Just us- SBI adoption story (Just me and him book 2)

Chapter 2: trampoline park

James' POV:

Luckily, Phil had signed the waiver ahead of time, and approved this with Grian. I didn't know much about the foster system, but Phil was explaining to me the other day that until Tubbo and Tommy were adopted, Grian pretty much had to be clued into everything they were doing: it began to make more sense as to why Phil spends so much of his time on his emails.

Anyway, Phil asked me to come round to hang out with Tommy because he had his therapy session and then a job interview. He also mentioned about how desperate he'd been to take Tommy to a trampoline park and that he was keen to do it before the summer holidays so that it wasn't as busy. Of course, he'd run out of time, but I was happy do to it, knowing I would probably enjoy it too.

It being the first time Tommy had been in my car; I sat with him listening to one of our spotify playlists for a bit so he could adjust to it. Kristin had left a spare seatbelt cover out on the kitchen counter for us, so I also spent far too much time trying to attach it properly. Tommy was laughing at me the whole time: I was thinking about showing him so proper British comedy. It might not be completely age-appropriate for an 11 year old so I would need to mention it to Phil or Kristin first. But I suppose I was also considering the fact that he's going to secondary school in September. If he's not heard at least one 'your mum' joke by then, I think we're going to struggle.

Taskmaster is a good one. Mostly family friendly, but a good way to get used to the people. Then maybe Would I lie to you, or Mock the Week. Although most of Mock the Week is about politics and world news, not sure how much Tommy would enjoy that.

Tommy was being pretty talkative today. He was playing a game on his iPad but kept humming or saying his few words in response to me. We seemed to be back on the up after the police incident.

"Are you excited for school?" He hummed positively, that was his yes. "I'm excited too." I took another turn, stared at the directions on my phone for a few seconds and kept driving. "What are you looking forward to about school then?"

I waited while he typed away, "learning and making friends." 

"Yea, I'm excited for that too. Beau is going there too isn't she." I was yet to meet Tommy's friend but had heard a lot about her from him. "You know who else is going to be there?" He looked at me through the rear view mirror. "Your brothers."

"Tubs." He said looking back at his game.

"Yep, Tubbo, Wilbur and Techno. All three of them!" 

"Yea." He said.

"What did you just say?" He sat back in his seat with a smile. "Oh my god, Tommy did you just say 'yea'?" I was in complete shock, Phil hadn't mentioned he'd learnt how to say it. "That's amazing Tom, well done!" I paused briefly, just gauging his reaction to Tom. I'd been told not to use Thomas, but I'd heard nothing about 'Tom'. It had slipped out, and I relaxed after he just smiled back at me. "You are amazing!" Again, he just smiled back.

Time skip:

"Here you go, you've got to put these socks, on they've got grippy bits, you see?" I sat us both down on a nearby bench. We'd done a pre-bounce toilet trip and watched the required safety video so now we were ready to get out on the trampolines. I took his backpack from him and set it down with mine. I'd take our water bottles through with us, along with his ear defenders but other than that, our stuff would be going into a locker. "Can you start taking your shoes off please?" He looked up at me, looked past me slightly but didn't actually do anything. "Would you like some help?" He nodded.

I crouched down, undoing the velcro on his shoes. His feet were getting small for them now: he's been growing so quickly. "Do you want to try now?" He shook his head. "What's up? Can I help?" He reached for my hand. "Is it a bit too much?" He shrugged his shoulders, when he was overwhelmed, that was normally a yes. "Would you like your ear defenders? Or to listen to some music?" I held out a hand for each option.