Chapter 23
As Richie pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, her cell phone rang. She didn’t have to look at the caller ID, she knew who it was.
“Kevin?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to answer it?”
“No.”
Richie reached over and took the ringing phone. “Hello.”
On the other end, across town, “Uh…” Kevin hadn’t expected someone else to answer but he knew it was Richie. “Is Jesse there?”
“Right here but we’re about to go into dinner.”
“She called yesterday…to talk about Stevie. Is he okay?”
“Except for being called a bastard and having…..”
Jesse snatched the phone from Richie glaring at him as she said, “Kevin, I can’t talk right now.”
“Who the hell was that?”
“It was Richie.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to worry about him telling anyone. Are you going to be able to talk tomorrow?”
“What did he mean about being called a ‘bastard’?”
“I’ll explain later, Kevin,” sighed Jesse. She could tell Kevin’s temper was escalating and looking at Richie, she knew he wasn’t happy either. God, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to handle them being in the same place at the same time.
“I’ll call you in the morning. Maybe we can meet.”
Jesse was still looking at Richie when she said, “We’re only here to see Richie’s daughter play in a soccer tournament.”
Richie asked, “Does he want to see you?”
Jesse nodded ‘yes’.
“Give me the phone.”
“Hang on, Kevin!” Muting the phone, “Are you going to be nice?”
“As nice as I possibly can be,” smirked Richie taking the phone and un-muting it. “Kevin, how about meeting us for breakfast at eight at The Cottage in Laguna Beach?”
“Will you be with her?”
"She’s not seeing you alone.”
Kevin was silent for a long moment before saying, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Riche closed her phone and handed it back to Jesse. “We’ll handle this before we go see Ava.”
“Will we have enough time?”
“Yeah.” Richie got out and circled the vehicle to open her door. As she stood in front of him, he smiled, “Beautiful!”
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” she replied, her southern accent plain in her voice. “Richie, I can’t handle you being hateful to Kevin. Like it or not, he is Stevie’s father and at the time, I really liked him.”
“For you, I’ll keep my mouth shut about what I think of him.”
“Thank you,” and she gave him a kiss that was captured by photographers camped out around ‘The Palm’….a celebrity hang-out and an easy spot for tabloids to get the latest scoop.
