Free Maid to Fit by Rebecca Avery Page B

out how to run in sync.
    It was a start.
    He was rather impressed that they had figured it out so quickly. Once they were out
     of sight, he headed back into the garage and looked for anything he could use to fix
     the chairs. Finding nothing, he called Rusty.
    By the time he explained his find and what tools he would need to borrow, the girls
     and Buck had made it back and were starting their second lap. They were still jogging
     in sync and smiling like they were proud of themselves.
    The chances of them being satisfied by learning to line up and run in sync were slim.
     So after hanging up with Rusty, Ronnie headed back inside to play the video so he
     could at least pretend he knew what he was talking about.
    When they made it back from their second lap he was waiting for them with his arms
     across his chest. They reformed their lines facing him. Having brought the laptop
     back out with him, he played the beginning of the video and pointed at the screen.
    “Learn to do this together, just like the jogging,” he said.
    He sat in the other chair near the laptop and Buck lay down next to him. He watched
     the girls attempt to synchronize their movements. After the third time he got up and
     said, “You girls need a big mirror so you can see yourselves.”
    “My parents have a big mirror in their bathroom, maybe we could practice at my house
     tomorrow, after regular practice,” Kaitlyn said to the group.
    The girls all agreed to go to Kaitlyn’s the following day. He shut off the laptop
     and was about to take it inside when they started running and doing flips. He stopped.
     “If you can’t do those flips together, at the same time and land in formation, then
     don’t do them.”
    They looked at each other and then back at him like he was crazy. As he headed into
     the house, he smiled. They wouldn’t be asking him for
cheerleading
help anymore.
    He worked on picking up the main floor and making sure Kayla wouldn’t notice they
     had used her expensive living room as a jungle gym. Then he headed down to the basement
     and cringed at the mess they’d made.
    Weren’t girls supposed to be neat?
    He headed back outside to tell them to pick up the mess in the basement before their
     parents came to get them but stopped in his tracks when Kaitlyn counted off. All the
     girls ran in formation and did some sort of cartwheel type flip and landed in a fairly
     straight line.
    Deciding against drawing attention to himself since they were actually doing what
     he had
coached
them to do, he headed back downstairs to the basement and started cleaning up. A
     bit later Addie came downstairs and told him that her friends’ parents had picked
     up all of them. She helped him with the last of the mess and then said, “If I come
     up with a cheer routine on my own, will you tell me if it’s good?”
    “If it means that much to you, then yes. I’ll tell you honestly if it’s good or not,”
     he said.
    Why she wanted his opinion he wasn’t sure, since he knew next to nothing about cheerleading,
     or dancing for that matter, but he would give her his thoughts on whatever she came
     up with. Much like with his sisters, he was starting to realize there wasn’t much
     he wouldn’t do for Addie if she asked. She was a cool kid, as were most of her friends.
    “Our school has never placed at this competition, so yeah, it does mean that much
     to me,” she said. She walked up the stairs. “I’m going to get a shower. Mom should
     be home soon.”
    “Well, I’m going to take off since your friends are gone. I don’t want your mom to
     pass out in fear of Buck again,” he said.
    Addie stopped her ascent, her whole body tensing up. “Oh, no, I forgot about that,”
     she said quietly.
    “I know you have a lot going on right now with school and cheerleading but so does
     your mom. Don’t get so busy you forget the important things,” he said. She looked
     back at him with a confused expression on her face. “Forgetting