doppelgänger --> there's never just one {sequel}

andy

^andy&cc

For the next two weeks, Scout would be gone filming all day until late evening, which meant she wouldn't be home each of those evenings in time to make dinner for everyone like she typically did. So, every morning before she went, she put together all the ingredients for that night and left it for Andy to finish from there. He was glad his wife had faith in him, but it seemed no one else did, including himself.

Let's just see how this goes....

"Dad, are you sure you can do that all by yourself? Don't you want me to help you?" Sadie asked, entering the kitchen while she watched Andy's eyes flick back and forth between the array of ingredients laid out on the counter.

He turned, glancing at his daughter and then back at the food. "Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I can do this, I've done it before," he assured her, earning a doubtful look from Sadie.

"Okay, Dad.... but just in case, call me if you need any help."

Andy didn't answer, reading the words aloud to himself off of the directions part of the recipe. "So, first you boil hot water in a pot on the stove.... wait, what's boiling point again?" He thought to himself. He skimmed the directions, his finger finding what he thought in his mind was a suitable answer to his question. "Oh, here we go.... heat until water starts to form big bubbles at the top. Whatever, same thing, that works too," he shrugged.

The next thing Andy heard was a loud, booming voice, only possible to match the one and only....

CC.

"Uncle CC!" Little Oliver yelled excitedly, and both the dogs joined him in flocking to CC. Dani and Sadie ran over from the living room to give him bear hugs, too, which made Andy smile.

But then he smelled something, behind him on the stove. Something that didn't smell.... right?

It definitely wasn't a good smell.

He had left the spaghetti sauce in the pan for too long, until it had burned, and the pasta in the boiling, now overflowing, water in the pot.

"Shit!" Andy screamed, turning the fire off on the stove immediately and dropping to the floor to try to clean up the heated water that was already on the floor so far.

"Bro! Bad words are not cool!" CC exclaimed, a warning look in his eyes as he looked into the kitchen at Andy, whose hair was hanging in his eyes as he scrubbed the floor, desperate to get all of the water back up from seeping into the cracks of the wood floor. He gestured to Oliver, standing there watching his father half-making and half-cleaning up a mess he made himself.

Andy shook his head, sighing, "CC, don't be my wife while you're here. Look, I get it, Oliver's going to repeat it all if I don't quit it, but you know it's been a habit --"

Oliver laughed as he repeated the same curse Andy just had a few moments before. Andy didn't think it was funny.

CC did. He laughed. "Like that, you mean?"

Andy sighed, dropping his head in exasperation. Meeting eyes with CC, he finally said, "I give up. Let's just order pizza out."

*

After twenty minutes or so, Andy and CC were back with the pizza, CC already chowing down.

"Uncle CC, you already ate a piece? You were supposed to wait!" Dani exclaimed, opening the pizza box stacked on top of the pile Andy was holding and grabbing a slice.

"Sorry, I was hungry, I could help it, Dani," he apologized, finishing the slice he was holding.

"CC, set the box down on the table before you grab another one, would you?" Andy asked, shaking his head. Sadie laughed along with him, but his smile faded away when he saw another face that he was sure he didn't invite prior to leaving.

Andy set the pizzas on the table, everyone coming over to open the boxes and dig in, but he stopped Dani before she could reach her hand in one and grab another slice out, guiding her back over to the living room, where she came from.

He sat her down on the couch, back beside the boy who was sitting there next to her. "Who's this?" he asked her, one hand of his hip and the other pointing a finger towards their guest. He knew. He just wanted her to answer herself.

"Ethan, Dad. He's Ethan, from school," she answered truthfully, and Ethan looked up at Andy, giving him a small, friendly smile and waving at him.

Andy's stern face remained.

"Dad," Dani said gently, standing and placing a hand of his arm.

"What?" he asked, meeting her eyes.

"Can you just.... please, be a little nicer? A little more polite? I don't want him to get a bad first impression of you or anything," she told him, lowering her voice a little.

"No! It was your choice to invite him without asking me first! Good if he doesn't want to come back her ever again, that can be your punishment! Start acting more like the teenager that you are and not an adult woman who makes her own rules! You still have to obey your mom and I, we are your parents and you still live under this roof!" he exclaimed, raising his voice quickly as he went on.

Dani glared at her father, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Fine. Then what if I didn't live under this roof? Then could I make my own rules? I'm sixteen, Dad, I deserve it by now! I'm old enough!"

"Danielle! You are still a child! You are my teenage daughter, and you will respect what I say, because until you are eighteen years old, you are not an adult! Why can't you just ever listen?" he yelled.

Silence. From all three of them. And even including everyone in the other room, Andy earning stares from each and every one of them.

Andy sighed, his voice much quieter now that he had realized his wrong. "Dani, I'm...."

Dani rolled her eyes, looking down at Ethan and taking his hand. "Come on, Ethan. We should probably just go upstairs, away from everyone else. No one wants to see us anyway," she finished with one last hard glare at Andy before she ran upstairs, leading Ethan with her. He heard a door slam.

Andy looked at CC with sad eyes, everyone else still silently staring along with him.

Andy sighed, looking to the side of him, up the stairs. "I gotta go take a break." He appreciated the fact that when he looked back at CC, CC's expression knowing. "Keep track of the kids. Tell me when Scout gets back home. I'll be upstairs," he said, running up there and in his room before anyone could respond and pushing the door shut behind him. He loved her to death, that was for sure, but Dani was handful, and he was going to have to do something about her attitude towards him. And not only that, but....

Ethan was in her room with her right now?!

That was another thing he needed to go inspect, immediately....

And he desperately hoped Scout wasn't going to be mad at him about ruining everything that she had planned for that evening before she got back home. He just prayed she would understand.