Blinded by Limerence

82 | A Mess of Things

It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was shining, the birds chirping; the sky was clear, cloudless, and slightly sultry, despite the season they were in. 

Morgan stood out on the pavement, waiting. Her wristwatch told her that she wouldn't have to wait much longer; it was a few minutes to three.

As if on cue, Morgan could just make out the little outline of her Nicky, racing towards her with the biggest smile on his face. Beaming, Morgan caught him in her arms, twirled him around in the air, and set him down. 

"Good day at school?" she asked him, smiling.

"You betcha!" Nick beamed, flashing his mom a toothy grin. "We made art with vegetables — I think the teachers called it vegetable print — and if you ask me, that's a way better use of them than eating them — blech —" he made a throwing up motion by sticking his two fingers in his throat before continuing excitedly "— and they had to cancel naptime because Lewis Howlter got carrot slices stuck in his nostrils and couldn't breathe — so we got extra playground time —"

"Sounds like you've had quite the day," Morgan chuckled, patting down Nick's bangs. "Extra playground time — does that mean you won't want to stay a bit longer to play on the swings?"

It was a weekly treat Morgan would allow Nick, staying after school every Friday to play with his friends. There was a playground across the road, one that was much bigger than the one they had at school, one with taller, more twisting slides and shinier swings and monkey bars. 

Nick looked highly affronted. "Of course not!" he gasped defiantly. "Lexi's already waiting for me down by the sandbox!" 

Morgan laughed before taking Nick's much smaller hand into hers, crossing the car-less street, and reaching the big playground that stood opposite the school.

Spotting Lexi indeed by the sandbox, excitedly waving Nick over, the latter slipped out of his mother's grasp smoothly and wordlessly and ran off to play with his friend. Morgan stood there, arms crossed over her chest, smiling stupidly at her son's zest in life, and had just began to look around the area for a vacant bench when she saw, a few feet away from her, the outline of a man who looked oddly familiar. 

It was a weird thing to say, an outline being familiar... but something about the way this man stood, the way he was dressed, and just the overall aura he was radiating was eerily familiar to Morgan...

He was with a little girl who seemed to be around Nick's age, and her golden locks were in his big hands as he tried to maneuver his fingers to tie the hair into a simple braid. A wide grin was plastered across the child's face as she flicked this man's forehead; she seemed to be teasing his braiding skills. The man, in turn, picked her up, tossed her in the air before swiftly catching her, and, yelling, "Here comes the claw!", tickled her mercilessly with his right hand until she was on the pavement, laughing her heart out.

It was a beautiful sound, children's laughter, and there was no better place to hear that than a big playground. 

Morgan squinted, even took a step closer to the scene, but decided against approaching and ultimately seeming like a creepy stranger; instead, she found an empty bench opposite them and strode in that direction. 

She had just sat down for a few silent minutes (if you don't count the distant exclaims of joy and fun from the children in the playground — there can't've been more than five or six of them and a few parents scattered across, looking after them) when a shadow fell across her. She looked up to see a very bleary-eyed man, moping his sweaty face and smiling tentatively down at her.

"How'd you find me?" Morgan asked plainly.

"Addie told me."

Archer Hastings sat down next to Morgan, keeping about a two-feet distance between them. Morgan turned to face him, meeting the gray eyes she'd spent so much time getting lost in in her youth, and raised a quizzical eyebrow.