Free Maid to Fit by Rebecca Avery

and talked excitedly
     among themselves. After finishing his plate and dishing out a little bit of food for
     Buck along with filling another china dish with water, Ronnie began cleaning up.
    “We need something different. Every other team there will be using that song. It’s
     been on the charts for weeks!” Addie’s friend Kaitlyn exclaimed.
    They argued for a little longer until Addie asked, “What kind of music do you like,
     Ronnie?”
    “Stuff you’ve never heard of and probably wouldn’t appreciate anyway,” he replied
     as he rinsed dishes and lined them up in the dishwasher.
    “Come on. Who’s your favorite singer?” Addie asked with a laugh.
    The other girls gathered around the counter and proceeded to give him imploring looks.
     Ignoring them, he dished up what was left of the breakfast into a container for Kayla
     and popped it in the fridge.
    “Okay, how about a favorite song then, Sergeant Brown,” Kaitlyn said.
    Didn’t they have something better to do than annoy him?
    They should be gossiping, talking about the football player at school they all thought
     was so cute. That was a conversation he wished he hadn’t overheard. It kind of gave
     him the same feeling he’d had when he’d realized his
parents
did in fact have sex. He was planning on doing a little work in the garage in an
     effort to steer clear of the group of giggling girls.
    Closing the refrigerator door, he turned to the group, who continued to stare at him.
     Sighing, he said, “Ever heard Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary”? Look it up on
     the internet.
That
is a classic.”
    They looked at each other and then back at him. “Never heard of it,” Addie supplied.
    “Let’s go look it up on your laptop, Addie,” Kaitlyn said with a giggle.
    After the girls piled out of the kitchen, with Buck following close behind them, Ronnie
     finished straightening up. Heading out to the garage, he couldn’t help but chuckle
     when he heard the song blasting from the living room.
    That should keep them entertained for a while.
    He had not yet tackled the garage in all the chores he’d done for Kayla. It appeared
     to be some form of storage shed for them rather than a place to park vehicles. This
     was one of the last areas he needed to organize and clean.
    He started with locating the few tools she had and grouping them with some other home
     improvement items like paint. He put them on top of a shelf that ran the length of
     the far wall. Then, eyeing a dust-covered table in the corner that looked like it
     was missing one of the extender boards in the middle, he went over to inspect it.
     He could clean it up, sand it down and then refinish it. They could use a real table
     at the apartment, too, rather than the fold-up card table they were using now. He
     began to rummage around looking for the chairs and was thrilled to find four matching
     ones, though a couple had loose spindles on the back.
    After he’d dug a couple of them out from one end of the garage, the door opened and
     Buck came to check on his progress. Addie was right behind him.
    “Hey, Ronnie, can you come in here for a minute? We need your opinion,” Addie said.
    She stood looking at him and after a moment he realized she was waiting for him to
     come inside right then.
Couldn’t they just wait for Kayla?
He was not a teenager, not a cheerleader and
certainly
not a girl. What could they possibly need with his opinion? Addie truly was like
     a repeat of his younger sisters. Sighing, he set the chair aside and followed her
     and Buck into the house and into the living room, which the girls had rearranged to
     clear out space in the middle.
    Great.
    One of the girls pushed a button on the laptop and then forwarded to the middle of
     the song. She quickly got in line with the other girls and they began doing what he
     could only guess was supposed to be synchronized dance moves.
    What felt like a year and a half later, the song finally ended and he turned