Reincarnated

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ⓡⓔⓘⓝⓒⓐⓡⓝⓐⓣⓔⓓ: ⓒⓗⓐⓟⓣⓔⓡ ⓝⓘⓝⓔⓣⓔⓔⓝ

~The Next Morning~

~Arlie P.O.V.~

I walked into the small diner with Joel walking right in front of me. He looked up at me as if waiting for me to tell him where to go but his eyes caught Amber and he ran as best as he could to her with nothing but a smile on his face.

"I told you I'd bring him." I said slipping into the opposite booth as she picked him up and smothered him with kisses.

"I didn't think you wouldn't." She said. "Are you going to order anything?"

"I'm just gonna get a coffee and that's it. Did you already order?" She shook her head. "Well I'll buy and he needs to eat still."

"You seem happier." She said dropping her now dull eyes from mine to look at Joel, who was more fascinated in her dangling earrings than her.

"Well I'm not gonna sit and mope over b.s like I did in the past. It got me no where and I have nothin' to my name that should make me upset." I said straight to it. "How have you been?"

"Been missing Joel."

"I didn't want you just taking off with Joel. I wasn't going to keep him from you for the record." I watched as her tattooed embroidered hand gently caressed Joel's cheek, putting a bubbling smile on his face even more than before and a small squeal. "You can take him back with you if you promise you're not going to run off."

"I won't. I just want him with me and he better not have been around Heather-"

"It's too early to even start an argument, so for the sake of all that is good and holy, trust me when I say Heather hasn't been around Joel and Joel has no idea who Heather even is. We're not here to talk about Heather. We're talking about Joel, us, our status, and how this is all going to work." The waitress approached us and I told her what I wanted after Amber ordered for herself and Joel.

"Are you sure you don't want anything else?" She said looking down at me as she bit the top of her pen.

"Just a coffee is all I need." I simply said. She nodded her head and continued on her way back to the kitchen doors, where she disappeared. "I don't want us taking our situation to court. I vote we keep things the way they are, as far as your working arrangement goes as long as you promise not to move out of Oakland."

"And what about Joel?"

"We'll just have to alternate for now. I can take him on weekends since you work more on weekends and you can have him during the week. We could start off with that?"

"Alright. That's fair. You can have him on Monday's if you want too." I nodded without hesitation.

"No more bringing up Heather and I promise she won't be anywhere near Joel." I said reassuringly. I never had any intentions to begin with but as far as Amber's concerned, she could care less about what my intentions were.

"Where was Joel anyways?"

"With Aldo." I said with a small laugh. "I thought you'd eventually go to him-"

"I forgot Aldo was in Oakland but did you hear about Sweets?" A more cheerful tone was in her voice which was a nice break from all the venom it generally had.

"Yeah, I went yesterday night to go see. Varo was acting a fool like usual throughout the hospital but Junior is cute." He reminded me of just a loaf of pudge.

"I was going to wait till they got home and then go see. Nelle was texting me the whole time she was there." The waitress came back with our orders and set them down in front of us. Joel was sitting up on the table and reaching over to Amber's scrambled eggs.