Page 43 of DadBod

“No.” She leans in closer, and since she’s about my height, I’d say we were eye to eye. “I’m not.”

I lean in a bit too. “Yes, you are.”

“You can’t make me.”

“I can’t force you, but I can do things that will make your life…” I look around her room. “… less ideal.”

“My life isn’t ideal,” she snaps. But it quiets some. “My life sucks.”

She’s talking about her mom. “I know.”

“No. You don’t have a fucking clue.” The mean, angry girl is back.

I’m not going to stand here and go back and forth with her. I turn to go back the way I came. “You’re going with us. Get dressed.”

“No. I’m not.”

At her door, I turn and sigh. “Fine. If you’re not going, I’ve got a list of chores you’ll need to do while we’re gone.”

“Why would I need to do chores?” She says the word like it’s poop. “That’s Mary’s job.”

I learned that they’ve got a cleaning person, Mary, that comes in once a week to do their laundry, clean their bathrooms, and scrubs down the kitchen. She also mops and vacuums, among other things.

Lucky ducks.

“Well, this is deep cleaning stuff. Things Mary doesn’t do.” I point to her bedroom. “I’m adding your bedroom to the list.”

“I’m not gonna do it.”

I sigh again, this time much more dramatically. “You don’t want to force my hand on this, Ryann.”

She blinks. Thinking, I assume.

“I’m not doing chores.”

“If you don’t go with us, then, yes, you’re doing chores.”

“No.”

“Fine. You’ve left me no choice.” I pull my phone out of my back pocket and hit Rome’s number. He knew this was coming. We talked about it. He picks up right away. I put him on speaker so Ryann can hear. “Hey, Rome. I’m standing in Ryann’s bedroom, which is a mess, by the way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She refuses to go with Cal and me; I told her about her chore list.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s not going to clean.”

Rome sighs like I just did. “Okay.” He pauses. “I’ll call the cell phone company.”

Ryann, who is now lounging on her bed like the queen of Sheba, hears that and explodes. “What?”

I need to keep this going. “How long will it take them to turn it off?”

“A matter of minutes.”

I look up at his eldest. “You’ve only got two choices. Either come with us or clean. If you chose neither, you lose your cell phone.”

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