Briar-10 Atticus/Grey-8 Mariah-5
Harry Styles
I race down the hallway, buttoning up my shirt in a rush. Like some unfortunate mornings, we were falling behind getting the kids up and too school. Today it was because my alarm clock didn't go off that we all slept in, and now school started in less then fifteen minutes and I had to get four unorganized children out the door. Amelia was currently putting lunches together in the kitchen while I was responsible for making sure they get out the door.
"We're leaving in ten minutes!" I shout through the house, bursting open the bathroom door and seeing Atticus and Grey standing side by side, brushing their teeth. Luckily they were dressed and looking somewhat presentable for school. Grey was in a pair of blue jeans, a white shirt and a red zipped sweater. Atticus has his black glasses on his face with his beige pants and buttoned blue flannel shirt.
"Go downstairs and get your lunches when you're done." I say while doing up my belt.
"We know the drill." Atticus says, knowing this wasn't the first time this has happened. Grey tries to look in the mirror more, pushing Atticus which causes Atticus to push back.
"Move stupid." Grey says with the toothbrush in his mouth.
"Don't call me stupid, stupid." Atticus says back.
I roll my eyes and shut the door, turning to Briar's bedroom and knocking.
"Muppet you almost ready?" I open the door to expect to see her up at almost ready to go, but instead she was asleep in her bed like she was ten minutes ago when I woke her up.
"Briar!" I run in as she was passed out under her covers in her pyjamas still. I sit down at the edge of her bed, shaking her a little bit to wake up. Her long brown hair fanned the pillow as she was passed right out.
She blinked her green eyes open, groaning.
"C'mon sweetheart you should've been up ten minutes ago." I brush the hair out of her face as she struggled to wake up.
"I don't wanna." She whined while shutting her eyes again.
I stand up and go to her white closet, whipping it open to all of her clothes on hangers.
"Briar you need to get up, please." I say while grabbing random clothes for her. Turn back to see her sitting up and stretching. I toss her random articles from her closet.
"We are leaving in about seven minutes so get dressed and brush your teeth, luckily Atti and Grey should be done in there." I walk over and quickly peck her forehead as she rubbed her eyes.
"Why can't school start later in the day?" She murmurs.
"Because sadly, we'd still be late." I cackle before rushing out of her room and shutting the door behind me.
I go to the bedroom door with a giant pink 'M' on it, opening it up to see Mariah standing in her room all dressed and ready, her purple backpack even on. All she needed was her shoes and I was thrilled.
"Ready daddy." The five year old with curly brown hair smiles at me, her dimples carved on her soft cheeks.
I exhale in relief, walking over and picking her up in my right arm, kissing her cheek as she giggles.
"And that's why you're my favourite." I smile. "But don't tell the others." I whisper secretly, only making her grin again.
"Don't worry, I won't." She whispers with her finger over her lips.
I carry her out of the room, walking back by Briar's closed door. I bang on it three times with my free left hand.
"Briar you're up right?" I yell through the white door.
"Sadly." She says depressingly, making me huff in relief.
"We're leaving in five." I warn before continuing through the hallway, quickly hopping down the stairs to the living room with Mariah in my hold.
As I step to the main level, Atticus and Grey came zooming by, arguing. Grey was running with Atticus' glasses while Atticus blindly chased after him in a rut.
"Give them back Grey!" Atticus squints while Grey laughs devilishly with his brothers glasses in his hands.
"Okay babe, go get you shoes on like how daddy has been showing you." I say to Mariah, placing her down so she nods and runs off with her tiny legs and backpack almost bigger then her five year old anatomy.
Right in the nick of time Grey runs by me again. I take the opportunity and step in front of him so he slams into my stomach, my hands grabbing his upper arms.
"Grey c'mon man, stop doing this to your brother." I take the glasses from his hands just as Atticus catches up and stops in front of us.
"Here dude." I hand him his glasses as he retrieves them gratefully, placing them back on his face so he could see again. Atticus sadly was the one out of the four of them to inherits my shitty eyesight. The kid has been wearing glasses since he was three. Grey on the other hand has perfect eye sight, it's funny how twins can still come out so different. I guess it has always been a good way for people to tell them apart, even though their personalities are nothing alike.
Since a very young age Greyson and Atticus have proven to be polar opposites in every way but their physical features. Grey has always been a bit of a shit disturber and a very confident outgoing kid. Even as an eight year old he has shown to be very social, athletic, and all around very extraverted. While Atticus is more quiet, shy and reserved. He doesn't like rough housing or any type of sport. He is one of the sweetest kids you'll ever meet and has a very gentle persona. He likes to read and do things like explore nature. They were both signed up in little league games since they were six, but Amelia and I soon realized sports wasn't in Atticus' interest when he sat in the field with a caterpillar while his brother ran home runs.
They are opposites, so they tend to butt heads a lot.
"Now go get your shoes on and wait at the door where Mariah should be." I state. "And Briar you better be down her in thirty seconds!" I shout up the staircase.
I jog over into the kitchen where Amelia stands putting the odds and ends into each lunch pale. She was in one of my big shirts that she slept in, not looking like she was ready at all.
"Woah baby...you know the kids have school in like ten minutes right?" I say, looking at the stove clock.
"I know but can you take them? I have a pounding headache and the chills, I think I'm coming down with what Mariah had last week." She frowns, now thinking about it, she does look pale.
"Oh god but that means I have to bring Mariah into the estrogen pit of single mothers." I groan, referring to kindergarten drop off.
"You'll be fine, just get her in then get out." She says like it's nothing.
"But they've never met me.. and you tell me all the time they cling to fathers that show up there." I say in nervousness.
"You'll be fine." She chuckles, grabbing the lunches and bringing them to the front door where all the kids stand. Briar was half asleep, leaning her head against the wall with her eyes shut. Atti and Grey were arguing and Mariah was standing there smiling at me.
"Okay dad's gonna drive you today so you're getting in his car." Amelia stands next to the door.
"Shotgun!" Grey yells while sprinting to the exit.
"No way!" Briar runs behind him, suddenly awake.
Grey runs by Amelia and jumps up to peck her cheek.
"Bye mum!" They all shout one by one, running through the door after kissing their mothers cheek and grabbing their lunch pale from her hands.
"I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you." She repeats quickly four times with their kisses on her cheek, making sure they don't go near her mouth cause of her cold.
They all ran out the door, Mariah being the last because she was the slowest and smallest.
"Rest okay?" I walk by and peck her forehead, placing my hand on her lower back. I felt so bad when she became sick like this.
"Mhmm, now go before they're late for the third time this week." She smiles and smacks my ass to hurry me out of the house.
I jog out the door with my keys, seeing them all standing outside the car, waiting for me to unlock it.
"Dad hurry!" Atticus says, looking at his wrist watch to tell the time. I unlock the car and they all scatter in, Mariah waiting patiently by her door for me to help her in because she was too small still to climb into her seat.
I walk over and open her door, taking off her backpack. Briar and Grey argue over the front seat while I lift Mariah into the car seat, leaning over to buckle her up.
"I'm the oldest! I get shotgun!" Briar shouts while they both wrestle to get into the front seat.
"So?! You got it last time!" Grey says while trying to wedge himself into the seat that Briar so desperately wanted.
I roll my eyes while ignoring them, still buckling up Mariah who kicked her little feet and smiled at me.
"Why can't they all be cooperative like you?" I chuckle.
"Tell me about it." She giggles with the sass she was born with.
I grin and pull back, shutting the car door and walking to the driver seat, seeing how Briar and Grey were still viciously fighting over the passenger seat. Atticus was sitting in the back middle seat next to Mariah, watching the madness go down between his two siblings. Like I said before, he wasn't a fighter.
"Alright both of you are in the back!" I order.
"What!" They both say at the same time in shock, freezing their fight. "There is only one more seat in the back? How can we both sit there?" Briar states in confusion.
"Atticus is getting the front because he's the only one out of you three not fighting." I say while sitting down in the drivers seat.
"Yes!" Atticus smiles from the back seat, undoing his seatbelt and crawling over the middle compartment to sit in the passenger seat with a smile on his face.
Briar and Grey both groan, walking over and getting in the back next to Mariah who was kicking her feet in her own little world.
"This is so stupid." Grey murmurs while doing up his seatbelt in the middle seat, Briar taking the window side.
"What's stupid is that you both think annoyingly arguing over the front seat is going to get you the front seat." I say while placing the key in ignition and and starting up the car.
"It's not fair." Briar murmurs under her breath.
"Well there's four of you so things aren't always going to be fair muppet." I say with my hand on the back of Atticus' seat as I reversed the car out of the driveway.
She rolls her eyes and looks out the window, looking just like Amelia.
I pull out of the driveway and rip down the road to get these kids to school on time. The drive to school was quite short, short enough that they couldn't take the bus, but long enough that they'd never make it to school on time by walking. The car ride was pretty quiet because everyone was always very observant when they were in the car. That's the one thing all the kids had in common, they all loved to look out the window in car rides.
We pull up with a two minutes to spare. They knew the drill because three out of the four children hopped out of the vehicle in lightning speed before I even put the bloody thing in park. Mariah's kindergarten drop off was at the other end of the school, but I wasn't worried because class starts ten minutes later for her.
"Bye dad!" Atticus, Briar and Grey all yelled one after another while slamming the doors behind them and running away from the car.
"Have a good day!" I shout back out the window as Grey gives me a thumbs up while they all run around the corner and into the school entrance.
I start driving down to the kindergarten section, pulling into the parking lot and jumping out. I jog over to Mariah's door and open it up, lifting her out of the car seat. I carry her in my one arm, holding her backpack in the other down by my side. I shut the door with my hip and pace down the sidewalk to the entrance.
She could walk herself but we were on a time crunch and her little legs made getting somewhere a lot slower.
"Alright princess you need to tell me where to go because I never do this." I say while walking into the school to smell glue and crayons. The hallways were nearly empty due to how we were almost late.
"Down that hallway." She point as I carry her, following her points. All the coat hooks were literally at the height of my hip, I felt like a literal giant in this hallway.
"Why isn't mummy taking me?" She asks as I hurried down the hall with my sunglasses still on.
"Mummy has a headache." I answer.
"Why does she have a headache?" She then asks while pointing at the next hallway for me to go down.
"Because she's sick." I say while turning down that hallway.
"Well why is she sick?" She further asks.
"Why so many questions babe?" I chuckle, she shrugs.
"I dunno, I like to know things."
"Just like your mother." I snicker as we reach the classroom. "She loves questions."
Mariah smiles with a small giggle, always liking it when I compare her to Amelia. Nothing makes her happier then when I say she's like her mum. I don't know if it's just because she loves her mum or the fact it makes her feel like a grown up.
I turn in and immediately hear the room go quiet from our arrival. Nearly every mom in this room dropping off their kid locked eyes on Mariah and I like we were some sort of celebrities. Instantly I felt awkward as I quickly noticed I was the only male over the age of five here.
"Why are they staring?" I whisper to Mariah while all the moms quietly whisper to one another from our sudden arrival.
"They aren't used to daddies being here." She whispers back.
"Ah." I nod.
Believe me, I understand it looks like I don't belong here, not just because I'm a guy. But my appearance alone is enough for people to be shocked that I do in fact have a young daughter, if not three other children. My appearance hasn't changed much over the years, I still wore black jeans and loose flannels. I was covered in tattoos, and even in visible places like my hands, my chest and more. I still kinda dress like I did when I was twenty.
"I'm gonna put you down and let you go play so I can leave before these moms approach me." I whisper as she nods. I place her down where she goes and runs away to a bunch of other girls.
"So you're Mariah's father! We've only ever seen Amelia here." I heard a cheery voice behind me, making me internally groan before physically turning around to lock eyes.
I look at the shorter middle aged woman with a high blonde ponytail smile at me, making other women come over too because apparently I was interesting to them.
"That's me." I take off my sunglasses and smile awkwardly, making them widen their eyes slightly from my words. What did I do?
"You're British?" Another woman who was taller and had short brown hair said.
"Erm.. yes." I say.
"I'm Angie, Jacob's mom." The blonde one in the middle speaks again, holding out her manicured hand for me to shake.
As if I'd know which one of these little shits are Jacob.
"I'm Harry." I shake her hand back, it was kinda sweaty.
"Harry, just rolls off the tongue." She says all flirtatious like.
Why am I getting all these vibes from these moms like I'm in a bar? Don't they realize I'm here to drop off my kid, my kid that I have with my wife.
I let out and awkward laugh and scratch the back of my neck, really just wanting to get out of here.
"So how old are you?" Another asks, there were four of them in front of me now.
"I'm turning 34." I answered.
"Oh wow." Angie looked shocked. "Don't you have three older kids?"
What is happening right now?
"Erm yes...why?" I was trying to be nice but I really just wanted to leave.
"You're so young, Jacob is my first kid and I'm only 35." She says like that means anything to me.
"Well, I have four so." I shrug with an awkward smile, making quick eye contact with each of them.
"Your oldest, she's ten right?" Another lady who I did catch the name of asked.
Why are they asking me this if they all know the answers?
"Yeah."
"So you started early then." She says in a way I don't know if she was being judgy or not.
"Well I was 24 when she was born, that's not early really." I scratch my neck again.
"How old is Amelia? She looks young."
Fuck sakes.
"Amelia is 29." I answer.
Once again, wide eyes.
"Oh." Angie begins. "So she was young young."
"19 yeah." I nodded with my lips formed to a line. Nineteen isn't even that young I don't get where these moms are coming from. Am I the only one that thinks this way?
"I could never be pregnant four times in 10 years." Another says in awe.
"Well to be fair we have twins so it was only three times."
"You guys must get busy huh?" The short haired brunette says with a smirk, now just making me uncomfortable. How the fuck am I suppose to answer that?
"Haha uhm-"
"You two are still together?" Angie says with everyone concentrated on my answer.
"Yes, yes we're still very much married." I nod very quickly while holding up my hand to show the sliver ring on my finger hidden within all the other ones, I heard a few surprising sighs.
"Too bad." Angie said, making me widen my own eyes a little. She gave me a subtle smirk, but I was not picking up anything she was putting down.
"Uh...right okay well it was nice meeting you all but I need to go so." I try to end all of this because now I was just weirded out by the estrogen in the room.
I turn my head to look at Mariah hanging up her backpack.
"Bye babe I'll see you later." I give her a small wave while putting on my sunglasses again. She waves back before going over to her friends.
"It was very nice meeting you... Harry right?" Angie asked.
"Yeah." I nodded again.
"Hopefully we'll see you again." The other woman said.
"Well, you know." I shrug a laugh before walking away, making a quick exit before they kept talking.
I slid out of there quite quickly, making a sharp right out of the building and into the parking lot.
"Jesus Christ." I murmur to myself, finally feeling like I could take a breather.
5:15pm
I walked through the front door, the mail in my right hand and my keys in the other. The first thing I saw was Amelia laying on the couch watching television, Briar was standing in the kitchen making something to eat while I could see Atti and Grey outside in the backyard playing. Mariah was laying on the living room floor on her tummy, colouring.
"Hey." Amelia says from from entrance.
"Hey." I say back while tossing the keys and the mail on the little entrance table we have that's full of junk.
I kick off my shoes and drag over to her laying on her back.
"Hi daddy." Mariah looked up form her picture and smiles, I bent over and pecked the top of her head.
"Hi baby." I say before sitting down on the edge of the couch.
"What's wrong?" Amelia says while looking at my face. I sat in front of her on the couch, shoulders slumped.
I pout and instead of answering I just crawl on top of her and slump my body down with her beneath me, my hand touching the floor and my cheek against her chest. I was a lot bigger then her so she really was hidden beneath me.
"Are you okay?" She murmurs as she was loosing air, putting her hands on my back.
"I can't drop off Mariah anymore." I murmur.
"Why? What happened?" She asks as I lift my head up and hold my weigh on my forearms now.
"All the moms, they attacked me." I look down at her as she laid beneath me on the couch.
"Attacked you?" She furrowed her brows.
"They treated me me like I was a piece of meat." I pouted.
Her lips curled a bit in a small smile.
"I should've warned you that a lot of those moms are divorced." She chuckles.
"They all huddled around me and kept asking me all these questions."
"Baby you know you don't look like the typical dad of four kids right?" She says with a reassuring smile.
"Like how?"
"I don't know; you look young, you dress like a teenager, you have tattoos covering your skin." She explains.
"Is that bad?"
"No, of course not. I love all of those things and you know that. I don't know if you know this, but you're a very good looking man. And thinking of you walking in with your daughter on your hip I know it drove all the middle aged woman crazy. You the perfect vision of a single moms wet dream." She smirks while running her hands back through my hair.
I smile a bit in blush but also weirded out.
"Well they are crazy alright. One woman said it was too bad I was married." I say.
"Who?" She furrows her brows in instant offence.
"Angie I think?"
"That bitch! She's married herself and she knows we're married." Amelia says in offence.
"Yeah well she kept sending me these sex eyes and such."
"Well I'm gonna call her out tomorrow when I drop off Mariah." She says with attitude.
"Yeah tell her she made me uncomfortable." I pout again. "Like I was just some object."
"I'm sorry baby." She also pouts back and grabs my face. "Moms are animals sometimes."
I nod and bury my face in her neck while we lay on the couch.
"You want me to order a pizza to make you feel better?" She then asks while rubbing my back.
I nod like a child. "Yes please."
She laughs a bit and kisses the side of my head, "okay princess." She says to me while reaching for the phone on the coffee table next to us.
//
yall this mini series is gonna be so cute