Locked Eyes

13. Genevieve

January and almost all of February have gone by in a whirlwind, we all hardly had time to get together but that didn't necessarily stop Sebastian and I's nightly FaceTime calls, we had to stop doing it nightly and moved from a couple of times a night if I weren't working one of my two jobs.

February is one of the worst months at the daycare, every kid seems to have a cold and they don't necessarily turn away when they sneeze, which is totally unfortunate for me.

"Can you sneeze any louder?" Jaiden sighs. We've been in a private study room, the others are expected to join us.

"Cruel," I grumble and he smiles.

"You sick?" He asks me glancing away from his laptop.

"How did you figure that one out?" I tilt my head and he smiles. "I'm getting over one, one of the kids at my daycare sneezed right in my face."

Jaiden laughs just as the door opens, "we brought lunch," Maverick announces, "we also heard you laughing from outside the door you monk."

I laugh as I rub my nose with the sleeve of my hoodie, I turn in my seat as Sebastian sits down beside me "I fucking got ham croissant and soup," he tells me.

"Soup?" I ask him as he lays out our shared lunch.

"Imogen texted me, she said you were fucking sick."

I dramatically gasp putting a hand to my heart "I'm not sick."

Jaiden makes a buzzer noise "wrong."

I roll my eyes but take the take-out soup bowl gratefully from Sebastian "thank you," I smile at him and he lifts a shoulder. I quickly snap a picture of our spread, careful not to have anyone's faces in it but I did get Sebastian's hand so I tag him and make sure no one can find it.

"How'd you get sick?" Maverick asks me as I close my laptop, my notes can wait while I eat because for once I'm actually hungry, I blame my sick stomach.

"Germs," I respond in a duh tone, Jaiden chuckles into his water bottle. "Some kid at the daycare sneezed on me."

"I'm sorry what?" Sebastian asks handing me a spoon, the ham croissant was already cut in two and I smile as he picks up one of the halves.

I hum "yup, sneezed right on my face. The biggest recipe for a cold," I shrug like it's no big deal because well with kids, it's not.

"That's fucking disgusting," Maverick tells me and I shrug.

"I love kids, I want to go into pediatrics," I tell them.

"You know who hates kids," Jaiden stifles a laugh, I raise an eyebrow taking a spoonful of my tomato soup, he even got my favorite soup. "Bash," Jaiden laughs.

"Fucking A, I don't hate kids, I tolerate you," Sebastian says.

"Burn," Mavericks responds.

"Kids are kind of a required taste I guess is the right phrase. Maybe you'll like kids when they're your own," I tell Sebastian with a shrug.

"I highly doubt I'm having kids, being alcoholic is genetic. Rhett had problems and so do I, Penny stays away from alcohol period," Sebastian tells us.

I nod slowly, that's true in some cases. Children of alcoholics have a twofold to a fourfold increased chance of struggling with alcohol abuse later in life, learned that in school.

"That makes sense, especially considering the hell you've been through, who would want to go through that," I nod.

"Do you want kids?" Jaiden asks me.