Before It Ends • Hessa • Emery Scott

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"I wasn't watching anything. Just texting a friend." He defends, his cheeks becoming redder within seconds.

"Hardin..." Tessa shoves my head, which is still over Auden's shoulder. I try to hide my smile as I continue to tease, ignoring Tessa.

"You texting your girlfriend?" I ask him, and he immediately shakes his head.

"No! She isn't my girlfriend!"

"Oh, so it's a she, hmm?" I stand up straight and cross my arms over my chest. He begins to giggle nervously, and I can't help but laugh a little too.

"I didn't say that!" He laughs, laying down on the couch and clutching his stomach as his laughs increase.

I lift my chin, shaking my head at him in fake disappointment. "Whatever you say." I look at Tessa who has a huge grin at the sight of her laughing child. "But don't go making babies."

Tessa's eyes go wide and she looks at me with a shocked expression. "Hardin!" She scolds and Auden is still laughing hysterically.

"I won't promise anything!" Auden chokes out, his laughs finally dying down. Tessa glares at him and he shakes his head. "No, I'm kidding! I promise!"

I let out an amused huff. Deciding it's time to give Tessa some of my love, I head over to her side of the couch and reach down and kiss her cheek. It takes all self-control to stop there. Sometimes children are very annoying. If Auden wasn't here she'd be against the wall right now. I settle with sitting beside her on the couch.

"So, I was thinking you guys could go get some ice cream or something, and I could go down and ask Emery if she would like to bake some cookies for the new neighbors?" Tessa asks, looking between both of us. I knew she was going to do that. She has no bad bone in her body. Of course she was going to bake cookies for strangers next door. And of course she was going to want to cook with Emery. They are on bad terms. They've been on bad terms all week. She has been trying to get alone time with her. "Is it okay if I steal her from her 'job'?" She whispers to me, and I nod.

"Sounds good. Go get your shoes on, Audie."

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As we walk down the street back to the car, Auden skips beside me. He has already finished his ice cream and is now hyper as ever. This is why I usually park far away, so I can get him to run back. Eleven year olds are so exhausting when they are hyper, but I love the guy.

I take a big lick off of my chocolate ice cream swirl, stopping and dodging a big glob that falls to the pavement. "Shit." I say under my breath and Auden continues to jump ahead of me.

"C'mon, dad! You are so slow!"

"We have all day." I state simply, stepping over the glob and continuing down the sidewalk. I'm sure either a bird or the sun will take care of it. "So, tell me who you were texting."

Auden huffs, slowing down to a normal pace. "I don't know. Just a girl from my school." Auden has a heavier accent than Emery does. Honestly, I don't know the reason to that.

"Is she pretty?" All I'm trying to do is to start a conversation. I haven't really talked to Auden in a while. He has been so busy with that science project. He asked me to help him with it but once I gave him the idea of bullets he totally ditched me and went to his room to research. Not that I'm complaining. I don't want to do his shitty schoolwork for him anyways. But I'm glad we're able to talk about things now that his school work isn't consuming his every brain cell.

"Yeah, Mallory is beautiful. But we're just friends. Like mum said, I should focus more on school than girls."

I know it shouldn't surprise me that she said that, but it does. I stop and furrow my eyebrows at my kid. He stops too, swinging his arms around. He can never sit still, especially after ice cream. "She told you that?"

I honestly can't believe she did. Tessa's mother said the same thing to her and she felt trapped the whole goddamn time because of it. Wouldn't she think he'd feel the same way? "Well, bud. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but when I was your age I liked all the girls."

By 'I liked all the girls' I mean, 'I fucked all the girls.' But let's not get that into his head just yet.

"Hmm, well I like all the girls too. I just don't think any of them like me so—"

"Woah, wait Audie." I grab his wrist gently to stop him from walking and turn him to face me. "Why wouldn't anyone like you?"

He shrugs and looks down at his feet. "I don't know. I'm more a part of the nerdy group than the flirty group."

I try to contain my small smile at the fact he just rhymed without realizing, and I rest my hands on his shoulders. "Don't be part of one clique be part of a lot of them. You don't have to be one thing."

"So you think I should flirt with all the girls?" Auden looks up at me, raising his brown eyebrows at me. His eyes are green, just like mine. He looks a lot like me, but acts an awful lot like Tessa. And it's vice versa with Emery. She looks so much like Tessa that whenever Emery was a baby I would tease Tess that I didn't even contribute into making her. Of course, that joke was proven wrong when Emery started to grow and develop her own personality.

I smile softly, nodding my head slightly. "Yeah, flirt with all of them." I mean, that's what I did, and I know he isn't going to sleep around like I did. He's eleven for fucks sake. He's allowed to have some fun and practice flirting with his middle school girlfriends.

He furrows his eyebrows in thought before nodding slightly. "Okay."

"Alright, now we are about a block from the car. You think you could run there?" I ask as I throw away my ice cream cup. I didn't get an ice cream cone this time. I only like the waffle cones and they were out.

"Will you run with me?" Auden asks, and I sigh before nodding. He takes off immediately and I start a medium jog. "I'm gonna beat youuuu!" He screams and I chuckle as I pick up my pace, sprinting back to the car with Auden.

Okay, so maybe Auden isn't the only one who gets hyper after ice cream...

Chapter Three: Sept. 18, 2020