✧𝙽𝚘𝚊𝚑✧
My son's a monster. This is a known fact, but it still catches me off guard every single time when it's proven.
I stare, mortified as he repeatedly smashes his dinosaur toy into my damsel that was in distress a second ago. Batman was literally just around the couch, ready to save her from this random prehistoric creature tearing through the city.
He cackles while he does it. And once my damsel is dead, he grabs her and holds her at the mouth of his dinosaur, throwing her across the room. It's his trademark. What's that thing they call serial killer trademarks? Signature?
"Boys, time to get ready for bed!" Kiara calls out from the other room. And just like that, my son is back to his normal, cutesy eight-year-old self. He smiles and gets up from the ground, happily heading down the hall with a dog hurrying along after him and leaving me to clean up the mess of
the crime scene he just created.
Once I'm finished, I join him in the bathroom to start my own bedtime process. He's a little ahead of me since he had his head start, but he still lingers in the bathroom with me until I finish so that I can walk him to his room with Gus. By the time we leave the bathroom, Kiara is joining the group too.
We proceed to tuck both our son and the dog into bed like we've gotten into the routine of doing. I like our routine. It's just the three of us—four if you count the dog—which makes our routine that more stable. We have breakfast together every morning and leave the house around the same time to start our days. When it's over, I pick my son up from school and either run a couple of errands before going home or go home immediately. We both take the dog out for a walk when we get there, then I sit down with him to help him with his homework. Sometimes, we wait for his mom though because neither of us fully get what his homework is asking for. Rarely though.
When she does get home, dinner's ready for her and we eat together again as we tell each other about our days. After dinner, it's someone's turn to clean up which Cameron is sometimes included in. We all spend some more time together until it's time to get ready for bed. Cameron and Gus go to bed around eight forty-five. Kiara and I stay up for a while together before we too go to bed.
Sometimes we talk while we're up, sometimes we don't. She'll either pick up a book to read in bed or we'll sit on the couch to watch a movie in the dark. Tonight, it's the latter. The only sound in the room is the characters on screen and the only light is the tv itself. She tossed her legs on my lap when we sat down, so I absently drag my hands slowly up and down her thighs and a little further down, occasionally squeezing her thighs in my palms just for the feel.
As she keeps telling me, I have a one track mind. So, every time I squeeze her thighs, I shift in my seat. She never says or does anything. Not until I start letting a hand drift further up her thigh to squeeze gently there. In response, she shifts a little in her own seat, resulting in her legs opening a bit wider. I continue what I'm doing in silence and without either of us looking at each other, almost as if it's not actually happening.
She hums quietly when I start dragging the tips of my fingers lightly up and down her skin, going a bit further than before but not where I could be going. It's a little frustrating to her when I knock us down a few pegs instead of escalating like I had been, and it makes her move around some more. I chuckle to myself. She only responds in a deep sigh.
I go on like this for a while. It drives me crazy too, but I like the amusement of this too good for me to stop so soon. At some point though, I decide it's time for the game to come to an end and go back to escalating, opting to spread her legs wider so I can get up and lay myself between them. She wraps her legs around my hips absently and almost on instinct. She lets out a breath as she watches me curiously. I duck my head down to kiss her cheek slowly, making a trail from her cheek to her lips. She kisses me back, but the way she kisses hints that she doesn't want them to be fast. I don't speed us up yet even though I thought that's what she was hinting at with that hum.
I kiss her slowly but deeply, sliding my tongue against hers as my hand wanders its way along one of her legs wrapped around my hips. I keep myself balanced with a hand behind her head against the couch cushion. She inhales deeply, humming a little more which I think is her way at hinting me to go on. It usually is her way of hinting when we're like this. If she doesn't do it herself, she hums or moans encouragingly.
Turns out though, she's having a battle with herself. I end up becoming a casualty. Because while she hums encouragingly, somewhere deep down she decides she doesn't actually want me to go on. Which is fine—she can change her mind midway through and just decide she doesn't want to anymore. It still catches me off guard though when she suddenly hums sharply, as if I scared her somehow. She pushes at my chest and turns her head away. I'm quick to get off of her, sitting up on my knees with wide eyes. "Wait, wait," She pleads.
"Sorry." I blurt out quick.
She either ignores me or doesn't hear me. "We have to talk."
My shoulders slowly sink at that. It's, like, the last sentence spoken before something good dies. And in this case, something really good. I mean, this has all been great. I thought so, at least. But there's apparently a reason here that I've been missing.
The fact that I missed it is probably a reason in itself. That's usually a contributing factor.
She takes a breath and starts sitting up against the armrest of the couch. I slowly relax back to sit normally, folding a leg under me so I can still face her comfortably. I swallow thickly, watching her quietly and anxiously. "Okay..." I awkwardly accept after a while, like maybe that's what she's waiting for.
Whether she was waiting for me to acknowledge her or not, I don't know. She continues after I do though. "Um...so, I haven't rehearsed this...so just bear with me."
"Are you gonna try to break up with me?"
She blinks. "What?"
"Because if you are, I have to warn you that I will have to insist on staying together since you and Cameron live here with me now." I'm quick to warn. "Also, I love you guys." I add, hoping that still means something to her.
She smiles this beautiful involuntary smile. It takes her a second to realize that she's smiling at me, and she dips her chin to look down at her lap to hide it. "I'm not." She assures first and foremost. I still watch her cautiously. "I'm, um..." She sighs deeply and stares at her lap as if she's ashamed of something. "I'm pregnant."
I stare blankly for a few seconds. She reluctantly lifts her eyes to peek at me. My eyes slowly begin to narrow skeptically.
"You sure your period isn't just late?"
It's possible. It's happened, and it was depressing as shit. Especially since I figured I had her locked down in my life guaranteed for another eighteen years on top of the ten I've already collected. But also because I had already thought about what it'd be like to see her belly grow and all that jazz. I got attached to the idea quick.
She shakes her head quick. "It's been, like, weeks."
I cock my head back. "How many?"
She shrugs simply.
"Ballpark."
She squints at the ceiling for a moment. "Um...at least a month." She mumbles thoughtfully.
"Wait—You've known it for a month? You didn't tell me?" I press my hand to my chest in offense. "The hell, Kiara? I thought we were friends."
She smiles at that. It's refreshing after that anxious and worried look she gave me. "I haven't known for sure." She dismisses. "I wanted to be sure before I said anything. I jumped the gun last time and it was embarrassing."
"I didn't think it was bad." I frown now. I figured she might naturally be a little embarrassed, especially since she couldn't really look at me when she admitted it, but I didn't care. I didn't see it as this embarrassing thing. She was anxious and wanted support—which is exactly what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to be there for her, even when she's too embarrassed to let me.
She doesn't answer me. "I wanted to be sure this time, and it took a while for me to get the courage to take the test."
"When did you take the test?" How long did it take her after the fact to get the courage she didn't need to tell me about it, basically.
She chews her lip. "Um," She pauses to think. "Today..." She slowly answers. I almost think she's lying. "While I was at Aaliyah's."
My jaw drops, somehow even more offended than I was before. "You told my sister first?"
"No, I told my friend first." She hums smugly, using that thing we both asked her to do to her own advantage. I sigh my defeat.
"Okay, so you're..." I take another breath as I glance around absently. "You're sure? Like, completely?"
"Pretty sure." She confirms. "I know we took all those measures to be super careful, so this may be shocking. I'll give you a minute to process." She assures quick. I chuckle at that.
Yeah. All of those safety measures. No condoms, no birth control, and the little pill she took afterwards—if and when she remembered to. But even that was shit. I didn't expect it to work but said nothing.
I'm shocked it took so long, to be honest. I figured a couple of times tops. What, with the way we had Cameron, I figured it'd be easy. Then I thought that maybe she actually did have some birth control after all and just hadn't mentioned it. Clearly, that's not the case.
"...Is that enough time to process or do you need more?"
And look at me now! Twenty-eight years of guaranteed time with my family. So long as I don't do anything to fuck it all up, I'll have my son, his beautiful mom, and another kid all to myself to love. Whether their mom stays with me or not, she'll always be around. Even then, no other guy that she brings in will be able to love them as much as I do. So, I still win.
"Noah?" Kiara calls, much more anxious now than she was a second ago. "Are you okay?"
I smile smugly. "Am I okay?" I repeat. "Are you? You realize you're stuck with me for twenty-eight whole years now, right?"
She stares for a few seconds, smile slowly widening. "Was that your plan?"
"All along."
She laughs at that and holds both hands to her chest. "Oh, no, and I fell for it." She gasps, using that same tone she uses for her dolls whenever she plays with Cameron and things start to go bad—as they always do since he's fucking insane. God help his new sibling.
"It's okay. My charm, as I've been told, is irresistible. There was nothing you could've done."
"That helps, thank you." She nods, still smiling widely even though she tries sounding serious. She hasn't yet mastered the tone and facial thing yet.
I don't bother with showing her how it's done. Because for once, I can't control the grin on my face or the urge to sit up on my knees again just to climb back over to her. She giggles and opens her legs up for me to lay between, reaching up to cup my face before I'm even fully situated for a kiss.
"Mom!" Cameron yells as soon as my lips are on hers. She pulls away and I groan loudly, dropping my forehead onto her shoulder.
"What?!" She yells back at him instead of getting up to go to his room like she normally does. I laugh and nuzzle my face further into her shoulder. Her arms curl around my head, and it's tempting to let myself put some weight on her. Then I realize I probably shouldn't do that with this...you know. Other person growing in her. Then I'm basically suffocating two people.
Cameron isn't phased that she yelled back instead of getting up, for some reason. He's used to her getting up. "You're being loud!" He yells, annoyance touching his tone.
"You should already be asleep!"
"I was! You woke me up because your laughing is loud!"
"You're loud!" She returns bitterly. "Go to bed!"
"I love you!" His tone is still annoyed and bitter.
"I love you too!" She returns, voice just the same too.
"Dad!"
"Yeah, yeah, I love you too." I call back, a little louder than my normal volume but not screaming like they are. When he doesn't respond, I lift my head and smile as I shake my head. "You think he actually was asleep?" I ask, whispering just in case.
She nods and goes back to cupping my face, dragging the tips of her painted nails lightly against my skin. "I think so." She confidently decides. "It's been too long for him not to have been asleep." She reasons. "I don't know what woke him though. I wasn't that loud."
"I have to pee!" His door swings open loudly down the hall and he basically slaps the light switch on in the bathroom. He leaves the door open like an animal, probably aware that he's not even in eye line of us being down the hall like that.
"That's why." I hum as I climb off of her. She laughs to herself as she sits back up too.
Just like that, our night is over. As is our moment. It wasn't ruined though, funnily enough. I quickly realize that this is going to be my life. For longer than twenty-eight years too. Probably for the rest of my life. Hopefully, anyway.