Placing my iPhone on the marbled countertop, the patter of bare feet on the plain wooden floor was prominent, making me realise that I don't have much time to prepare myself to tell Alex about Jerry and our Christmas trip. He already knows about the possibility of the trip and I know he wants to go, however, I have no idea how he's going to react to it being so soon.
Opening the door to the fridge of our modern styled kitchen, I take out some eggs and bacon for breakfast. The kitchen of this house has always been something I was proud of, along with the Living area but the kitchen was spectacular with its hanging lights above the centre island lined in threes in front of the fan, the hob sat on the white marbled island whereas the sink sat against the wall on another white marbled countertop; surrounded by solid oak cupboards that stored food, cutlery, pots, pans, etc. The fridge-freezer was a faded dark silver that matched the handles of every cupboard. There was also 3 bar stools that sat on the opposite end of the island counter top as the hob and oven, my kitchen was spacious but not too spacious, it was perfect. Hearing the voice of my four-year-old little boy dragged me from the thoughts that I had been lost in. Carefully, I place the ingredients on the countertop, next to my phone and greeted my son.
"Morning kiddo, I wasn't expecting you to be up for ages, its only 8:45" I say looking up to the little boy struggling to get onto the bar stool opposite me, smiling nicely. "Very funny, mommy, I'm a big boy now, I wake up like big boys and girls" he says in a matter-of-fact tone. "Oh really?! Does that mean you're going to start working too?" I ask sarcastically, laughing at his bluntness. Remember when I said, personality wise, Alex was more like me than his father? Well, this is proof of that, we always joke around like this. putting a finger on his chin as a way to mockingly think, he says "Hmm, I'll think about it, mommy"
Cracking an egg open on the countertop and emptying it into the recently placed, frying pan, I laugh quietly shaking my head at the impossible little boy sitting in front of me " Okay, kiddo, whatever you say. Sunnyside up okay?" I ask while grabbing a spatula from the draw on the center island. He nods with a great big, cheesy smile plastered on his face
"So." I start crossing both arms, leaning on the countertop opposite Alex, who managed to get on his stool, I like to let him try and do things himself before I step in (that's how my parents raised me, so that's how I'm raising him). "You remember last night when I told you about going back home for Christmas?"
"Yeah..." he says skeptically.
"Well, I spoke with Trippe this morning and he managed to squeeze us into his very tight schedule, but, yes there is a 'but', we're leaving at 3. Today. So, we'll be there for around 6/7-ish. What do you think about that?" I say pushing through the worried feeling that has arose in my stomach, not knowing how he'll feel about leaving so soon.
"Are you kidding me?!" He screams with excitement jumping up and down on his very unsteady bar stool, "This is awesome, I cant believe we're actually going" he finishes, struggling to say some of the big words. The worried feeling in my stomach fades and I'm hit with a huge sense of relief. "Wait, is Jerry okay with this?" He cautiously says, closing my eyes for a few seconds, I turn back to the now cooked egg and placing it on Alex's SpongeBob plate, "Jerry isn't going to be a problem anymore, kid, don't you worry your pretty little head about that" he looks at me with dramatically pursed lips and squinted eyes "Is everything alright, mommy?" He asks me quietly, the worry in his less squinted eyes was evidently there, which caused my heart to clench, I hated seeing him worry, I mean, he's four, he shouldn't be worrying about anything "Everything is okay, promise. Now eat your eggs, young man." I say placing the egg in front of him. For a while now, Alex has taken a dislike to bacon and refuses to eat it, I don't know what brought it on but when he first brought it up, I didn't worry too much, I mean, it isn't that big of a deal, it just means cooking less food.
Surprised at how well Lex took the news, I open the packet of bacon that lay in front of me next to the carton of eggs. Before placing them into the boiling, frying pan, I flick on the kettle to make myself some coffee. Suddenly, I was interrupted by a heavy knocking on the heavy wooden front door. Looking over skeptically at the door, Alex gives me a confused look "Is it Uncle Trippe?" he says with a little hope in his tone. We don't really have that many neighbors and very rarely did we have visitors, there is only a handful of people it could be, due to the fact that I prefer to keep to myself in the busy Upstate New York, half that handful are people I hoped wouldn't be standing behind my wooden door. "I don't know, kid, but stay here, I'll go check it out." I say walking around the center island and through the living room, to the door that I hesitantly open, I was greeted by a warm gust of wind and a bright white smile sent over to me by the one and only, Trippe, sue a huge sigh of relief from me and a confused look from Trippe. Waving him off and moving so he can walk through the door I say "Don't ask, Trippe, don't ask"
It's been about a month since I last seen him, we are both always busy, me with work and him with his dance gigs and stuff. I look up to the outrageously tall, grown man that stands in front of me. I won't lie and tell you Trippe was some ugly-ass guy cause he isn't. He had a nice smile, with some mighty fine features, that lay on his darkened face. When he moved to Boston from New York, when we were kids, with his American mother and Jamaican father, people didn't really care to know who he was. He was quirky, and I guess that's why he got along but if those people who didn't want to know him then, saw him now, well, let's just say, they'd want to know him now. Being honest, Trippe is probably the reason I chose New York of all places in America. All those years of dancing really paid off, I'll give him that. He wasn't too muscly, like overly bulky but he has about 5% body fat, I swear.
"Okay, you had better have saved some of those eggs for me, little legs" He says loudly while walking with me into the kitchen where Alex sat, eating the rest of his egg. Alex and Trippe were widely different, not just in looks, Lex hates dancing, guess that's one way he follows after his father (personality wise), whereas Trippe loves dancing, he does make a living out of it after all but weirdly, they get along incredibly.
"Nope, I ate them allllll up" my four-year-old says jokingly "oh you little..." Trippe says walking towards Alex ready to tickle him. Alex knows what's coming, so he jumped off the stool and ran as fast as he could around the house screaming "You'll never catch me. I am the fastest man alive." Someone has been watching too much 'The Flash', something he absolutely loves.
Days like these are the best days, filled with Alex's laughter and squeals, coffee in hand, a nice breakfast and peace. that's all anyone can ask for, right? I love days where I don't need to worry about anything and fight for attention from the people I love. I love the days where I can just sit back and relax without worrying about whether I have everything done in the house or at work.
Once everything was calmed down, it was about 13:30, Alex and Trippe were both in Alex's room packing his clothes for over Christmas, something that I should probably be doing now.
Being self-employed and all, I don't need to call in work, so that is one less thing to worry about. Although it has its pros, being self-employed also has its cons, for example, if you have a bad week, money wise, you have no contract which means you'll have no money for that week, that's even harder to handle when you have a four-year-old kid under your roof. Thankfully though, that has yet to happen to me and hopefully won't ever happen to me.
At around 2pm, I finally jumped up from the comfy sofa, clean my empty mug in the silver stainless steel sink and dry it then put it away in one of the many cupboards we had, thankfully I did all the tidying last night.
Walking to my bedroom, I pull a suitcase from under the bed that I had once shared with Jerry, god I am an idiot, I thought rolling my eyes at my idiocy. Throwing it onto the bed, I open it. Like many girls, I do have a selection of clothes to choose from, however, since we were going to be in Boston for winter, I knew I would regret it if I packed anything other than my winter coat and socks.
Going into the small walk-in wardrobe, I spend a few minutes staring at Jerry's section of the hangers. Damn, how I wish I had the time to burn all of his junk. I've never been one to hold a grudge but I swear to god I do not forgive cheating and nor will I ever, that bastard seriously screwed up when he decided to screw me over and I'll be damned if he never regrets it. Pushing the meaningless thoughts from my head, instantly, I go over to the section that holds my neatly piled jeans, taking a few pairs from the pile I pacing them on the floor that is my designated clothes pile for now.
After packing all of my clothes into my suitcase, I go back to my closet, making sure I haven't forgotten anything. Reaching up onto the top shelf, the only thing I feel is a familiar book that I haven't looked at in years. My high school and college photo album. If I looked inside of this now, I know id regret it, knowing that there would be one familiar face in there that I couldn't bare to see, not yet, so I put it on top of all my clothes in my suitcase, knowing I'll crave the sight of those pictures; being back in my hometown and all.
Looking over to the clock that hung just above the door of the closet, I read 2:42pm, 18 minutes until 3:00pm. Driving from New York to Boston will take around 3.5-4 hours so we'll be there around 7. I'm almost thankful that I didn't decide on San Francisco, that would take days to get back home, by car that is. To close my suitcase properly, I have to sit on top, most likely because of the bulky photo album that I put in there. The last time I looked at those pictures was to show Alex who his father was, I couldn't bare the thought of him growing up not knowing who his father was, he's met his grand parents on his fathers side, although meeting Johnny wasn't the best experience, he's also met Wren, Max and Olly; it was hard convincing them to not mention that to Chris but I managed, Max was by far the hardest to convince. He was dead set on his bother deserving to know. However, once I told him about the phone calls and letter that I sent him, he agreed, clearly, Chris didn't want to know his child.
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And so, the 3rd Chapter is up, hope this is good enough for you guys but keep in mind that none of this is edited so there will be various mistakes somewhere.
If you really want to, feel free to correct said mistakes.
Picture of Millie's kitchen above!!
Happy Boxing Day guy!! (If that's even a thing XD)
As always, vote, comment and share! It will be much appreciated!
XOXO
Hidden-Alice