Stubborn

Chapter Twenty Eight

It was around three in the morning that I heard commotion going on in the house. It wasn't a lot of ruckus, but I could tell that someone was walking around and doing stuff. Frowning, I slowly got out of the bed. I didn't want to go down there by myself, but I knew that Shawn didn't sleep with me. He had decided to stay for the night, but told me that he really needed to leave in the morning to handle some business. He had made a promise to be back as soon as possible, and that he would call to check on us later in the day. I tip toed to the room that Shawn was sleeping in and immediately grew pissed off. He wasn't there. The bed was completely made and it was as if he hadn't even slept there.

I decided to quickly check on Julian to find out that he wasn't in his bed either. I grew from pissed to...I couldn't even describe the feeling. Hearing more commotion, I began walking silently down the stairs. I knew that I was risking my life, but would you not for your son? Everything was coming from the kitchen, which gave me the opportunity to pick up one of the vases off of one of the end tables in the living room. When I finally made it to the kitchen, I froze.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled, causing Shawn and Julian to both look at me.

Shawn wasn't fazed at all with the fact that he could've gotten busted in the head with his own vase. He continued smearing peanut butter on a slice of bread as Julian began explaining why they were up.

"Peanut budder, mommy!"

I couldn't help but let out a small laugh and put the vase down. "You okay?" Shawn asked me as went back into the kitchen and watched them. I knew that eventually my son would have to interact with Shawn. He would be in the house, and it would be crazy for me to think that they would just walk past one another the entire time. Julian was a bit of a social person, and he liked to talk to people. Even as a baby, when we went to restaurant, he'd constantly bother the other people in the restaurant with "hi"'s.

"I'm good. Yall just woke me up," I told him.

Shawn chuckled. "I was downstairs and saw someone using their bottom to get down the stairs. You're going to have to give him one of the rooms downstairs."

I hadn't really thought about the fact that Ju would have to travel downstairs, but I was glad that Shawn was woke when this happened. Julian took the peanut butter sandwich from Shawn's hands and began eating it.

"When are you leaving?" I asked Shawn.

"In about four hours," he said as he began putting the stuff back into the cabinets. I wasn't aware that there was even food in the house, but I figured that he had gotten it in some way.

It wasn't long before we simply all began talking until Julian finished his sandwich. Shawn decided to stay downstairs and sleep, while Julian insisted that I was scared of the monsters in the closet and that I needed his protection.

When I woke up, just as planned, Shawn was gone. I didn't think much of it, and began cooking Julian and I breakfast. He was still sleeping, but this gave me ample time to get myself familiar with the house. The kitchen was a kitchen that a chef would love. After I finished breakfast and ate, a phone began ringing. I frowned up before going over to the phone in the living room. I looked at the caller ID, and automatically recognized Corey's number.

"Hey!" I answered cheerfully.

"Hey, y'all aight?"

"Yeah. How about you?"

Corey laughed. "I'm perfectly fine, Mel. Shawn gone, right?"

"Yep. He left early this morning. Has anything happened with the case?"

He grew silent immediately and I knew something wasn't right about that. "They found her."

"Really?! Is she okay?"

"I don't know. All the police are saying is that she's going to the hospital to be checked out."

"How did they find her?"

"They basically told. They told their lawyers that their lives were protected while they were in custody, to make sure that their mothers were safe, and gave out the address."

I shook my head. Honestly, had they done this in the first place, they wouldn't have been behind bars. If they truly had nothing to do with this, why pull me in?

"Are they still facing jail time?"

"I don't know. I don't see why not."

I had been thinking about something for the longest time. "Is there a way I can adopt her if they do get locked up?"

"Uh....Mel, are you really sure that's a good idea?"

"Why not? She's Julian's sister and she's been through enough, Corey."

"She has a grandmother, as well."

"I can talk to her. I think it's better for a child her age to have someone young to care for them. No disrespect to her grandmother, but who is to say that she will make it all the way until Chanel turns eighteen?"

Corey let out a deep sigh. "I'll drop the hint."

"Thank you, sir. How are you and Dana?"

"It's business trip after business trip with her. I asked her to take some time off to deal with family, you know? But, she constantly says that things will calm down later in the year, and that we will have a formal discussion about children."

I shook my head and made the mental note to contact Dana once I had the clearance to contact anyone. Corey and I got off as soon as Julian woke up. I could hear his little feet pattering on the floor as he walked around. I stood at the bottom of the staircase once he reached the top. The look of a two year old trying to figure out how to get down was hilarious. I decided to go up and get him to bring him down. There was an elevator in the house, but I wouldn't trust him in that alone, either.

Julian ate breakfast, and it wasn't until then that I realized that it was boring as hell. We had this big house, but we were bored. I didn't want to go anywhere, because I didn't know where anything was. Julian was more occupied with the theater room. With him being able to watch all that Netflix had to offer on a big screen was the life. While he watched continuous Spongebob, I decided to go down to the room that Shawn had designed for a studio. It was beautiful and very much how I thought it would look.

I didn't want to touch anything, so I grabbed the first notebook that I saw. I flipped through pages until one of titles caught my eye. It was titled "Trouble". I read each intensively, and it wasn't until the second verse that I noticed that it referenced me. I rolled my eyes at the thought, but it was clear that Shawn still had thoughts about us. Right now, I didn't know. I was glad that he was doing all of this for my son and I, so he gained many brownie points. He was also breaking down my defenses slowly.

Without thinking I went to the first blank page I saw and started humming as I began writing. The word 'baby boy' continued to come to mind, so I played on that. When I thought about 'trouble', it was usually when my baby boy got in trouble.