Twin Choices

Chapter 21

I took a cab from the airport to my dad's motorbike workshop, the house is literally right next door with a gate connecting them. As much as I love living with my m,om and Robert I do miss this place.

I walked straight into the workshop, recognizing a few of the mechanics here and there, a few new faces shone out though. I went up to the front desk, a fairly young guy sat there, I didn't know him.

'Hey, where's Jeremy?'

'Uh, you lost girl?'

'No, I'm looking for Jeremy.'

'Kid, I haven't got time for this.' He obviously thinks I'm just some clueless girl, I've had a bad enough day and I'm not in the mood for this.

'Look, I'm looking for Jeremy, either tell me where the fuck he is or I'll just go looking for him.'

He raised an eyebrow, 'Oh really? What are you gonna do brat?'

I warned him, 'This.' Taking a deep breath I shouted as loudly as I could, 'DAD!?'

The guy almost fell out of his seat in shock and every face turned to look at me. Suddenly I was lifted up by strong arms and the smell of peppermint gum surrounded me.

My dad swung me around and hugged me tightly, 'Reggie! What're you doing here hon?' He was holding me up and I wiggled so I could be put back on my feet.

'Just wanted to get away from my step brother.'

'Almighty, what's with the screaming in my shop child?' He was chuckling so I knew I wasn't in trouble.

'Tweedle-dum wouldn't tell me where you were.' I didn't mention that he called me a brat.

'Hey, Rory, This is one of my twins. Reggie.'

'Really?' He looked terrified that I was going to rat on him.

'Yeah, watch out, she'll kick your ass.'

'Hey, dad, mind if I dump my stuff in my old room?'

'Yeah, sure, it's still the same as you left it.'

'Thanks.' I took the familiar path up to the house and dumped my stuff in the bedroom, flopping down on my old bed to get some sleep.

***

'Hey, kid, you wanna help me on this?' One of the mechanics was replacing the exult on an old dirt bike.

'Sure, what do you need.'

'You hold it in place and I'll weld it on?' He said it like I was just one of the helpers.

'How about you hold it and I'll weld, okay?'

'Just don't screw it up.'

I rolled my eyes and go to work, making sure I got it perfect so he couldn't say anything bad about my skills. I've been helping in this garage since I was five, I think I know a thing or two.

When I was done with the dirt bike I decided to help out around the garage with a few other things, moving from bike to bike, where ever help was needed. Some jobs just can't be done without a second person and I don't like to work on a bike myself since I know these guys all work off a commission basis.

'Reggie?' I turned my head to see my dad calling me from his office.

'Yeah,' I popped my head in the door, 'What's up?'

'You wanna have a seat?'

I sat on the sofa, 'So?'

'I was just wondering why you decided to fly over here. Your mom called me, why didn't you tell me she didn't give you permission to visit?'

'Because I sort of ran away.'

He didn't look upset, just surprised. 'I can see this is going to be a long story. Start at the beginning.'

'I don't really know where the beginning is.'

'Start with what happened to your leg?' He pointed to the bandage.

'I was on my bike and some asshole on the wrong side of the road clipped me, the bike spun out and landed on me.'

'How bad's the bike?' Typical dad.

'Minor damage, I've fixed it already just needs some body work.'

'Good, so what happened next?'

'This guy named Alex came and fetched me, he took me home and made sure I was okay. I really like this one but he was lying to me.' I sniffed.

'What did he lie about?'

'I'd gotten drunk at our Halloween party and a guy who'd been fighting with me tried to rape me, Alex stopped him though.'

'I'll kill the little bustard.' His face was bright red.

'No you won't because he's all the way back home and I'm not going to tell you his name.'

He grumbled in response and I took that as an indication to continue.

'Evan, my step brother knew about it as well. They just didn't tell me, they let me carry on like an idiot.'

'How'd you find out?'

'Evan told a friend of his, the guy he told was Avalon's boyfriend and he couldn't keep it from her. Av gave the guy a black eye.'

His eyes widened, 'Avalon punched someone?'

'Yep, I couldn't believe it either.'

'Are you sure it was Avalon?'

I laughed at his face, 'I'm sure.'

'Does your mother know?'

'Nope, and if the school rats on her I'll cover for her.'

He nodded, 'Always the big sister. Honey you do know that Avalon can take care of herself, she's old enough now to deal with life on her own. I know you want to protect her but you can't keep Avalon in a bubble, you're not super girl and you can't protect everyone from everything.'

'I know that.'

'But you act like you still want to protect her. I know I've always been the party guy and you take after me but you're responsible and that's one thing I'm still trying to master. I want you to remember that people make mistakes when they're trying to protect you. I tried to make sure you knew about real life, knew how to have fun and I just ended up teaching you that it was okay to drink and party with random people.'

'You think they were trying to protect me?'

'Yes, think about how upset you were when you realized that if that Alex boy wasn't around you wouldn't have been a virgin anymore.' blunt, as usual.

He paused.

'Please tell me you're still a virgin?'

'Yeah, I am.'

'Good, so did you think about the fact that they might have been trying to protect you from how upset you would have been after finding out?'

'I didn't even think of it that way.'

'So, why don't you call one of them?'

'Because I'm still pissed off at them.'

'Fair enough, call Avalon then. She'll be missing you.'

'I've only been away a day.' I muttered.

'Then call tomorrow, you know she'll be worried about you.'

'Okay, thanks for the talk.'

"I really like being single. Except for the bit about not having a man." -Jane Christie