Serendipity
(a 'He looked at the clock and sighed..' challenge)
By
Disclaimer: Roy's mine! All mine! And I'm keeping him forever. I'm keeping Johnny too, but I'll let him out to forage for plot bunnies every now and again. :D (Chet's up for grabs, though. :P)
He looked at the clock and sighed. Late afternoon sun shone on the church steeple brickwork, throwing the ornate black hands into sharp relief as they moved inexorably towards 6:30. Gavin's eyes roamed around the park, taking in the bustle and excitement of the fire department picnic. He was both hoping for and dreading the sight of the pretty blonde teenager who'd stolen his heart, but instead he found himself looking, again, at the tall, dark man who'd become the bane of his existence. The fire captain was laughing with some of his men as he tended the barbecue grill but he looked up as if he sensed Gavin's gaze. He met his eyes and frowned at him again.
Gavin sighed again.
"Problem?"
The seventeen-year- old looked up as a strange man carrying a bottle of soda pop dropped down onto the picnic bench across the table from him. The stranger was a tall man with thinning blond hair and bright blue eyes. There was something kindly about his manner and Gavin felt that he had found a confidante.
"I'm just waiting for the world to end," he sighed.
"Not in the next few minutes, I hope!" the stranger grinned.
"Might as well. My world anyway."
"That bad, huh? What seems to be the problem?"
"I met the most beautiful girl," Gavin said.
"Ah. Women troubles. Tell me all about it."
Gavin shrugged. "Her name is Jennie. She's a sophomore at my high school. My family just moved here, so I only just transferred to this school," he explained. "I asked her to go to the movies with me and she agreed . . . but only if her dad says it's okay. I came to the picnic today to meet him -- he's a fireman, a captain. That's him over there. I was supposed to get acquainted with him and ask him if I can take her to the movies, and I was supposed to do it by six thirty tonight, so if he said yes we could make the seven o'clock show."
Gavin's new friend was looking at him oddly. He glanced over at the man Gavin had identified as Jennie's father and found him glaring in their direction. "How did you figure out that that's her father?" he asked.
"Oh, that was simple. I was here before she got here and when she showed up she ran up to him and he hugged her and called her his little angel."
"I see." The stranger bit his lip. He was obviously keeping a straight face only with difficulty. His eyes danced. "So why the long face? I know he looks scary, but he really isn't."
"Yeah, that's what you think. You're not wanting to date his daughter."
"Well, did you introduce yourself to him?"
"Oh, yeah!" Gavin slunk down, covering his head with his arms and wishing he could sink into the picnic table. "I was trying to make a good impression on him. I told him I was thinking about being a firefighter when I get out of school. And, I mean, I might, you know. The thing is, I kind of just said it on the spur of the moment. So then he started asking me stuff and I really didn't know anything about firefighting so I looked like an idiot. Then I noticed that he had finished his soda, so I thought I'd be helpful and get him another one. Only he bent down to get one out of the cooler at the same time I did and we smacked our heads together. Then I got too close to the grill and," he held up a charred sleeve, "I caught myself on fire."
His new friend leaned forward, concerned. "Did you burn yourself?"
"No, only my shirt and my pride. By that time I could tell that Jennie's dad had totally decided I was an idiot. I tried to salvage things by telling him he had a beautiful daughter and he gave me this look." They turned to regard the dark-haired fireman. He was glaring in their direction, frowning fiercely with one eyebrow raised and one eyebrow lowered. "That look," Gavin sighed. "Now he'll never let me go out with her. And any minute she's going to show up and find out that I haven't even worked up the courage to ask him!"
The stranger took a swig of soda. "Maybe she'll go out with you anyway," he suggested, carefully casual.
Gavin sighed again and shook his head. "Not Jennie. She adores her dad. If he thinks I'm a loser, she'll think I'm a loser."
Behind his soda pop the stranger smiled to himself. "She must be quite a girl," he observed, "for you to be so bummed about it."
"Oh, she's wonderful! She's beautiful and smart and funny and sweet! It's just that, well, her dad and I don't have anything in common, I guess."
"Well, I can think of one thing you have in common."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. You both think Jennie's a wonderful girl."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Somehow, I don't think that's going to save me, though." Gavin looked up and suppressed a groan as the object of his affection strolled up, grinning.
Jennie circled the picnic table and planted herself in the stranger's lap. "Well, what do you think?" she asked him, both of them regarding Gavin critically.
Gavin gulped. Seeing them together the family resemblance was plain -- the same bone structure, the same reddish-blond hair, the same laughing blue eyes.
"Well, I don't know," Roy DeSoto said. "What movie were you planning to go see?"
Jennie looked to Gavin questioningly. "Uh, Return of the Jedi," he managed to stammer.
"I reckon that'd be okay. Be sure to have her home by ten."
Relief and elation washed through Gavin. He grabbed Captain DeSoto's hand and pumped it. "Yes, sir! I will, sir! Thank you, sir!" When he tried to pull his hand away, though, Jennie's dad held onto it long enough to point out the charred sleeve to her.
"Better keep an eye on him, Sweetheart. Seems he's a little accident prone."
Gavin flushed dark red but Jennie only laughed. "It's okay," she told him kindly. "My family has a lot of experience with people who are accident prone. Which reminds me, we should stop on our way out so I can introduce you to my uncle Johnny."
"They've met," her father grinned.
"Oh. Do we need to call Rampart?"
"Not this time."
Laughing, Jennie leaned down and kissed her dad, then the young couple left the park for the movie theater.
#-#-#-#-
When Jennie and her new boyfriend had gone, Roy got up and went over to where John Gage was still manning the barbecue grill. Johnny glared at him.
"You gonna let that boy take her out?" he demanded without preamble.
"Sure, why not? He seems like a nice boy."
"Nice boy? NICE BOY? Roy, he's a nut! Not to mention he's also a klutz!"
"Yeah, well," Roy's grin turned wicked, "DeSotos have a well-established affinity for nuts. Especially the klutzy ones."
Johnny looked down his nose at his best friend. "Ha ha, very funny," he said sarcastically.
"Yeah, I thought so," Roy agreed. "By the way, Junior, your shirt's on fire."
The End.