SF Chapter 14: The Bicycle Thief II
After Jay waved goodbye, Daniel turned to Claire.
"Sis, Brenda and I are going to ride to the park up ahead," he said, nodding his head toward the opposite direction from where they had originally been riding.
Claire stayed there, sitting on her bike with her arms crossed, wearing a very judgmental expression.
"Be careful with this one," she warned, pointing at his brother while speaking to Brenda.
Daniel pedaled closer to the girl, ignoring what his sister had just said.
"Don't listen to her," he told Brenda. "She's sometimes crazy. I blame her mother's side." He remarked, catching in the bike's mirror that Claire had turned her head around because she had heard him.
"Watch out, Mom," Luke complained, since she had almost run him over.
Brenda raised an eyebrow, "Oh, she's your half-sister? You don't like your… um-" she asked, but stopped, since she didn't know who his father had been married to.
"Ex-stepmother, or something like that," he helped her. "Also known as my aunt, by blood."
"What?" Brenda laughed in disbelief.
Daniel laughed too. "Yeah, my dad wasn't satisfied with marrying just one of the four sisters, so he ended up marrying another one after divorcing my aunt."
And the two of them rode their bikes toward the park, chatting along the way.
[Daniel Commentary]
Daniel was sitting on the couch at his father's house in Brentwood.
"That day at the mall, after buying a new suit, I ended up stopping by the photo booth where Brenda worked," he remembered.
"I introduced myself, but she said she had a boyfriend." He shrugged. "At least I got a photo in my new suit."
Then he told the rest of the story, "A few days ago, I went to buy another suit - because there's no such thing as too many suits. When I passed by the photo booth, Brenda recognized me and called me over."
"Turns out she had been cheated on by her boyfriend and they broke up," he smirked.
"We made out in the photo booth."
[Commentary Ends]
Brenda and Daniel were kissing, leaning against a tree in the park. Two bicycles were lying on the ground nearby.
Daniel pulled her onto his lap, placed one hand on the back of her head, and deepened the kiss.
"Hey, I don't do that on the first date," she warned after breaking the kiss.
Daniel smirked. "Thank God this is our second, since our first was that time in the photo booth. And if we count from when I first met you, this would be the third."
Brenda rolled her eyes. "You have no shame!"
He pulled her into a few more heated kisses as she wrapped both arms around his neck.
After they broke the kiss, they stayed forehead to forehead. "How about a date tomorrow? There will be an afternoon party near the Malibu beach house where I live."
"I break up with a bastard just to end up in the hands of a player…" she muttered.
"One who will make you forget all about the bastard," Daniel grinned, pulling her into another deep kiss.
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After Daniel and Brenda made out for a while longer in the park, she had to head back home, and he decided to stop by his father's house.
Jay, who had just placed the phone back on the hook, announced to his wife, "Hey, I called that place in Napa and got us upgraded to a villa with a hot tub. So pack whatever you wear in a hot tub."
Gloria made a strange face, then shrugged. "I usually wear nothing when I'm in a hot tub," she mentioned.
Daniel paused his spoon of cereal halfway to his mouth and commented, "Isn't it nice how we're already at that level of intimacy where we can say things like that to each other?" He chuckled lightly.
As for what Gloria had said, he had already developed an immunity to not imagine the scene. He didn't want any stepmother-related issues.
"And whose fault is that?" his father dryly inquired. But then he added, "And my college roommate's wife just had to get a new hip." He laughed mockingly. "Sucker."
"Dad!" his son scolded him. "I'm trying to have breakfast here! Eugh, I don't want to think about old hips!"
[Gloria and Jay Commentary]
The Pritchett couple were sitting on the couch. Jay commented, "Manny's father is taking him to Disneyland for a couple of days, so we're gonna go-"
"To the wine country!" Gloria finished her husband's sentence.
She continued, "We're gonna drink some wine, eat some good food. We would do something like this a lot more often if it weren't for, you know, Manny."
"It's good. He keeps us grounded," Gloria concluded.
"Yeah. Like fog at an airport," Jay said sarcastically.
[Commentary Ends]
"Huh, so the house will be empty for a few days?" Daniel smirked, already thinking about a few things.
Jay groaned. "Just… do it in your own room," he pleaded.
"Hey, I always do that in other people's houses." Seeing his father's expression, he explained, "I've always done it in a bedroom here and at Charlie's house. Only in my and mom's house I am more… free."
"After all, the house my mom is living in is half in my name," he added.
After the divorce, Jay had helped buy the house in Beverly Hills, but half of it was in Daniel's name.
"And I've only done it in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom…" he listed, as if it were completely normal.
His dad groaned again, putting a hand over his face, but Gloria laughed and even commented, "I wasn't that wild when I was young, but I did it once in my parents' bedroom," she confessed.
"You did it in your parents' room?" Daniel grimaced. "What is wrong with you? That's disturbing!"
"Oh, that's disturbing?" Jay couldn't have sounded drier. Then he asked another subject, "What is that Juno thing I hear from your sister about?"
"Ahh, that little tattletale…" Daniel gasped, but then told the truth. "I might be… writing another movie?" he said innocently, raising his left eyebrow just a little.
Gloria happily pinched his cheeks. "My son is such a writer!"
Jay groaned for what felt like the hundredth time, took a deep breath, and stared at his son. "Daniel, Paramount - the studio distributing Mean Girls - is already handling the marketing."
"But Superbad you still need to finish the final part of the script, or production is going to stop soon."
Then he gave his son an ultimatum. "We are not making another movie until we see the financial side of these films - and until you finish the script."
"Don't worry, Dad. It will be. I even made the ending more mellow so it works better commercially," Daniel said confidently, though there was a clear hint of unease in his voice. "Most certainly… probably… possibly… there is a chance…"
"Oh my God, what did I do? If everything goes wrong, I'll have to write a lot more Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson! Will I have to work, like, eight hours a day?"
"The horror!" He made an anguished face.
"It's hard to even want to comfort him when he says things like that…" Gloria deadpanned.
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