Chapter 14: Upgrades

          It wasn’t rare for Don to randomly come knocking on the Harper family’s front door during weekdays. And Finley made sure that her guest was always well received.

          In all honesty, she didn’t mind being mutual woohooty calls with the man. At least she knew that she could never ask for more from the commitment phobic man. Lately, he’d been smart enough to take off right away and not linger after their needs were both met. Less to explain to the kids, who he was highly uncomfortable around.

          Finley had a lot of other things to fill her free time with aside from a relationship. Her gardening skill could always use improvement. And the random things she held onto were turning into a respectable collection. Well, maybe not quite respectable. At least they were beginning to resemble a collection and not just an assortment of junk.

          She’d also taken up the hobby of repairing the plumbing around the house. The mom of four was growing very tired of having to unclog a toilet and solve a leak every single day. Hopefully the upgrades she tentatively manufactured would hold.

          Finley wasn’t the only Harper working hard on improvement. Ever since her older brother aged into a teenager, Frankie had been attempting to advance her skills tirelessly. She knew that she’d never be a great whiz kid—she enjoyed goofing around too much for that. All she needed was a solid B to convince her mom to let her go to high school though. Truthfully, that set the bar pretty high for her.

          “Happy now? I’m here,” Eddie greeted in a pointed voice when Frankie had finally earned her birthday.

“Why should I have to pester you to come to your own sister’s party?”

 “Got better people—I mean things—to do. And the last time I was here, that brat kept making fun of me for being an adult!” Finley turned in time to catch Eddie and Sasha sticking their tongues out at one another. She couldn’t help but giggle.

“Serves you right. Don’t you remember how rude you were to Brandon when you were a kid?”

“Aw, what’s the matter bro? Don’t you want to see me age into a smexy teen?” Frankie poked at her brother, pouring on her childish charm.

“Yeah yeah, kiddo. Wouldn’t miss it.” A half second later he snapped, “Where the hell did you hear the word smexy?”

“You used to call yourself that in the mirror!” Frankie giggled manically and ran when Eddie made a halfhearted lunge at her.

          It didn’t take Finley too much longer to finish up the frosting on her daughter’s cake. She’d asked for the simplest and fastest cake she could whip up. While Frankie blew out her candles unceremoniously in her rush to be a teenager, Finley lamented on the fact that her first baby girl was almost grown up.

          As soon as she declared herself old enough to wear makeup, Frankie went a little crazy with it. Finley herself didn’t wear much, just eyeliner some days, and she thought her daughter’s face was too pretty for it. She kept her mouth shut though and let Frankie enjoy her day.

          Their little get-together didn’t last too much longer. Eddie was in a rush to get out to a date, Quinn volunteered to help tutor Sasha, and Frankie wanted to go to the library in the hopes of finding some people her age. Finley didn’t want her daughter dating quite yet as things had gone wrong with Eddie, but was assured that all she wanted were friends.

          Later that night Finley had a sudden, and almost painful, urge to urinate. In her rush into the bathroom, she accidentally knocked herself into bathroom counter, opening the magnetic door. Out spilled various toiletries that tend to build themselves up in a larger household. Among them was a box holding a single pregnancy test. Finley shrugged and decided to use it up, just to get it out of the house. And she and Don had been engaging frequently. They’d been careful so far, but one never knew.

          She really hadn’t been expecting the test to read positive. “He’s not going to take this well, is he?”