skepticgirl_1 | stay with me, go places

We were having Thanksgiving dinner. It didn't matter to me that Jake was Welsh and probably couldn't care less about the founding of America. I wasn't even sure I cared all that much, considering how crappy we were to the Native Americans and how much of a farce a lot of that history was. But I needed Thanksgiving. Just like I had gone to that concert on the Fourth of July, for something homey, for something familiar, I needed a Thanksgiving to remind me of who I was. What I had lost but also what I had to be thankful for.

It was really hard to be thankful for anything in this city, considering, but I had tried. I had Jake, I had friends, I had a job. I had a roof over my head and enough money for whatever I wanted (mostly) and my health. I still had memories of home and what it meant to me. I had a lot, all things considered. I was going to take this one day -- okay, maybe a few hours of this day -- to be happy for that.

The only problem was I didn't know how to cook. Mom always managed this kind of stuff and I was regulated to the boring stuff that Lucy wasn't allowed to do because it involved sharp objects. Peeling potatoes, cutting up carrots and onions. I had no idea what even to do with a turkey. So I had cheated and bought a precooked turkey, one of the smaller ones (even though it seemed like no small turkeys existed, did they really evolve to be this fat and covered with feathers?), and then I cheated more by buying the pie, instant potatoes, easy bake biscuits and the kind of stuffing that you only needed to add water to and bake.

I did however make my own green bean casserole. That was way easier than I had expected, so I was proud of my work. After mashing up some cranberry so it wasn't that jelly-can shape, I brought the bowl and myself over to the table.

"Alright, time to say what you're grateful for. Then we can eat."

There were going to be leftovers for days.

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I gave him a skeptical look. "I'm pretty sure that volunteering to be my guardian makes you the greatest friend? But I completely agree that you can't be my only friend. That's kinda lame to only have someone as old as you as my friend." I was teasing him now, again, because while I knew he was old, he was not as old as my insinuation.

Honestly though, Jake had to qualify as my best friend here, and I was okay with that. He was easy to get along with and funny and being a cop and my guardian made him by nature someone who cared about other people and was at least somewhat reliable. I couldn't ask for much more.

"The only time I have ever been in the hospital was a broken arm when I was six and to get my tonsils out," I assured him. "We're good on the hospital front. Showing up at your work for something other than to say hi, that I can't promise."

Jake groaned and covered his face with his hand, shaking his head. "And how many times have you been arrested? Is it more than ten? If it's more than ten, I'm going to have a stroke."

She was too young to have been arrested that many times already. But, she was also great at sticking her nose into places that it didn't belong and had a knack for finding just the wrong place at the wrong time.

"You're not gonna make me count your strikes, are you? Three strikes and you're out kinda deal?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I laughed, dropping my fork to hold up my hands. "Easy there, Officer Jake. I haven't ever been officially arrested. Not once. My dad is a general; I had enough to deal with at home to ever get that deep into it outside the house. I'm just saying, around here, I can't promise that I won't ever need some bailing out. But I'm not trying to get arrested," I assured him.

"I promise to try to keep it under three." I hoped, on some level, that I wouldn't even be here long enough to make it anywhere close to three. I had a pretty good track record with staying out of the way of cops, surprisingly. But with the government being as ridiculous as it was, my relationship with civil officers might change.

"Hey, from what I heard, it's the preacher's kids or the military families that have the worst behaved kids," Jake said, pointing at her with his fork. "They want to go wild because they're parents don't want them to do a damn thing fun."

But, it was good to know that she wasn't some common criminal that he was going to have to wake up at two in the morning for to go pick up after some dumb arrest.

"Also, you don't have to call me Officer Jake, you know." He shrugged. "I can just be Jake."

"I call you Officer Jake when you're being Officer Jake," I clarified. Then paused, considering. "Which is probably going to be a lot considering you're supposed to be keeping me in line." Anyway, that was what Jake seemed to think. I was capable of keeping myself in line, relatively. Other people had their opinions and I respected those even as I called them wrong.

"But I know you're just Jake, too," I assured him, a touch more seriously.

"All right," Jake acquiesced, nodding. "I was just making sure you weren't using it like as Mister Jake or Sir Jake or something because please don't. That's either for my superiors down at the station or my teachers and I'm neither of those and you're not my subordinate so we can keep this casual and easy."

He knew that it wouldn't always be like this. She'd get into some trouble, they'd fight, they'd go days without talking but Jake hoped they'd be able to get through those instances. He just had to remind myself that this wasn't like with his father and he didn't have to just ignore him for weeks on end.

"So yeah, be respectful of people who are in charge but make an exception for me. Don't make me feel old."

I appreciated that Jake said I wasn't his subordinate. Sometimes I felt like Dad treated me like someone he could order around, like his military was seeping into his parenting. I mean, he probably did think he could boss me around just on account of being my father, and maybe he did. But at sixteen I thought I was old enough to make my own decisions, too. I felt like Jake respected that a little more, for all his worrying.

"Alright, be disrespectful to you, got it." I saluted him with my fork, smirking.

"To a point," Jake amended quickly. "To a point. Please don't go wrecking my apartment or ignoring me when I'm trying to help you or something like that. You know what I mean, I know you do. So, you're allowed to be disrespectful to a degree but not if it wrecks my apartment, my things, or makes me a laughingstock at the station."

Sounded like pretty simple rules, didn't they? Jake thought so. "And no judging any of the blokes I might bring home. I'm still gonna run background checks on anyone you bring here though. Fact of life. Just accept it now and we'll be all the happier."

I giggled at his quick addition to the rules. He had to learn to be more specific in his wording when he was around me. I was the type to pick them apart, looking for loopholes. That was just part of living with a reporter, I figured. He had taken this on, so he had to live with it.

"Can't I judge but not say anything?" I asked. "More important question: When can I start asking if they're going to be my new daddy?" I barely got the question out before I was laughing again.

"I'm going to send you back to the children's home," Jake mock threatened. "You'll go back to having some kind of roommate who you might like or you might hate and you'll have some kind of curfew and no real freedom. So, you better be nice to me."

He eyed her oh so seriously and nodded just to punctuate the seriousness of his threat (which was not serious at all). "And never imply that I'm someone's dad, bloody hell. I think my stomach just turned."

I pretended to be scared, sitting stiffly in my chair with wide eyes, but my mouth couldn't stop trying to twist itself into a smile. I had to bite lightly at the inside of my cheek. I was sure my eyes gave me away, if anything. I nodded vigorously. "Sir, yes, sir."

Letting some of my amusement fade to back to normal, I moved around the last of the food on my plate. "How about big brother?" I offered, more seriously.

"That -- "

Jake fell silent for a moment, a small, wistful smile on his face. He looked up at her, the smiled growing larger and more lopsided.

"Yeah, that works. I can work with big brother. And Officer Jake. Just not Mr. Vickers or Officer Vickers or sir or something. That's all for old people. I'm cool with the big brother thing. That's good."

For a second, my heart stopped because I thought he was going to say something terrible like "That's going a little too far." I didn't think of it as going too far. I had never had a big brother, but I did have a little sister. I liked to think of Jake looking out for me the same was I look out for Lucy. But that required him seeing it the same way, too.

With his smile, I felt myself mimicking it, starting smile and growing to something so genuinely pleased that I couldn't help it.

"You got it," I said.

stay with me, go places

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