Point of Retreat (Slammed #2)(13)

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. Being suspended seems kind of like a reward. What kid wouldn’t want to get a week off school?” We both think for a while. Neither of us comes up with any good punishments.

“I guess it’s a good thing we have different schedules this semester,” she says. “That way, every time they get suspended, at least one of us will be home.”

I smile at her…and hope she’s wrong. This better be their first and last suspension. Lake doesn’t know it, but she’s made things with Caulder so much easier. Before I met her, I agonized over every single parenting decision I ever had to make. Now that we make a lot of those choices together, I’m not as hard on myself. We seem to agree on most aspects of how the boys should be raised. It also doesn’t hurt having her maternal instincts in the picture now. It’s moments like these, when we're made to join forces, that it’s almost unbearable for me to take things slow. If I left my head out of it and just followed my heart, I’d marry her today.

I push her back on the bed and kiss her. Due to the weekend from hell, I haven’t been able to kiss her since Friday. I’ve missed kissing her. From the way she kisses me back, it’s obvious she’s missed kissing me, too.

“Have you talked to your grandparents about next weekend?” she asks.

My lips move from her mouth, down her cheek and to her ear. “I’ll call them tonight,” I whisper. “Have you thought about where you want to go?” Chills break out on her skin, so I continue kissing down her neck.

“I could care less. We could stay here at my house for all I care. I’m just looking forward to being with you for three whole days. And finally getting to spend the night together…in the same bed, at least.”

I’m trying not to come off too eager, but next weekend is all I’ve been thinking about. She doesn’t need to know that I’ve actually got an internal countdown going constantly. Ten days and twenty-one more hours.

“Why don’t we do that?” I stop kissing her neck and look at her. “Let’s just stay here. Kel and Caulder will be in Detroit. We can lie to Eddie and Gavin and tell them we’re going away so they won’t stop by. We’ll pull the shades down and lock the doors and hole ourselves up for three whole days, right here in this bed. And in the shower too, of course.”

“Sounds bemazing,” she says. She likes to smoosh words together for more emphasis. I’m pretty sure bemazing is beautiful and amazing. I think it’s cute.

“Now back to the punishment,” she says. “What would our parents do?”

I honestly have no clue what my parents would do. If I had any clue, it wouldn’t be so hard coming up with solutions to all the problems that come along with raising kids.

“I don’t know what they would do. But I know what I want to do,” I say. “Let’s scare the butterfly out of them.”

“How?” she says.

“Act like you’re trying to calm me down. Act like I’m really pissed off. We can make them sit out there and sweat for a while.”

She laughs. “You’re so bad.” She stands up and walks closer to the door. “Will! Calm down!” she yells.

I walk over to the door and hit it for extra emphasis. “I will not calm down! I’m PISSED!”

Lake throws herself onto the bed and pulls a pillow over her face to stifle her giggles before she continues yelling. “No, stop it! You can’t go out there yet! You need to calm down, Will! You might KILL them!”

I glare at her. “Kill them?” I whisper. “Really?”

She laughs as I hop back on the bed with her. “Lake, you suck at this.”

“Will, NO! Not the belt!” she yells dramatically.

I clasp my hand over her mouth. “Shut up!” I laugh.

We give ourselves a few minutes to regain our composure before we exit the bedroom. When we walk down the hallway, I do my best to look intimidating. The boys are watching us with fear in their eyes as we take our seats across the bar from them.

“I’ll talk,” Lake says to them. “Will is entirely too upset right now to speak to either of you.”

I stare at them and don’t speak, putting on my best display of anger. I wonder if this is how parenting is with real parents? A bunch of ‘pretending’ to be responsible grown-ups.

“First of all,” Lake says in a very superbly-faked, motherly tone. “We would like to commend you both for defending your friend. However, you went about it all wrong. You should have spoken to someone about it. Violence is never the answer to violence,” she says.

I couldn’t have said it better if I was reading from a parenting handbook.

“You are both grounded for two weeks. And don’t think your suspension will be fun, either. We’re giving you both a list of chores to do every day. Including Saturday and Sunday.”

I tap my knee against hers under the bar, letting her know that was a nice touch.

“Do either of you have anything to say?” she asks.

Kel raises his hand. “What about my birthday Friday?”

Lake looks at me and I shrug my shoulders. She turns back toward Kel.

“You don’t have to be grounded on your birthday. But you’ll get an extra day of grounding. Anymore questions?”