AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m waiting,” he pushed, knowing she would come up empty handed.
“Fine, so the rules aren’t that crazy… yet. But what about the future? And more importantly, I don’t like the idea of punishments for broken rules.”
“What would you have me do? Throw you a party for breaking rules? Just like everything else in life, our actions have consequences. You run a red light, you get a traffic ticket. You cheat on a test in college, you get kicked out of the university. I could give a thousand examples. This is no different.”
“It’s very different! The police and university don’t want to hurt me!”
There was a manic quality to her raised voice.
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. First, I never said I wanted to hurt you. It’s called discipline. Consequences. And there are dozens of punishments that have absolutely nothing to do with corporal punishment.”
“Like what?” she spat.
“Watch your tone, young lady. I’m trying my best to answer all of your questions and help you better understand, but I won’t put up with you acting like a brat while I do it.”
He was close enough to see her pupils flare at his admonition. Like dozens of times in their time together, he recognized her body’s submission to his authority. It was just her brain that kept fighting it.
Her “I’m sorry,” was quiet but he heard it.
“Let me ask you a question, and be honest. When you were spending all the money on Friday, were you having fun?”
It was a bit of a gamble but based on how sorry she’d been when she found him at Black Light, Caleb was pretty sure he knew the answer to the question.
“I didn’t want to spend the money at all. I had to.”
“Had to. As in someone was holding a gun to your head?” he asked.
“No! But you know what I mean. I was with all my friends. We were just trying to make Sydney happy before her wedding.”
“Aren’t you a bit old for peer pressure?”
She’d been about to make another argument but that made her snap her mouth closed instead.
“So, I’ll ask again. Was it fun?”
“Not really. I just kept thinking about how angry you were going to be when you saw the charges.”
“So, you knew you were breaking the rules and yet you didn’t call to discuss it?”
“You were in Europe!”
“Yes, and we had already spoken on the phone at least a half dozen times that week so what’s one more call?”
“Fine. I thought you’d say no,” she admitted.
“I might have, but I also might have understood that it was a special occasion for you and your friends, and I might have said yes. We’ll never know now, will we? You didn’t give me a chance.”
Before she could reply, his cell phone on the coffee table started vibrating. He was tempted to just let it roll to voicemail, but at the last second, picked up the phone and answered with a short, “Edison here.”
“Mr. Edison? This is Mario the banquet captain from the wedding venue. I wanted to let you know that we found Mrs. Edison’s high heels under one of the tables during our clean-up last night. We’ll have them in the main office for you to pick up.”
He’d forgotten about the case of the missing shoes.
“Thanks for letting me know, Mario. I’ll drop by to pick them up in the next day or two.”
“No rush. We’ll keep them in our lost and found with your name on them.”
The call ended and Presley was looking at him expectantly.
