Carter walked over to stand next to me and just like our last few encounters, his close proximity forced my pulse into overdrive.
"I’m sorry I snuck up on you like that. Liz caught me as I was getting out of my car and dragged me into her side so she could hand me my ass,” he explained as I concentrated on wiping up the chocolate and tried to ignore the heat from his body. “I hope you don't mind me dropping by like this. I feel like such a dick that it's taken me this long to talk to you"
I stood there like an idiot, trying not to touch anything since my fingers were full of chocolate. I turned my head to the side and found his face inches from my own. I saw the sincerity in his eyes, and I knew I could never be mad at him about this.
"It's okay, believe me. I've had a lot of time to get used to the idea. I'm sorry that it was sprung on you like that out of the blue. I swear that I fully intended to tell you. I don't want you to think I intentionally kept this from you. I planned on telling you from the start. I was just trying to figure out how. And then it all blew up before I could do anything about it," I explained.
I realized right then that I didn't want him to be mad at me. I wanted more than anything for him to be able to handle this and to stick around. Spending the last week going to bed without hearing his voice was sad and depressing. Having him here right now made me realize just how much I missed him.
"We have a lot of things to talk about I guess. You have no idea how many questions are swirling around in my head right now," he said.
I nodded my head and before I could say anything, he changed the subject.
"But for right now, I am in a kitchen with a beautiful woman who has melted chocolate all over her fingers," he said with a smirk.
Before I could grab a towel, he reached over and wrapped his hand around one of my wrists and pulled my hand towards him. I held my breath as he opened his mouth and slid my chocolate coated index finger into his mouth. The pad of my finger slid along the roughness of his tongue as he sucked all of the chocolate off while he slowly pulled my finger back out through his warm, wet lips.
Check please!
"Mommy, I finished coloring my picture!"
The excited yell and pounding footsteps of Gavin as he barreled into the kitchen doused a bucket of cold water all over my vagina. For once, I was glad I had a built-in cock-blocker in the form of a four-year-old. I was one more finger suck away from dropping Carter down on the floor and showing him that I was quite bendy.
Quickly wiping my hands on the apron I wore, I turned away from Carter and bent down to my son's level.
"Can I see your picture now?"
Gavin held it tight to his chest and shook his head no.
"Sorry, Mommy. I maded this picture for the little maggot," he said earnestly.
I heard Carter laugh behind me.
"Um, did you say 'little maggot'?" I asked.
"Yup," he said, popping the 'p'.
"Do I even want to know who you're talking about?"
Gavin pointed behind me to Carter.
"Him. Papa called him dat the day we met him."
I groaned in embarrassment. One of these days my father was going to have to realize that Gavin is a parrot.
"I don't like your name. It's weird. And you don't look so little to me," Gavin said to Carter. "But I still drewed you a picture."
He reached around me and handed the paper to Carter. I took a quick glance at it and realized it was a picture of a big stick figure being punched in the junk by a little stick figure.
"Well, at least now I have a photo to commemorate our first meeting," Carter deadpanned quietly.
"Gavin, how about you just call him Carter," I said, looking to Carter with my eyebrows raised in question to make sure he was okay with that.
He nodded his head at me and smiled, then squatted down so we were both eye-level with Gavin.
"Thank you very much for my picture," he said with a smile.
Gavin wasn't big on strangers, mostly because I put the fear of God into him when we had the discussion about stranger-danger. In hind sight, telling him all strangers wanted to eat him wasn’t my finest hour. Having to explain to a bunch of crying children in line to see Santa why my kid was screaming “DON’T GO NEAR HIM! HE’LL EAT YOUR FINGERS!” was no picnic. Liz had to talk me out of taking him to the vet and getting a GPS chip put in his neck. Something told me though that anyone who took my kid would bring him back within the hour. They wouldn't be able to take the kicks to the nuts and the cursing.
Gavin didn't usually talk to strangers unless I prompted him to do so. The ease with which he talked to Carter surprised me.
"You're welcome, Carter. My papa is coming to get me so Mommy can give beer to people. Papa lets me watch movies that Mommy don't let me watch and I get to have pop and I wanna get a dog but my friend Luke has a jeep that he rides in the yard and I hurted my knee and it got cut and Mommy put a band-aid on it and told me to 'shake it off' so I wouldn't cry and did you know vampires suck?"
"Gavin!" my dad bellowed before I got a chance to.
He had walked into the store during Gavin's run-on-sentence and was almost to the kitchen when he heard him drop that bomb. I quickly stood up and faced him with my hands on my hips.
"Dad, I told you he wasn't allowed to watch that movie."
"Hey, Carter, I'm team Jacob, bitch!" Gavin yelled.
"Gavin Allen! Do you want me to put soap in your mouth?" I asked him sternly.