Nick and Charlie (an ordinary life)

Chapter 1 - Movie Night (Friday)

"She's left her shoes in the hall again" Charlie says, following me through to the kitchen and taking the snacks they brought into the cupboards and the pizzas into the freezer, ready to be cooked later tonight.

"How many times have we told her not to?" I ask, laughing slightly.

"Too many to count" he says, also laughing. It's not like leaving shoes in the hall is a huge deal to us but, I mean, she does have to learn. Charlie slumps on the kitchen chair and sighs. I can see why. I love Lils with all of my heart and I wouldn't change her for the world but when she's excitable she's very difficult to calm down. I can imagine she's been a lot since she came out of school. No that she gets naughty or intentionally annoying, she just gets overwhelmed with excitement.

I take the seat next to Charlie and grab his hand.

"I'll sort her out later, yeah?" I suggest, more of a question to be honest.

"You do-" but he was cut off when Lil and Daisy came running in.

"We want to play fetch, can we go outside?" she says, sort of jumping from foot to foot in place. Me and Charlie share a look, deciding simultaneously that it's probably for the best as it will tire them both out a bit.

"Come on then" I say, "grab your shoes and a ball" Charlie smiles and Lilly sort of squeals with excitement.

Charlie's POV:

I sat at the kitchen table for a while, just sort of watching them all play fetch outside. I would've gone to play too if it wasn't February and absolutely freezing. I watch my babies, Daisy and Lily, as they laugh and get chased around the garden by Nick. I love them all so, so much. They're the perfect family. My perfect family.

I glance at my phone screen to check the time, 5:37. Where did all that time go? I decide it's probably time to start sorting out the food before it's way too late, and plus it is getting darker outside. I knock on the window and signal to Nick that it's probably time to bring the girls in.

"Daddy! Daddy! It was so, so cold out there! I had to get my mittens!" Lils told me as they all came in.

"Luckily someone told you to take them out before we went outside" Nick followed on from her, obviously signalling that it was in fact him who had suggested this.

I placed the pizzas in the oven and turned to Lil, delivering the best news she'd heard all day.

"It's time, Lils" I said, crouching down to her level and looking her straight in the eye. She began grinning from ear to ear and grabbed Nick's hand, pulling him up stairs to get every pillow and blanket in the house. Daisy sat at my feet, smelling the food cooking.

Shortly, Lil is running back down the stairs whilst Nick brings a huge pile of pillows, quilts and blankets that are stacked taller than his forehead. I loved moments like these. They are small but they're perfect and ours. Balancing three plates in my hand, I carried through the pizza's to what looked like, and I promise this is the only way to describe it, a cloud. Every inch of the room seemed to be covered.

"Oh my!" I said, handing everyone their pizza's. Then, we all sat in our assigned (by Lilly) seats and tucked in.

Nicks POV:

After we had finished eating our pizzas, we tucked into the treats Charlie and Lil had brought earlier. Lil brought through the tesco bag that they were already in and chose a movie. It took a while but eventually we decided to watch one on Disney+ we had never seen before. So no, not marvel but pixar. I'm not complaining, it was a nice story about love between two people who shouldn't mix. Also it was sort of loosely based off of a game I used to play in primary school - fire boy and water girl.

As the movie went on, we all snuggled closer. Charlie leaned his head on my left shoulder, slowly falling asleep. He laid his hand across my chest where he held Lilly's hand. Lil was on my right side, I had my arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her closer to me. Daisy laid at my feet on a mountain of discarded pillows and teddies. Occasionally, I lent over to Charlie and gave him a kiss on the forehead, then did the same to Lil. I wanted to stay there like that forever. No that we don't have moments like this all of the time.

The movie finished and Charlie began to stir and eventually wake up from when he'd drifted off.

"Please can we watch something else?" Lilly asked, probably feeling the same way I did, and just wanting to stay there a little bit longer. I thought that watching an 'adult programme' was probably our best bet. This meant Lily still felt included but would get bored and eventually fall asleep so we could just carry her up. Of course, we had to pick a show that wouldn't show anything too serious or traumatising for a 5 year old. I decided gogglebox was a good bet as they usually play the more adultery bits at the end when Lils had drifted off.

"Can we please go to bed now?" Lilly asked about half way through the show.

"Yeah of course" I say quietly, not wanting to wake Charlie. I slowly squeeze out of the gap, resting Charlie's head on a pillow. I couldn't help but run my hand through his hair and kiss his head quickly before scooping up Lil and carrying her upstairs.

"Can I come in you and daddy's bed?" she asked, rubbing her eyes, clearly trying to stay awake. As I held her like this I remembered when she was only a tiny baby and she would lay babbling in my arms everyday. Now she's too big to carry around everywhere. It's sad really.

"I don't see why not", so I change direction and take her to mine and Charlie's room. She's a;ready in her pyjamas so we don't have to worry about that. She clambers onto the bed and pulls the covers over her tiny body. I lay next to her and pulled her close to me. She wraps her tiny hands as far as she can around me (which is only about halfway). We lay there for at least 5 minutes, like that, before I stood up from the bed. Lilly sits up instantly and makes a small sad noise which honestly hurts my heart so much.

"I need to go get daddy" i say, "I'll be right back, i promise"

Charlie's POV:

I woke up to Nick sitting over me running his hands through my hair, the quiet buzz of the TV behind us.

"You finally awake" he chuckles, I sit up and hug him. I think this must take him by surprise because he takes a second to reciprocate the hug and says,

"Someones tired" and he wasn't wrong. I was. However, I also had a headache and my stomach felt a bit off. I brushed it off as being nothing, just being tired. Nick pulled back from the hug and kissed me gently, me still half asleep.

I stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on the bed. Lil laid in between me and Nick. We both snuggled into Lilly and held each other's hands. It's moments like these where I just want time to stop and be frozen there forever. Although we were all really sleepy, we just had a silly conversation about the movie I missed because I had fallen asleep - as usual.

2019 words x