What Are The Odds?

one

"Liam! Breakfast is ready, hurry up before you're late!" Harry shouts up the stairs as he places the food on the table as well as the lunch bag Liam will be taking to school. A few seconds later and a messily dressed Liam is running down the stairs and immediately begins to eat the plate of eggs and sausage.

"Could you not brush your hair?" Harry says with a sigh as he walks behind the boy to fix his hair a bit.

"Dad, it looks fine stop," Liam huffs as he stuffs another mouthful into his mouth, however, Harry just continues to play around with until he doesn't look like a total bum. "By the way dad, I need you to sign this paper for me," Liam says as he pulls out a paper.

"What is it?" Harry asks as he grabs ahold of his glasses and the paper. The man begins to read over the paper, first noticing the phrase Service Hours at the top, and he feels his heart flutter a bit at the thought of Liam deciding to help others. However, that thought is put away when he continues to read down the sheet and saw that Liam had written Served at St. Mary's Hospital for a hundred hours.

"Liam, you've never worked a single hour at my hospital," Harry says with a raised brow and Liam finally stops eating for a second to take a sip of water.

"I know, but I need to have that many hours done for University of Manchester to consider me for a scholarship. So can you just sign it off?"

Now Liam is used to getting what he wants. He received a car on his sixteenth birthday even though he hadn't gotten a license yet, and he received a puppy for his eighth birthday after crying to Harry for hours about how he'd walk it every day and bathe it and feed it and none of that happened. Now Harry isn't necessarily proud of the way he has allowed Liam to feel he can have whatever he wants, however, at the time it was the only way he knew to cope.

Flashback ten years, the family of two was a happy, go loving soon to be family of four, however, the night Harry's wife, Alli, went into labor to deliver their would be baby girl, Kiala, the doctors experienced some difficulties. Everything seemed to happen so fast. One moment when Harry was in scrubs ready to help with his wife's birth, he was quickly being thrown out of the room by surgeons and other doctors. He was told at 4:00 AM that his wife hadn't made it, and the baby was a still born.

Not knowing what to do with an oblivious six year who kept asking or crying about his mother, Harry quickly learned to help him cope by buying him everything and anything. Hence the beginning of the boy's selfish ways.

"No, Liam, I will not sign a paper for something you didn't do. Especially something that is actually good for the community," Harry says sternly and seriously the look on Liam's face said it all.

"What the fuck, dad?! Are you serious?!" The boy asks in shock and disbelief.

"I am very serious. I take everything I do in that hospital to heart and I feel you need to experience something like that as well, so until you actually complete those hundred hours I won't be signing anything."

"Dad this is so unfair!"

"Liam there are plenty of things that are much more unfair than this. Now I'm done with this conversation and you're gonna be late to school if you don't leave now. I promise to be at your football game, and then after that we can go out for dinner and sign you up to become an official volunteer."

And that was the end of that for Harry. The younger boy attempted to complain once again, however, it fell on deaf ears to Harry, so with a huff and groan of frustration Liam grabbed his bags and car keys and stormed out of the house.

"You did the right thing, Harry. He needs this in his life if you don't want him to turn out to be some scumbag," Harry tells himself as he rubs his temples before pouring himself a thermos of coffee, grabs ahold of his briefcase, lunch, and jacket, and walks out of the house over to his car.