You Do What You Have To Do
Chapter 68=20
By: Tee and Danielle
(C) by us too.=20
Standard death threats and disclaimers apply.
****************************************************

For the Bob Vila crack, Howie got a smack on the back of the head from 
Kevin and the sight of me nearly falling over in laughter.

When I managed to stop laughing, I had Kevin keep an eye on the dog and 
went inside to fill his water bowl.  I grabbed a few cokes on the way 
out and made my way back outside. 

When I set the bowl of water down in front of the dog, I realized it was 
almost comically large for him.   He could have curled up and gone to 
sleep inside of it.  As it was, I had to keep an eye on him when he went 
to drink from it, half afraid he was going to drown himself. 

I tossed Kevin and D their cokes while they filled me in on plans for 
Casa Doggie.  When they were done, the three of us got to work on the 
dog house.  I would love to say it all went smoothly and the dog house 
was up within an hour, but.... Let's just put it this way.  How many of 
us were building that doghouse? Three.  How many Stooges were there? 
Three.  Coincidence? I think not.

I thought I'd heard every swear word there was, but apparently there 
were a few yet to be heard by me, because every time Kevin or Howie 
banged a finger with the hammer, a word more colorful than the last came 
out of their mouth.  When Kevin muttered something about shit covered 
fuck buckets...on a stick no less, I put my foot down.  I reached up and 
grabbed his shoulders, pulling him to me with a yelp from him.  I nailed 
him with a kiss that pretty much shocked him into just staring at me, 
out of breath, when I pulled away.

With my forehead against his, I put one hand around the back of his
neck, keeping him held against me. "You are a father now. The potty 
mouth has to go.  Having your son go back to his moms talking about shit 
covered fuck buckets on a stick is not gonna impress them a whole lot."

I let him go and he looked down at his feet, nodding his head. I heard a 
snort of laughter and looked up to see Howie trying to stop himself from 
letting go and rolling on the ground.  I raised an eyebrow at him and he 
smiled, "When did you grow up, Nicky?  For a second there, I thought you 
had morphed into Kevin."

I laughed and shook my head, "Nah, that's just too scary of a thought."

"HEY!"

I laughed at Kevin's shocked face and then he decided to pout.  Rolling 
my eyes at him, I pulled his protruding bottom lip and kept ahold of it. 
"It may work for a three year old Kevin, but I have younger brothers and 
sisters, there is not a pouty face in the world that will work on me."

He gave me the puppy dog eyes "I sowwy. Wet go of mah wip pwease?"

Howie and I laughed at how funny he was talking with me holding his lip 
and got ready to run.  I let go of his lip and took off, knowing I was 
going to get the tar whupped out of me for holding his lip like that.

Howie's whoop let me know I was right.  He was telling me to run like 
the wind and for once I was going to take his advice.  Even the dog's 
barks were sounding like he was rooting for me to get away. 

I could feel Kevin gaining on me as I ran and next thing I knew I was 
kissing the dirt.  Kevin was tickling me so bad that I was laughing too 
hard to even try to slap his hands away. Hell, I was having problems 
even getting my breath.

He kept tickling me and looked up at Howie, "Should I?" 

I groaned and tried to stop my laughing long enough to talk, 
"Should...you...wh...what?"

With a nod from Howie, he grabbed me from the ground by pulling me up by 
my hands.

"Jeez, about time!.  Next time you wanna tickle me until I actually piss 
myself?"

He gave me a short laugh and Howie shook his head, "Oh Nicky, now you 
are in for it."

I went to look at him, but ended up yelping as Kevin grabbed me and 
threw me over his shoulder like a sack of cement.  I could feel him
running towards something and Howie pretty much on the ground laughing.

Kevin spun me around a few times when he stopped running and I saw a 
swirl of blue before the green of the grass came around again. Shit! 
Pool!  I wrapped my arms around Kevin's torso and tried to grab my legs 
so if he was doing what I thought he was doing, he was coming with me or 
having one hell of a time trying to get me off of him.

Kevin stopped at the edge of the pool and went to toss me in, but there 
was no way I was going. I was wrapped around him like a human tortilla 
and I wasn't budging.  He tried pulling me off and when that didn't 
work, pushing at me.  Then he hopped around and spun.  I smirked, still 
didn't work at getting me off.

"Ah hell!"

I figured he was giving up, but a second later he had hurled the both of 
us into the pool. 

When we surfaced, Howie was beside the pool laughing his fool head off. 
"Uh Kev?  Wasn't the whole point to get Nicky into the pool and not 
you?"

Kevin came up behind me in the pool and wrapped his arms around me, 
"Tell that to pretzel boy.  Did you see that move? I couldn't shake
him!"

I grinned, "That was an Aaron original, remind me to thank him.  He did 
that the last time I tried to put him into the pool."

Kevin laughed behind me ran his fingers through my wet hair, "I knew you 
weren't clever enough to come up with that one on your own. Aaron on the 
other hand.....oomph!"

I smacked him in the gut with my elbow and dunked him under the water.  
When he resurfaced, I was already halfway out of the pool, "You and 
Howie may want to finish that doghouse, Kev.  Cause right now you are 
sooooo in it."

He looked worried until I grinned cheesily and laughed like an mad 
scientist all the way into the house. When I came back out he was out of 
the pool and I threw him a towel.  He took it and started to dry off.  I 
looked at Howie, "You staying for dinner, D?"

He shook his head and looked at his watch, "Actually, mark the calendar 
boys, I actually got plans." 

"With an actual other person?"

I ducked immediately and missed the hand that was going for the back of 
my head.  Howie glared at me instead, "Yes, with an actual other 
person!"

Kevin and I both laughed and Howie rolled his eyes, "Speaking of, I have 
to get going if I'm going to be ready.  And you two have to get your 
dinner started, it's already six."

Kevin and I both looked at each other and then at our watches.  D was 
right. They were going to be here in a half hour! We saw D out and then 
ran to the kitchen to get started on things. 

Thankfully, Kev already had the steaks marinating, so that was taken
care of. All we had to do was slap them on a grill and we were laughin'. 
  I was put on salad duty while Kevin did some sort of thing with 
potatoes. When I finished the salad, he shooed me upstairs to have a 
shower and get ready.  I took the quickest one in history and came back 
down and sent him up, starting up the grill without taking off my 
eyebrows, thank you very much.

I went back into the kitchen to hear Kevin coming down the stairs just 
as the doorbell rang.  I met Kevin at the end of the stairs and let him 
go greet them. 

As soon as the door was opened, a little blonde rocket came at Kevin, 
leaping into his arms, "Daddy!"  Kevin looked up, shocked, as Dylan 
hugged his neck tightly.  Melinda and Sam smiled, "We told him.  He 
knows that you are his Daddy." 

The smile on Kevin's face was almost blinding.  He hugged the little boy 
in his arms tightly and I watched on with what was probably a goofy grin 
on my face.

When Dylan let him go, Kevin put his son down and to my surprise Dylan 
ran to me next. "Daddy Nick!"

Okay, my heart just melted right there. I crouched down and Dylan ran 
into my arms and gave me a hug.  I looked at Sam and she grinned, "Well 
since you are marrying Kevin, that makes you Dylan's Dad too.  Even 
teams this way." 

I laughed and messed up Dylan's hair. "Hey Buddy, we have a surprise for 
you!"  Kevin smiled and brought Sam and Melinda into the house and 
brought them to the living room. 

Dylan was just going nuts asking what his surprise was.   Kevin left the 
room and came back with something in his arms and a towel thrown over it 
so it couldn't be seen.  He crouched  down before Dylan and had him pull 
the towel off. 

When that little kid saw the puppy in Kevin's arms, he just stood there 
looking at it with his eyes so wide that I thought they were going to 
fall out of his head. The dog jumped in Dylan's lap and crawled up so he 
could lick Dylan's face. That seemed to snap the little boy out of it 
and he hugged the puppy laughing at how much his tongue tickled. 

When Sam and Melinda saw the dog, they both came out with the same 
thing. "Awwwwww!" and then when they saw the dog bounding around Dylan, 
"He's bow legged!"

I laughed at their reactions, "Well, nobody's perfect.  It's a miracle 
this little guy is here, he had quite the rough start.  He kinda 
reminded me of Kevin and I."

"Daddy!"

Kevin looked down at Dylan and smiled, "Yes, Little Man?"

Dylan was petting the dog as the creature squirmed around, trying to get 
Dylan to rub his tummy, "What's his name?"

Kevin laughed at the dog squirming around, "Well he's your dog, so we 
thought you should name him."

Dylan looked at dog and clapped his hands, "His name is Max!"

Melinda shook her head, "Dylan, you already have a pet named Max. You'll 
have to pick something else."

Dylan shook his head and looked up at his mom with those big, green 
eyes, "Mommy! That's Max THE CAT this is Max THE DOG."

We all laughed and figured why argue with the logic? So, Max the dog, 
was officially named. 

After that we gathered everyone and brought them out onto the back deck. 
 Dylan saw the dog house in the back yard, half done, and ran to check 
it out, dragging Kevin behind him.

While they were doing that, I turned to Sam and Melinda and hugged them 
both, "Thank you."

They both smiled and I looked at the sight of Kevin and Dylan together, 
"You have made him happier than I've ever seen him before.  I owe you 
everything for that."

Sam hugged me, "We couldn't ask for a better man for Dylan to have as a 
father.  The two of you together are going to be magic with him, we can 
just tell.   You two were all he could talk about when we came home from 
here last time. It was Nick this and Kevin that.  I think that somewhere 
deep down he knew exactly what was going on."

I grinned, "Well I know from watching my little brother and sisters that 
kids are way smarter than we adults give them credit for. 

Kevin and Dylan came back on the patio with a wooden board and Kev put 
it on the table and he and Dylan went into the house without another 
word to any of us.  They came back out with what looked like a bucket of 
brand new markers and Kevin opened it for Dylan spilling them out on the 
table and the little guy sat at the table and started drawing on the 
piece of wood. 

We all were trying to figure out what was going on and Kevin looked up 
to see us all watching him, "Well, we need a name on the dog house, 
don't we?"

We all laughed and sat at the table too, grabbing a marker and helping 
to make the new name board for Max who ran around the table waiting to 
see his first name tag.

I leaned my chin on my hand and watched everyone.  Things were finally 
starting to look up in our lives and for me it wasn't a moment too soon. 
 We were moving on from all the tragedy and it was the best feeling in 
the world.