Sad_Girl
Blue Crack Supplier
U2, unfortunately, are not mine. They are real people who I have written about here in a fictional situation that never happened. I don’t have their permission to use their likenesses, but I make no money from the story and it really is just all meant in good fun. Remember, please, that this is just a twisting, turning story out of my imagination which should not reflect upon the band or the individuals within it. It’s only make-believe.
There will be some adult themes within this story, and almost undoubtedly a lot of offensive language. Read at your own discretion.
Catalina Chronicles Book 4:
Someone else’s dream
Chapter Two
I heard from a friend today
And she said you were in town
Suddenly the memories came back to me in my mind
A wounded heart you gave
My soul you took away
Good intentions you had many
I know you did
I come from a place that hurts
And God knows how I've cried
And I never want to return
never fall again
from 'Again' by Janet Jackson
“Hello, Moni.”
Simone’s heart seemed to turn to lead and drop out of her chest, past her stomach even, all the way to the sole of her left shoe. It was a voice she had never expected to hear again. She’d been trying to recover from the shock of seeing him on the television the day before, with no success. Every thought she’d had in the last twenty hours had been of Toby, and now, he was on the other end of the phone line.
“Moni?” He asked, wondering if they’d been disconnected.
“I’m here,” she managed a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat and buoyed her defenses, preparing herself for battle. “What do you want, Toby?”
“Why, yes, Moni, it has been a long time. I’m doing well, thanks for asking. How are you?” He replied sarcastically.
“Fuck off, Toby. Just tell me why you called or I’m hanging up,” she growled into the phone, doing her best Larry impression.
“All right, all right,” Toby sighed. Simone could picture his expression as clearly as if they had been standing face to face. She had memorized everything about the man when he had been little more than a boy; when they had been lovers.
“I’ve been looking for you for a couple of years now, you know. I had to hire a whole team of private investigators to find you. How the hell did you end up in Ireland?” He wondered aloud, not expecting an answer.
“Funny, you looking for me. I wasted two years of my life looking for you; waiting for you,” Simone complained.
“I needed to wrap my head around things, Moni. I was twenty years old, and I was just finding my feet when you dropped the bomb on me,” he retorted.
“The bomb?!” Simone repeated, her voice turning venomous. “You’re talking about me telling you that I was pregnant with your son! I don’t think a bomb is an appropriate metaphor here!”
“All right, all right, you knew what I meant. No need to get your knickers in a bunch, babe,” he told her, not exactly conceding to her argument, but waving the white flag. Only, Simone thought, he was not just waving it, but slapping her in the face with it.
“What do you want, Toby?” She asked, her voice dangerously calm.
“I want to meet my son,” he replied quickly and matter-of-factly, as if she should already have known damn well why he was calling. She did, or at least, she had feared as much. For the past four years, she had clung to the hope that she would not have to deal with Toby again until Pauley was a teenager and asked about the man who had helped create him.
“Why the sudden interest?” She asked through clenched teeth.
“He’s my son, Moni!” he informed her. Here was the love she had wanted him to know for his child back when she was twenty six and still loved him. It had taken him too long to find it, though. She found it impossible to believe in its sincerity.
“He has a daddy, Toby. He has me, and he has Larry. He doesn’t need you now. If you want to do what’s best for him, just leave him alone,” she said, hating the note of desperation in her voice. She didn’t dare show this man weakness.
“Larry? You have some kind of pommy bastard raising my boy?”
“He’s Irish, not English, and someone had to step up and show him what it meant to be a man. You sure as hell weren’t going to do it!” Simone told him heatedly. She realized she was raising her voice at him now, but her temper had been spent up. She was not about to sit there and let him insult Larry on sheer virtue of the fact that he was with her.
“Give a guy a fair go at it, Moni,” He asked, his voice softening and making Simone’s resolve weaken. She sighed and he waited patiently for her to speak again. She would have preferred it if he’d kept talking at her. He would probably have pissed her off and she would’ve been able to slam the phone down on him, or maybe to tell him what he could have a fair go at; vanishing up his own ass and never bothering her again.
But he didn’t, and so neither did she.
“Once, ok? That’s it. We’ll meet somewhere, and Pauley and I can decide when we leave, even after five minutes if that’s all we can stand it,” She told him nervously. She could hear him smile on the other end of the line.
“Ace!” He exclaimed. “And Moni? I always knew you were the clucky sort and would take good care of him, y’know.”
“Thank you,” Simone told him weakly. She felt as if she’d just been caught in a tornado, and she was afraid when she hung up the phone and glanced around she would realize she had been tossed somewhere over the rainbow. That was the way things had always been with Toby; the whole world went off kilter when he was nearby. She used to love that about him, now it just left her feeling sick to her stomach.
******************************************************
Catalina’s heart still raced at the thought of being close to Adam. She was hurrying frantically around the house, trying to make sure everything was just right, including herself. Adam was coming home! She had sparkling grape juice chilling in the bedroom, soft music playing and about a hundred candles lit. It seemed like that many, at least, when you first stepped into the room. She had done her best to recreate their honeymoon, right down to the strawberries and whipped cream.
It had been a long time since she’d been with him that way. Too long. Since the baby had come, they had either been too exhausted to do anything more in their humongous bed but sleep, or Adam had been on the road. They had agreed Lawry was too young to travel or to be without at least one of his parents, and so they had spent the better part of the past year and a half apart.
“Ew! Eww eww eww eww!” trine exclaimed, peeking into the bedroom and seeing the romantic setting. Cat smiled without the slightest hint of modesty, her green eyes dancing in the candlelight. “I really don’t need the mental image in my head of you and my dad… eww eww eww!”
“Thank you for taking care of Lawry tonight, Trine,” Cat told her sincerely. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”
“It’s fine, Cat. Just don’t EVER tell me anything about Adam that goes on behind this door and we’re cool,” Trine replied, spinning on her heel and heading down the hall towards the nursery and playroom where they could both hear Lawry chattering away to himself in his own baby language.
Cat followed behind her step-daughter and smiled. Trine was eighteen now, and more beautiful than any of them had imagined she would ever be, the first time they saw her. Her hair was dyed black once again, but kept fairly short in a shaggy, effortless style which suited her well. It constantly fell over her beautiful blue eyes, eyes just like her fathers, but it somehow accented that tremendously full, pouty lower lip (which she had also inherited from Adam).
She was slender, but not skinny; shapely but not in an overdramatic way which made a person wonder if she’d bought and paid for her curves. Many of the piercings, which she had taken out for awhile, had been re-done. Still, somehow, they only served to accent her youthful charm now; rather than giving her a hardened look. She wore three hoops in her left eyebrow and a diamond stud below that sensuous lower lip, and at least a half a dozen in her ears.
Cat had been sworn to silence on the subject, but she knew for a fact that on her eighteenth birthday, Trine had also gotten both nipples pierced. She had a massive crush on the piercing and tattoo artist who’d done it, but nothing more had ever come of her crush. Cat had meant to ask her why she had not gone back, but had forgotten about it in the recent rush, preparing for Adam’s return.
“Mommamommamomma!” Lawry called out to Cat when he saw her through the doorway of his playroom. He crawled over a pile of toys he’d dumped out of a toy box and forgotten, then found the closet standing furniture to pull himself up to his feet.
“Hey, baby!” Cat replied, beaming with love and pride as she held her arms out to him. Trine leaned against the doorframe behind Cat and watched as her little brother hurried to hug Cat, his gait still a little unsteady. He did not fall, however, which Trine noticed with a relieved smile. She had worried about the little tike when he was first learning to walk, because he fell so often.
“Pretty momma!” Lawry told Cat, stroking her hair as he would pet a cat or dog.
“Thank you baby!” Cat replied with a hearty round of laughter and a kiss on the cheek. “You are such a sweet heart.”
“He’s already sucking up,” Trine joked, rolling her eyes playfully and holding her arms out to her baby brother. He reached for her eagerly, nearly falling clear out of Cat’s grip in his enthusiasm.
“You be a good boy for Trine tonight, ok?” Cat told him, stroking his soft brown hair back from his forehead and kissing him again now that he was safely in his sister’s arms. “I love you.”
“Of yoo!” Lawry declared, smiling brightly at Cat as he rested his head on Trine’s shoulder. Cat’s heart ached; it was so full of love when she looked at her little boy. She found it impossible to imagine how any parent could ever walk away from their child, as her mother had done to her.
“You ready to take a bubbly-bath, brat?” Trine asked, her nickname for her brother harsh, but her tone full of love.
“Bubbly!” Lawry declared with glee, sitting up in her arms and clapping his hands eagerly. Cat watched them proceed to the bathroom, pajamas and bubble-bath in hand, and then returned to her vigil at the front window. She’d only waited for a few minutes when she saw his headlights approaching. Her heart began to flutter in her chest and she couldn’t stop smiling, suddenly.
She slipped on a pair of sandals and hurried out into the garage to greet him as soon as he was out of the car. He had no sooner managed to stand up, the door still open, when she raced up to him and threw her arms around his neck. She kissed him for so long there could be no doubt as to how much she loved him or how much she had missed him.
When she pulled back a bit, allowing him room to breathe, at least, he chuckled heartily at her.
“That’s a lot better hello than I’ve ever gotten when I returned from a tour in the past,” he told her honestly, hugging her tightly for a moment more, then kissing her softly again.
“That’s only the beginning,” she promised, smiling coyly at him. He grinned back at her, that broad, toothy grin which she adored so much.
“Do I get to go in the house for the rest?” He teased, and she felt her cheeks flush red. She stepped back to allow him to close the car door and then he wrapped an arm around her waist as they proceeded into the house.
“Is Lawrence in bed?” He asked, setting down the leather carry-on bag which had been draped across his broad shoulder.
“Trine’s watching him for us tonight. She was just giving him a bath and then going to put him to bed,” Cat replied, rising up onto her tiptoes to nuzzle the side of his neck. He smelled better than heaven, his scent gracing her nose and then filling her completely and making her thoughts grow cloudy and dizzying her with lust.
She slipped her hands up under the sport jacket he wore over his white silk shirt, feeling the wiry bristle of his chest hair beneath the soft, thin material. Her fingertips lingered over a nipple as she caught his earlobe between her teeth and tugged.
“Mmm, Cat, Cat, hold on love!” Adam mumbled, kissing her on top of the head. “I want to go see if he’s asleep yet.”
“Oh. Right. Sure.”
“I’ll only be a minute,” he assured her, and Cat nodded silently, forcing herself to smile. Of course he wanted to see his son, he’d hardly seen him growing into a toddler from a baby. He came back to visit as often as he could, but how could a visit ever be enough for a father? She reminded herself of the feeling she had just experienced a few moments ago, the way love had made her wonder how a parent could stand to be away from their child.
It was not a rejection of her, no matter how much it may feel like it at the moment. She drew in a deep breath and moved into the bedroom to wait for Adam.
***********************************************************
“Where’s my boy?” Adam asked, stepping into the bathroom and being caught in a fog of steam and the sweet scent of children’s bubble bath.
“Da-dee!” Lawry shrieked with joy, splashing the water excitedly. Trine turned from her seat on the side of the tub and smiled at Adam.
“And my girl,” Adam greeted her with a kiss on top of the head, much like he had just given Cat. Trine felt childish and silly for the joy it brought her to have him treat her like a child. No, not like a child; like his child. It had been less than three years now that they had known each other, even though he was her biological father. Things had been awkward at first; Adam felt guilty for having been absent through her childhood and Trine had been bitter.
Somewhere along the line, however, they had found themselves settling in to the roles of father and daughter quite naturally. There were still moments which were awkward, but somehow they had built a solid bond.
“Da-dee! Da-dee!” Lawry squealed and splashed, drenching Trine in bathwater and splashing Adam’s pantsleg.
“Twerp!” trine grumbled, moving away from the tub to dry off as best as she could with a towel. Adam knelt beside the tub and kissed his son despite the wet, soapy mess he made of his expensive jacket.
“Lawrence, are you a twerp?” He asked playfully, and Lawry giggled in response. “Tell Trine, no I’m not!” Adam instructed, speaking to him in a tone which was just slightly too enthusiastic to be adult. This was one of the things Lawry adored about Adam, who didn’t treat him so much like a baby but as a little person.
It was clear in the boy’s blue eyes when he looked at him. He would get so serious and try so hard to understand what his father said, taking every word to heart in a way he did not have with anyone else.
Adam stayed and talked to Trine, stripping out of his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to wash the shampoo out of Lawry’s hair and rinse his super soft skin. He wrapped the baby in a big, fluffy towel which almost completely enveloped him and drew him up in his arms. As he held the child close, swaying slightly on instinct, he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of youth. It wasn’t the same as with a newborn, but it had not completely faded.
Trine fought the sudden irrational urge to weep; to weep for the childhood she had endured with an unstable mother to care for her and no father to wrap her up in his arms the way Adam now did with Lawry. She scolded herself inwardly. There was no use in being jealous of the baby, after all, there was no way to turn back time. What had passed was over and done, and not worth wasting time crying over.
“Is it bedtime?” Adam asked, and trine nodded silently, turning and leading him into the nursery, where Adam somehow managed to wrestle the wiggling boy into a fresh diaper and clean, warm pajamas. He kissed his son and told him goodnight, but the boy clung to him, even when Trine tried to physically take him from Adam’s arms, Lawry would not let go.
Adam chuckled and told Trine she could go on and do whatever she wanted. He would put Lawry to bed himself. Trine knew Cat had been looking forward to a night alone with Adam, and so tried to protest, but Adam had made up his mind.
Cat paced the floor for what seemed like an eternity, trying to keep her patience. Finally, in a huff of frustration she blew out the candles which had not already burned themselves out, and returned the sparkling grape juice, strawberries and cream to the fridge. When she got back to the bedroom to discover that Adam still wasn’t there, she went to the nursery to find him.
She was ready to do whatever she had to in order to get him back to their bedroom; tears, seduction, anger… but when she reached the nursery door her breath caught in her throat at the scene which lay out before her. Adam, his white silk shirt rumpled; the sleeves rolled up, water-stains on them, his silver hair tousled and his shoes kicked off. He sat in the rocking chair where she had spent more than a few nights herself. Lawry was in his arms, resting comfortably against Adam’s broad chest, sleeping soundly. Adam, too, was sound asleep.
Cat could not summon the will to disturb either of them. She simply turned off the overhead light, the nightlight glowing softly between the chair where they slept and the crib, and she slipped out quietly.
There will be some adult themes within this story, and almost undoubtedly a lot of offensive language. Read at your own discretion.
Catalina Chronicles Book 4:
Someone else’s dream
Chapter Two
I heard from a friend today
And she said you were in town
Suddenly the memories came back to me in my mind
A wounded heart you gave
My soul you took away
Good intentions you had many
I know you did
I come from a place that hurts
And God knows how I've cried
And I never want to return
never fall again
from 'Again' by Janet Jackson
“Hello, Moni.”
Simone’s heart seemed to turn to lead and drop out of her chest, past her stomach even, all the way to the sole of her left shoe. It was a voice she had never expected to hear again. She’d been trying to recover from the shock of seeing him on the television the day before, with no success. Every thought she’d had in the last twenty hours had been of Toby, and now, he was on the other end of the phone line.
“Moni?” He asked, wondering if they’d been disconnected.
“I’m here,” she managed a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat and buoyed her defenses, preparing herself for battle. “What do you want, Toby?”
“Why, yes, Moni, it has been a long time. I’m doing well, thanks for asking. How are you?” He replied sarcastically.
“Fuck off, Toby. Just tell me why you called or I’m hanging up,” she growled into the phone, doing her best Larry impression.
“All right, all right,” Toby sighed. Simone could picture his expression as clearly as if they had been standing face to face. She had memorized everything about the man when he had been little more than a boy; when they had been lovers.
“I’ve been looking for you for a couple of years now, you know. I had to hire a whole team of private investigators to find you. How the hell did you end up in Ireland?” He wondered aloud, not expecting an answer.
“Funny, you looking for me. I wasted two years of my life looking for you; waiting for you,” Simone complained.
“I needed to wrap my head around things, Moni. I was twenty years old, and I was just finding my feet when you dropped the bomb on me,” he retorted.
“The bomb?!” Simone repeated, her voice turning venomous. “You’re talking about me telling you that I was pregnant with your son! I don’t think a bomb is an appropriate metaphor here!”
“All right, all right, you knew what I meant. No need to get your knickers in a bunch, babe,” he told her, not exactly conceding to her argument, but waving the white flag. Only, Simone thought, he was not just waving it, but slapping her in the face with it.
“What do you want, Toby?” She asked, her voice dangerously calm.
“I want to meet my son,” he replied quickly and matter-of-factly, as if she should already have known damn well why he was calling. She did, or at least, she had feared as much. For the past four years, she had clung to the hope that she would not have to deal with Toby again until Pauley was a teenager and asked about the man who had helped create him.
“Why the sudden interest?” She asked through clenched teeth.
“He’s my son, Moni!” he informed her. Here was the love she had wanted him to know for his child back when she was twenty six and still loved him. It had taken him too long to find it, though. She found it impossible to believe in its sincerity.
“He has a daddy, Toby. He has me, and he has Larry. He doesn’t need you now. If you want to do what’s best for him, just leave him alone,” she said, hating the note of desperation in her voice. She didn’t dare show this man weakness.
“Larry? You have some kind of pommy bastard raising my boy?”
“He’s Irish, not English, and someone had to step up and show him what it meant to be a man. You sure as hell weren’t going to do it!” Simone told him heatedly. She realized she was raising her voice at him now, but her temper had been spent up. She was not about to sit there and let him insult Larry on sheer virtue of the fact that he was with her.
“Give a guy a fair go at it, Moni,” He asked, his voice softening and making Simone’s resolve weaken. She sighed and he waited patiently for her to speak again. She would have preferred it if he’d kept talking at her. He would probably have pissed her off and she would’ve been able to slam the phone down on him, or maybe to tell him what he could have a fair go at; vanishing up his own ass and never bothering her again.
But he didn’t, and so neither did she.
“Once, ok? That’s it. We’ll meet somewhere, and Pauley and I can decide when we leave, even after five minutes if that’s all we can stand it,” She told him nervously. She could hear him smile on the other end of the line.
“Ace!” He exclaimed. “And Moni? I always knew you were the clucky sort and would take good care of him, y’know.”
“Thank you,” Simone told him weakly. She felt as if she’d just been caught in a tornado, and she was afraid when she hung up the phone and glanced around she would realize she had been tossed somewhere over the rainbow. That was the way things had always been with Toby; the whole world went off kilter when he was nearby. She used to love that about him, now it just left her feeling sick to her stomach.
******************************************************
Catalina’s heart still raced at the thought of being close to Adam. She was hurrying frantically around the house, trying to make sure everything was just right, including herself. Adam was coming home! She had sparkling grape juice chilling in the bedroom, soft music playing and about a hundred candles lit. It seemed like that many, at least, when you first stepped into the room. She had done her best to recreate their honeymoon, right down to the strawberries and whipped cream.
It had been a long time since she’d been with him that way. Too long. Since the baby had come, they had either been too exhausted to do anything more in their humongous bed but sleep, or Adam had been on the road. They had agreed Lawry was too young to travel or to be without at least one of his parents, and so they had spent the better part of the past year and a half apart.
“Ew! Eww eww eww eww!” trine exclaimed, peeking into the bedroom and seeing the romantic setting. Cat smiled without the slightest hint of modesty, her green eyes dancing in the candlelight. “I really don’t need the mental image in my head of you and my dad… eww eww eww!”
“Thank you for taking care of Lawry tonight, Trine,” Cat told her sincerely. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”
“It’s fine, Cat. Just don’t EVER tell me anything about Adam that goes on behind this door and we’re cool,” Trine replied, spinning on her heel and heading down the hall towards the nursery and playroom where they could both hear Lawry chattering away to himself in his own baby language.
Cat followed behind her step-daughter and smiled. Trine was eighteen now, and more beautiful than any of them had imagined she would ever be, the first time they saw her. Her hair was dyed black once again, but kept fairly short in a shaggy, effortless style which suited her well. It constantly fell over her beautiful blue eyes, eyes just like her fathers, but it somehow accented that tremendously full, pouty lower lip (which she had also inherited from Adam).
She was slender, but not skinny; shapely but not in an overdramatic way which made a person wonder if she’d bought and paid for her curves. Many of the piercings, which she had taken out for awhile, had been re-done. Still, somehow, they only served to accent her youthful charm now; rather than giving her a hardened look. She wore three hoops in her left eyebrow and a diamond stud below that sensuous lower lip, and at least a half a dozen in her ears.
Cat had been sworn to silence on the subject, but she knew for a fact that on her eighteenth birthday, Trine had also gotten both nipples pierced. She had a massive crush on the piercing and tattoo artist who’d done it, but nothing more had ever come of her crush. Cat had meant to ask her why she had not gone back, but had forgotten about it in the recent rush, preparing for Adam’s return.
“Mommamommamomma!” Lawry called out to Cat when he saw her through the doorway of his playroom. He crawled over a pile of toys he’d dumped out of a toy box and forgotten, then found the closet standing furniture to pull himself up to his feet.
“Hey, baby!” Cat replied, beaming with love and pride as she held her arms out to him. Trine leaned against the doorframe behind Cat and watched as her little brother hurried to hug Cat, his gait still a little unsteady. He did not fall, however, which Trine noticed with a relieved smile. She had worried about the little tike when he was first learning to walk, because he fell so often.
“Pretty momma!” Lawry told Cat, stroking her hair as he would pet a cat or dog.
“Thank you baby!” Cat replied with a hearty round of laughter and a kiss on the cheek. “You are such a sweet heart.”
“He’s already sucking up,” Trine joked, rolling her eyes playfully and holding her arms out to her baby brother. He reached for her eagerly, nearly falling clear out of Cat’s grip in his enthusiasm.
“You be a good boy for Trine tonight, ok?” Cat told him, stroking his soft brown hair back from his forehead and kissing him again now that he was safely in his sister’s arms. “I love you.”
“Of yoo!” Lawry declared, smiling brightly at Cat as he rested his head on Trine’s shoulder. Cat’s heart ached; it was so full of love when she looked at her little boy. She found it impossible to imagine how any parent could ever walk away from their child, as her mother had done to her.
“You ready to take a bubbly-bath, brat?” Trine asked, her nickname for her brother harsh, but her tone full of love.
“Bubbly!” Lawry declared with glee, sitting up in her arms and clapping his hands eagerly. Cat watched them proceed to the bathroom, pajamas and bubble-bath in hand, and then returned to her vigil at the front window. She’d only waited for a few minutes when she saw his headlights approaching. Her heart began to flutter in her chest and she couldn’t stop smiling, suddenly.
She slipped on a pair of sandals and hurried out into the garage to greet him as soon as he was out of the car. He had no sooner managed to stand up, the door still open, when she raced up to him and threw her arms around his neck. She kissed him for so long there could be no doubt as to how much she loved him or how much she had missed him.
When she pulled back a bit, allowing him room to breathe, at least, he chuckled heartily at her.
“That’s a lot better hello than I’ve ever gotten when I returned from a tour in the past,” he told her honestly, hugging her tightly for a moment more, then kissing her softly again.
“That’s only the beginning,” she promised, smiling coyly at him. He grinned back at her, that broad, toothy grin which she adored so much.
“Do I get to go in the house for the rest?” He teased, and she felt her cheeks flush red. She stepped back to allow him to close the car door and then he wrapped an arm around her waist as they proceeded into the house.
“Is Lawrence in bed?” He asked, setting down the leather carry-on bag which had been draped across his broad shoulder.
“Trine’s watching him for us tonight. She was just giving him a bath and then going to put him to bed,” Cat replied, rising up onto her tiptoes to nuzzle the side of his neck. He smelled better than heaven, his scent gracing her nose and then filling her completely and making her thoughts grow cloudy and dizzying her with lust.
She slipped her hands up under the sport jacket he wore over his white silk shirt, feeling the wiry bristle of his chest hair beneath the soft, thin material. Her fingertips lingered over a nipple as she caught his earlobe between her teeth and tugged.
“Mmm, Cat, Cat, hold on love!” Adam mumbled, kissing her on top of the head. “I want to go see if he’s asleep yet.”
“Oh. Right. Sure.”
“I’ll only be a minute,” he assured her, and Cat nodded silently, forcing herself to smile. Of course he wanted to see his son, he’d hardly seen him growing into a toddler from a baby. He came back to visit as often as he could, but how could a visit ever be enough for a father? She reminded herself of the feeling she had just experienced a few moments ago, the way love had made her wonder how a parent could stand to be away from their child.
It was not a rejection of her, no matter how much it may feel like it at the moment. She drew in a deep breath and moved into the bedroom to wait for Adam.
***********************************************************
“Where’s my boy?” Adam asked, stepping into the bathroom and being caught in a fog of steam and the sweet scent of children’s bubble bath.
“Da-dee!” Lawry shrieked with joy, splashing the water excitedly. Trine turned from her seat on the side of the tub and smiled at Adam.
“And my girl,” Adam greeted her with a kiss on top of the head, much like he had just given Cat. Trine felt childish and silly for the joy it brought her to have him treat her like a child. No, not like a child; like his child. It had been less than three years now that they had known each other, even though he was her biological father. Things had been awkward at first; Adam felt guilty for having been absent through her childhood and Trine had been bitter.
Somewhere along the line, however, they had found themselves settling in to the roles of father and daughter quite naturally. There were still moments which were awkward, but somehow they had built a solid bond.
“Da-dee! Da-dee!” Lawry squealed and splashed, drenching Trine in bathwater and splashing Adam’s pantsleg.
“Twerp!” trine grumbled, moving away from the tub to dry off as best as she could with a towel. Adam knelt beside the tub and kissed his son despite the wet, soapy mess he made of his expensive jacket.
“Lawrence, are you a twerp?” He asked playfully, and Lawry giggled in response. “Tell Trine, no I’m not!” Adam instructed, speaking to him in a tone which was just slightly too enthusiastic to be adult. This was one of the things Lawry adored about Adam, who didn’t treat him so much like a baby but as a little person.
It was clear in the boy’s blue eyes when he looked at him. He would get so serious and try so hard to understand what his father said, taking every word to heart in a way he did not have with anyone else.
Adam stayed and talked to Trine, stripping out of his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to wash the shampoo out of Lawry’s hair and rinse his super soft skin. He wrapped the baby in a big, fluffy towel which almost completely enveloped him and drew him up in his arms. As he held the child close, swaying slightly on instinct, he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of youth. It wasn’t the same as with a newborn, but it had not completely faded.
Trine fought the sudden irrational urge to weep; to weep for the childhood she had endured with an unstable mother to care for her and no father to wrap her up in his arms the way Adam now did with Lawry. She scolded herself inwardly. There was no use in being jealous of the baby, after all, there was no way to turn back time. What had passed was over and done, and not worth wasting time crying over.
“Is it bedtime?” Adam asked, and trine nodded silently, turning and leading him into the nursery, where Adam somehow managed to wrestle the wiggling boy into a fresh diaper and clean, warm pajamas. He kissed his son and told him goodnight, but the boy clung to him, even when Trine tried to physically take him from Adam’s arms, Lawry would not let go.
Adam chuckled and told Trine she could go on and do whatever she wanted. He would put Lawry to bed himself. Trine knew Cat had been looking forward to a night alone with Adam, and so tried to protest, but Adam had made up his mind.
Cat paced the floor for what seemed like an eternity, trying to keep her patience. Finally, in a huff of frustration she blew out the candles which had not already burned themselves out, and returned the sparkling grape juice, strawberries and cream to the fridge. When she got back to the bedroom to discover that Adam still wasn’t there, she went to the nursery to find him.
She was ready to do whatever she had to in order to get him back to their bedroom; tears, seduction, anger… but when she reached the nursery door her breath caught in her throat at the scene which lay out before her. Adam, his white silk shirt rumpled; the sleeves rolled up, water-stains on them, his silver hair tousled and his shoes kicked off. He sat in the rocking chair where she had spent more than a few nights herself. Lawry was in his arms, resting comfortably against Adam’s broad chest, sleeping soundly. Adam, too, was sound asleep.
Cat could not summon the will to disturb either of them. She simply turned off the overhead light, the nightlight glowing softly between the chair where they slept and the crib, and she slipped out quietly.
Adam asleep with his little baby. 
