A Father's Love

Chapter 53

Shelby had a ball staying over at Lorelai and Rory's house. She even ended up putting on a little concert for them, which Lorelai gloated about to Luke. That is until Luke pointed out Shelby had already done a show for both him and Jess a couple times.

Lorelai turned on the kid. "You said we were special."

"You are," she replied, innocently.

"I meant about only giving us a show."

"I didn' know ta' was wha' you mean'," Shelby said, shaking her head repeatedly and gave her a look as if Lorelai was disappointed in her or something. It was Rory who caught on first and assured Shelby, her mom was just teasing her, and Lorelai backed her daughter up, touching Shelby's hand that was lying on the table, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Eventually, over time, though a little slow and was probably one of the last to know, Jess found out Shelby was now adventuring out on her own, including to Ethan and Alan's house. He seemed indifferent to his "baby sister" going off on her own, but never expressed his opinion on the matter. The self-defense lessons started up again, though. At one point, one lesson ended with Shelby kicking her cousin in a very sensitive area that literally brought him to his knees. Luke had to help Jess over to the chair and grab him an ice pack. Shelby also apologized profusely and promised any favor he wanted to make up for the amount of pain she inflicted.

"No problem," he struggled to reassure her before letting slip, "Didn't want kids, anyway."

It ended up producing a puzzled look in which Shelby questioned, "wha' does kids have to do wi' i'?" Exchanging a panicked stare with Luke, they then tried distracting the kid to something else so they wouldn't have to explain what Jess meant.

Summer finally ended and fall was now gracing the town with its presence, which also meant another season to play basketball. As soon as Luke asked what sport she wanted to play, Shelby blurted out she wanted to continue basketball. Actually, Luke couldn't even finish his sentence. She was that excited. As soon as possible, Luke registered Shelby for a team, getting on the green team, now called the Ninja Turtles.

To their surprise, Shelby's teacher was also volunteering as a coach and ended up also being her coach.

Upon entering the gymnasium, Shelby made a fast dash for her teacher, stopping in front of him. She was smiling, happy to have Mr. Harris as her basketball coach. Luke caught up while he was greeting the kid.

Turning to Luke, Mr. Harris said, "Shelby has written a ton of stories and drawn a lot of pictures about basketball."

Luke smiled down at his daughter. "Yeah, she just got into it at the end of the last school year. Since then, it's been mostly basketball this, basketball that. At least she'll still watch baseball with me."

Shelby smiled up at her dad. She was wearing her uniform from last season, along with her baseball cap.

Mr. Harris chuckled. "Yeah, I've heard about that, too. Shelby, why don't you go warm up with the other kids before we get started?" he suggested.

Shelby turned her head to look over at a few boys shooting basketballs. She turned back to give a nod, but Luke could tell she was a little nervous going over there. Mr. Harris passed her the basketball he was holding before Shelby slowly made her way over. They watched as she walked over, waiting shyly for a turn.

"By the way, there's something I've been meaning to ask."

"What's that?" asked Luke, peeling his eyes away to look over at his daughter's teacher.