Always Us

night interrupted

"Um, I didn't really think this through," he admitted. "I was thinking we could come up with something together."

"Really?" she shot him a look over her shoulder before turning back around to find the little boy playing with her makeup. "Hey! Careful with that," she scrambled to get his chubby fingers away from her eye shadows.

"Here, I'll take him," Spencer rushed to relieve her of the toddler. His new friend wasn't making a very good first impression.

"He's going to need dinner," Olivia pointed out as she closed the palettes. "Did he at least come with food?"

"Um, not really. I can go run to the store real quick and grab him something," Spencer suggested.

"No, you stay here. I'll run to the store," she stated firmly.

"You're going to go to the store like that?" He questioned, eyeing her form-fitting dress.

"You crossed the entire campus in that tight shirt carrying an adorable two year old in your arms," she picked up the keys from her desk. "And I know you're too nice to not have smiled back at all the women who probably stopped you on the way."

He stayed silent as she switched from her heels to more sensible footwear.

"I'll be good."

Once Olivia was out the door, Spencer set Marco down and pulled out his phone to do some research.

"It's just you and me buddy," Spencer said as he opened the Safari app. He didn't get a response, but kept typing into google.

Is it normal for a two year old to not talk?

After clicking through a few conflicting articles, he realized he hadn't heard any movement in the past few minutes.

"Marco," Spencer called as he looked up from his phone.

Nothing.

"Marco?" Spencer stepped out into the common area. Looking around, he started moving chairs and lifting couch pillows. The panic started to settle in as he ran out of places to check. How far could a toddler go?

After checking all the common areas and doing a second sweep of Olivia's room, Spencer stood in front of her roommate's bedroom door. He was pretty sure going inside would violate approximately three different boyfriend codes, but he was desperate.

"Ow."

Spencer heard the tiny voice coming from Olivia's room and thanked every God out there.

"Marco, where are you?" Spencer rushed back into Olivia's room to find him crawling out from under the bed, his hand rubbing the top of his head, leaving streaks of glittery blues and greens in his hair.

"No, no, no," Spencer bent down to pick up the toddler. "Remember, we said no makeup."

"Cakeup," the little boy smiled back at him, wiping his hand down Spencer's cheek.

Sighing, Spencer reached down and grabbed the makeup off the floor. After everything was back in its relative place, he sat in the living room and turned on Cocomelon, holding Marco in his lap until Olivia got back.

"What's on your face?" Olivia stared at him as she walked back into the dorm.

"Marco got into your makeup, but I swear I saved it before any real damage was done."

"Cakeup," the toddler chirped from his spot curled up against Spencer's chest. Olivia just smiled back at scene of her football player boyfriend cuddled up with a toddler.

"How much food did you get, woman?" Spencer counted the bags as she set them on the coffee table.

"I don't know what two year olds eat," she gave him a helpless look, "so I got a little bit of everything." She could feel Spencer's gaze as she continued to pulled out several pints of ice cream, "and a variety of ice creams for me."