Michael set Parker back down on the ground and watched him as he walked back over to his new friend, Katie, to say his goodbyes.
"You're his father?" The older girl, Michael didn't know what he was supposed to call her asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Uh, yeah. I'm Michael." Michael said slowly. He felt like she was judging him, he knew she was judging him.
"I'm Melissa, Katie's nanny." She said, but didn't offer a hand for a handshake or anything. Michael wasn't even paying attention to that, he was paying more attention to how she was this little girl's nanny. Who even hired nanny's anymore? Stupid, Michael thought, Stupid rich people.
"Oh." Michael nodded, feeling very uncomfortable with this whole situation.
"You're some father, Michael, really." Melissa chuckled, smirking back at Michael.
"I don't normally do this..." Michael looked down at the ground, feeling very embarrassed all of a sudden. Who wouldn't he embarrassed, though? There was a complete stranger standing in front of him and inferring that he was a bad father for making one dumb mistake, Michael had the right to be embarrassed.
"Well, that's great." Melissa said sarcastically. "You know, you're lucky that Katie and I saw Parker, because he was standing out here all alone and - "
"Yeah, yeah, thanks for sitting with him for a while. Whatever." Michael scoffed, because now he was pissed off. Who was this girl and why was she being such a jerk to Michael? He didn't even do anything except leave his kid unattended for a while, it wasn't even that big of a deal. Michael watched the news, there were worse parents than him.
"You're kind of pathetic, you know that?" She looked up at him, her lips forming into a big frown.
"Why?" Michael asked, cocking his head to the side. He didn't think that it was very nice of this girl to call him pathetic, he'd only stumbled into her life a few minutes ago, she didn't even know him yet.
"Look at you!" Melissa said, sounding frustrated, waving her hands around like she was just gesturing to Michael as a whole.
"Look at me." Michael repeated, shrugging. "Seriously, I don't get it. What did I do?"
"Well, I don't know exactly what you've done, I just think that it was really irresponsible for you to leave Parker alone like this." Melissa elaborated. She crossed her arms and rested them against her chest again, still scowling up at Michael like he'd just murdered a fucking puppy right in front of her eyes.
"You don't even know him." Michael glared back at her. "Why do you care so much? You don't even know him."
"Katie knows him. She's his friend, she cares about him." Melissa said, shrugging.
"So because Katie cares about him you care about him?" Michael asked, trying to make sense of this whole thing. He was thankful that this girl sat with Parker while he was off sleeping and being a bad parent, but he didn't think that she should be standing here telling him how irresponsible he is. He heard that enough from his friends, and his parents, and Beth. He didn't need some random nanny to tell him that as well.
"Why does it matter whether or not I care about your kid?" She snapped.
"I just think that this whole this is stupid. I forgot about my son, it was a one time thing. Now, I've already thanked you for watching him for a while so I'm just going to go." Michael said, trying not to blow up in this Melissa's face and turning towards Parker. He was smiling as Katie whispered something in his ear, and Michael wished that he could give Parker some more time to talk with her, but right now he wanted to get as far away from this Melissa girl as possible.
