you have her either meet you at the location or somewhere reasonable. At least for the time being. You might also want to be ... cautious and avoid her father; if you two should happen to cross paths.”

“That’s good advice,” I said.

“Okay. Bye, Mom,” Sydney said, opening the passenger door and getting into the car. “Stacey will bring me home before curfew.”

“Okay. You kids have fun,” her mom said, giving us a wave and walking back towards her house like nothing weird had happened.

I hustled around to the driver’s side and got in.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Sydney said as soon as I was in the car. “If I’d known that was going to happen, I would have met you somewhere.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said as I started the car.

Since her dad was still in the doorway staring daggers at me, I tried to pull slowly away from the curb and drive as correctly as possible, since he seemed like exactly the sort who’d run out and pull me over for reckless driving or something in order to end the date.

“Why didn’t you mention your dad is the sheriff? I thought everyone in school knew about my run-ins with the police, both at prom and with all the stuff with Aaron.”

“I didn’t even think about it. I knew Daddy had been up to the school at the prom, but I’d heard Aaron got arrested and you hadn’t, so I didn’t think it was that big of a thing. He doesn’t ever talk about his work, so I didn’t know you’d had any bad experiences with him.”

I believed that she wasn’t being malicious. One of the things I liked most about Sydney was how she always looked on the bright side of everything. I guess there was a downside to that after all.

“It’s okay. I was just shocked. How did you manage to talk him into letting you go out with me? I was sure there was no way this date was still happening.”

“That was Mom. Dad makes a lot of noise, but he always ends up doing what Mom says. She pointed out that you hadn’t ever broken the law. She also said that whatever happened with Katherine’s dad, he was really the bad guy in this, and we should thank you for helping her, not blame you for exposing what he’d done. What did happen with her father?”

For a second, I was surprised she didn’t know. I guess because Kat, Hanna, Mrs. Phillips, and I all accepted it as fact and had to regularly deal with the consequences of his actions, it felt like it was public knowledge. We didn’t really talk about it outside of our small group though, and the fact that he was still running his factory and hadn’t been driven out of town on a rail suggested it wasn’t that widely known after all. The sheriff had been required to enforce Kat’s removal from her father’s house, so he would have known about it and probably told his wife, but that seemed to be the extent of it. Kat’s father hadn’t even been arrested and months later the county DA hadn’t brought any charges against him, so there wasn’t any kind of public condemnation.

So far, Mrs. Phillips and Kat’s psychologist had agreed they didn’t want to push it any further, prioritizing her treatment over vindication. If they had pressed it, Kat would have almost certainly had to testify again, which had practically destroyed her the first time.

“She was removed from his custody and went to live with Hannah Phillips’s mom. It’s not really my place to say what happened though.”

“Ohh,” she said, looking down at her hands, worried.

Kat was already predisposed to disliking Sydney and I didn’t think having Sydney suddenly treat her differently, or worse, asking questions, would make that situation any better. Right now, it also wasn’t a topic of gossip around the school, and it was juicy enough that it would be if Sydney started mentioning it to others. I didn’t think she would gossip about it maliciously, but this was the kind of thing that even an offhanded mention or innocent question would be enough to get it going. I figured at this point, a change in topic was the best course of action.

Besides, a conversation about extended child abuse wasn’t exactly first-date discussion material. This date was already off to a rough start and I wanted to save it if at all possible.

“Hey,” I said, reaching over and taking one of her hands in mine. “Let’s not let this ruin our date. Your mom got us permission to go out, so let’s make the best of it.”

“I just feel really bad about all of this. I’ve never seen Dad act like that. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. Really. You look really pretty, by the way,” I said.

She did. She was wearing a white sundress with little pink flowers all over it and looked absolutely adorable. Sitting in the car, the dress really showed off her legs, which were toned and smooth.

“Really?” she said, smoothing her dress. “I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but you said casual, which I thought meant we weren’t going hiking or anything.”

“We’re not. I got some sandwiches and stuff from Chef, after I finished training this morning, and packed a cooler. I thought we could go to Lake Reed and have a picnic. It’s a beautiful day and it seems like a waste to sit inside a restaurant or something.”

“That sounds great,” she said, her troubled mood finally lifting.

There wasn’t really a pull-off or a parking lot by the lake, but I’d driven by it a few times and noticed cars pulled off to the side of Merrimon Road where it was closest to the lake. There was an easy path to the lake that opened up into a large field that was perfect for picnics. I knew that some kids came out here on weekends and it was a popular make-out spot, but in the middle of the day on a Saturday I hoped it would be more or less empty.

Thankfully, I was right, aside from an older guy fishing on the far shore. The lake itself wasn’t huge. If it was any smaller it’d probably qualify more as a pond than a lake, but I guess calling it “the pond” sounded a lot less cool than “the lake.”

I spread out a large quilt I’d borrowed from Mrs. Phillips, who called my date idea adorable, and set out the cooler and bag of food. While we ate, we talked, getting to know each other better. I did notice she avoided talking about her father, which was fair since I did the same thing. We talked about how she got into swimming, what touring was like, things we liked to do, and just about everything else. She wasn’t the brainiac that Kat was, but she was very clever, a lot more so than her innocent persona suggested. I still couldn’t tell if she did that on purpose, but there was a lot more depth to her than my first impression suggested. She was witty, insightful, and had a cutting sense of humor at times. The more I talked to her, the more I liked her.

It seemed like no time at all had passed before I looked at my watch and realized we’d been there for almost three hours. If a family hadn’t walked down the path from the road, pulling us out of the conversation enough for me to look at my watch, I would have missed my pre-show practice entirely.

“We should probably get going. Do you still want to come to our practice?”

“Absolutely. I love watching you play.”

“Good, ‘cause I like having you there,” I said, helping her up.

We loaded everything in the trunk and climbed into the car. The family that had shown up was parked a little behind us, but they’d ventured off into the woods, looking like they were headed around the lake. Merrimon Road was, as usual, completely empty of traffic. I’m not sure if it was the sense of privacy or the nervousness that Sydney hadn’t been able to shake all afternoon that prompted me to do what I did next.