Chapter 79

October 27, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

After last night’s dinner, Meka and the other seniors went to stay at the Devlin house and the whole family went along to take Gracey, Liya, and Civia home. The three of us had a subdued and tear-streaked hour in bed before we dropped off.

Our lunch table held only freshmen.

“This is not a dig at anyone here, but it’s not quite the same without Shameka,” Cera said.

“Yeah, it’s no wonder that she’s the most-popular senior,” I responded. “She’s funny and ... I don’t know. There’s just something about her.”

There was much head-nodding.

I turned to Liya and said, “Do you want to apprise them of your plan for Monday?”

Practice consisted only of stretches, warmups, rondo, and discussion of our plan for Tuesday’s game; Coach sent us home about 45 minutes early. The five seniors came to the house in order to prepare for the evening, which involved the 11 of us dressing up for dinner with Carol at the Thai place ... and visiting Jim, who looked stunned as the 12 of us walked in his room.

“Oh, my...” Jim started, but was interrupted by Hope, Kim, and Rachel wrapping him into the middle of a hug scrum, the girls softly crying.

“Hey, hey,” Jim said softly. “I haven’t seen you ladies for a while, and you’re dressed up so nicely. Don’t get your lovely dresses all wet.”

After those three – and the rest of us – got our emotions under control, Jim complimented us on how nice we all looked, then said, “I don’t know you, but I assume you’re Carol. Is that right?”

“That’s right,” she responded, “but how did you figure that out?”

“Charlie mentioned that ... Beth looked very much like his wife, Sandy, right?” When he got a nod, he continued with, “Besides, your daughter ... your biological daughter looks a lot like you, so I figured that since you’re accompanying this motley crew, you must be Carol.”

“Yes, I’m Carol. Carol Williams. Or, at least, I’ll be Carol Williams when the name-changing paperwork goes through.”

“Is that right,” Jim asked as he looked at her then at her six daughters. “Charlie didn’t say anything about that, but ... he is one lucky guy.”

“He is, but I am one very lucky gal.” She turned to the seniors and said, “Does this shock you? I hope that it doesn’t negatively affect any of your friendships with any of my daughters, actual and semi-adopted. However, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I refuse to hide the reason why. I cannot legally marry him, but I can certainly change my last name from that of a man that caused me so much pain to that of a man that has made me so very happy.”

The seniors other than Meka looked at Carol, a couple with their chins dropped a bit, until Hope slowly said, “I ... can understand that. I don’t know that I could ... share a man with another woman, but I certainly understand about crappy guys and nice guys. Meka’s dad was the one that provided the ... contrast to the ... little boys in high school. I want one like him when I grow up.”

There was much laughing.

Carol looked at Hope’s chest, waggled her eyebrows with a leering look, and said, “I don’t know if you should wish to ‘grow up’ any more than you have.”

There was much chuckling.

After that icebreaker, conversation was great and wide-ranging, although the mood became more somber as we prepared to depart.

“I don’t want to come off as needy, but...” Jim began.

Meka interrupted with, “Dad. I’ll try to visit more often and... [she turned to the rest of us] I give you an open invitation to each of you and all of you to come with me if and when you want to and can.”

I stepped up and said to Jim, “May we hug you?”

When he nodded, I stepped into him and put my arms around his waist as his went around my shoulders. The rest of the girls followed suit.

“Thanks, everyone, for one of the best evenings I’ve had in a very long time. It was very nice to meet you, Carol, and I hope that you and your family won’t be strangers.”

“Don’t worry, Jim. We’ll coordinate with Meka on visits. I also want to say that I am very impressed with the spectacular young woman you and your wife raised. We’ll try to take care of her as she needs.”

“I greatly appreciate what you’ve already done for my Meka. You’ve earned an old man’s gratitude.”

“Da-add. You’re not old.”

Though Meka started into that with a small smile on her face, it quickly devolved into tears, and Meka wrapped herself inside her dad’s arms, crying on his shoulder. He looked at Carol and lifted his head at her; she nodded.

“Let’s go, girls, and leave Meka to her daddy.”

Sitting on the bed in the Go6 HQ, Rhee, Heather, and I discussed sleeping arrangements with Civia for her every-other-Friday sleepover.

“How do you want to do it?”

Civia looked down into her lap, then looked up and around at the three of us, then shyly asked, “Would it be too crowded with four in the same bed?”

Heather lunged and tackled Civia onto her back, then answered, “We’ve slept five in here. That was a bit snug, so four should be no problem. Is that what you want?”

“Oh, yes. I really like being surrounded by my ... m-m-my f-friends.”

Though there were tears, Civia also wore a smile as Heather said, “Then we’ll all sleep here, and you get one of the two middle slots.”

Civia responded a little burbly, saying, “No. I don’t need the middle, I j-just...”

I replied, “Rhee and I will put you and Heather in the middle, and we’ll all have a wonderful night’s sleep. It’s not at all a problem.”

“I love you guys, so much!”

October 28, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

I woke to the feel of lips pressing lightly onto mine. Although I did not open my eyes, I could feel Heather’s small breasts against mine; I smiled. I opened my eyes to the expected sparkling blue eyes smiling into mine.

I softly whispered, “I love you.”

Heather responded by lightly kissing me again, then rolling onto her left side and scooted back into me and my arms. I lifted my head to see over her and saw Civia and Rhee in nearly a mirror image of Heather and me. I put my lips to Heather’s right ear.

“Life is good, isn’t it, oh, cute-as-hell lover of mine?”

She nodded in response, then vaguely pointed her right hand at the others, then rolled back over to face me and put her mouth next to my right ear.

“I really like that Civia is part of the Go6. I’m glad we got to know her, as she makes such a good addition to us. Although I didn’t want it last night, I’m going to be all over you and Rhee tonight.”

She then carefully rolled back over, and she and I watched Civia and Rhee sleep. Perhaps ten minutes later, Civia’s eyes opened, and her face lit.

Heather leaned in and kissed her forehead and asked, “How’d you sleep?”

“Wonderfully. Waking up was even more wonderful. It makes me so happy to wake up with my friends around me, with the arms of at least one of them wrapped around me. I never knew ... I never knew how wonderful friendship could be. I feel so warm, happy, and loved lying here with Rhee’s arm around me and two of my favorite people looking at me and looking so happy to see me. I wish I could wake up like this every morning for the rest of my life.”

Heather responded, “I don’t know if you’d think that once you got married.”

I could almost feel, and could certainly imagine, Heather’s gamine grin and blue eyes shining at Civia as she teased her.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that marriage could feel as wonderful or even more wonderful than this. I understand that my thoughts on that could change between now and then. However, despite how much I love my parents, waking up with my friends is better than anything else in my life.”

Rhee made her wakefulness known by saying, “I’m sure your opinions will change, but I appreciate that you like being with us so much. We certainly share that sentiment about you.” She then wormed her right arm under Civia and pulled her more tightly into herself, saying, “We’re very glad you’re our friend.”

As we were dressing, I said, “Civia, your arms are much more defined now than they were when we met you. You’ve been keeping up with the weights, haven’t you?”

“Of course. Coach said I need to do it, and I haven’t missed a day. I even took them with me when we went to visit my Baba.”

“When your parents get here, you might want to bring up with them an expansion of your weights regimen. We should get Dad involved, too. He could provide some suggestions for what could help you. He was a runner in high school and college, so he knows what’s useful for strength training for people that need to run.”

“He’d do ... Of course, he would. I’ll do that. What I’m doing now is getting pretty easy, so I understand that I’ll have to add more weight or ... or something.”

I asked, “Rhee, Heather, would you be willing to do more? I’m feeling like I could use more than what little we’re doing now.”

Kalina and Jeff arrived a little after 11 while we girls were in the shower after having spent some time at the pitch. As is typical, the 11 of us had a great day eating lunch and dinner, chatting, playing Uno. We did have a long discussion about Civia – and the rest of us – and weight training. Dad told the Paleceks of his experience of weight training in relation to his long-distance running. The Paleceks agreed that once soccer was done for the season that Civia could go with us girls and Dad to the gym. Since Kalina and Jeff both worked late on Wednesdays, we would be going back to Civia spending those days with us until one of them picked her up when they got out of work, thus Wednesday would be gym day.

“Charlie, Sandy, Carol, we’ve said this before, but we truly appreciate you and your ... extended family taking Civia under your wings. We were skeptical at first, but she has blossomed. Thank you.”

Carol responded, “Kalina, you don’t need to thank us. We get all the thanks we need just having her around. She’s a lovely young lady and is welcome here at any time.”

The Paleceks departed about 9:30. After retiring to bed, Rhee, Heather, and I had a long, multi-orgasm romp before sliding into sleep.

October 30, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

Last night, Meka came over after dinner and we four girls spent some time in the hot tub, mostly in silence, as we enjoyed the evening and each other’s company; she stayed over in the GL bedroom. This morning, we girls and Dad made a big breakfast after which the four of us dressed for our planned semi-formal day at school. The biggest impact of our plan was at lunch.

Liya, Brittany, and I were the first ones to “our” table and we took the opportunity to slide another table up to butt-end with ours. We were shortly joined by our regular table mates and by all five seniors on the team. Brett looked very nice in a button-down shirt, slacks, and a jacket; we 12 girls were all wearing dresses.

As we girls sat, Brett, who was slightly flushed and still standing, said, “This must be an alternate reality. There are now five seniors slumming with us unworthy freshmen.” As we chuckled at his quip, he began handing out a stack of large white cloth napkins and said, “You girls all look lovely. I would hate to see you stain your pretty dresses, so here is a napkin for each of you. I’ll be tucking mine into my collar, so don’t be embarrassed to look as goofy as I will look. Fortunately, it’s not spaghetti day,” after which he grinned at each of us.

We were chatting while eating lunch when Coach and Ms. Barnard, another PE instructor, surprised us.

“My, don’t you look spiffy. What’s the occasion?”

A bit surprisingly, Cera began answering first with, “Nothing special, Coach. We just felt like it.”

“Well, everyone looks great! I wouldn’t mind seeing this every so often. However, I’m glad to see that you’re not all having the same thing. I’d hate to lose nine of 11 starters and two of three assistants to food poisoning.”

“I couldn’t fill in for any of the players, but I know enough soccer to possibly fill in for an assistant.”

We all looked at Cera in surprise.

She looked around at us and said, “What? I’ve played soccer and I’ve seen most of Meka’s home games. I think I could provide water bottles and towels with the best of them.”

There was silence and then much laughing.

After Coach quit chuckling, she said, “Would you be interested, Cera, even if I didn’t lose two assistants to some nasty gastrointestinal bug?”

“I would. I like going to the games, but I don’t have a way to get to away games. Also, I want to go to college and participation is important in applications. Mostly, though, I like the game and I’ve been a little jealous of Liya and Brett getting to help out.”