Booby Trapped and Baby Proofed (9 page)

“I don’t know. I don’t want him to feel neglected,” Harrison said.

“He won’t,” Angel assured him. “Daddy has to work. He’ll appreciate the effort when you give him an allowance or when you buy him his first car. And if you need me to, I’ll pick him up from after-care, bring him home, and spoil him.”

“Oh, he’d love that,” Harrison said. “Maybe I need to let you take him to the barber.”

“I like the curls,” Angel said.

“He looks like a girl,” Harrison argued.

“He has a penis,” Angel insisted.

Harrison smirked.

“Besides, curly-haired men are sexy.”

He continued to smirk. “Who told you?”

“My sister,” Angel answered. “Apparently the two of you went to high school together.”

“Apparently,” Harrison said.

The last of the patrons left, along with the instructors and Everett.

“Come on,” Harrison said to her. “Let’s go rescue the teacher.”

“Okay,” Angel said. “And I want to see a picture of you with curls.”

“No way,” he said as he held the door open for her.

She stepped outside and Harrison took her hand and they walked down the street to get Ethan.

****

“I don’t know how you’re doing this, but it has to stop,” Harrison said.

Ethan had gotten a crayon and had expressed his creativity on the den wall. Harrison had just stepped out the room a couple of minutes to use the toilet. He took the crayon away from him. As he walked over to the drawer to put the crayon away, he noticed that all the magazines in the book rack were thrown haphazardly on the floor. Ethan had toddled behind him and was busy examining his handiwork.

“See,” he said pointing.

Harrison couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes, I see.” He bent down, gathered up the magazines, and put them back into the rack. “You have every baby toy known to man, but you’d rather play with magazines and crayons.” And then he remembered something a friend had told him. Harrison lifted Ethan into his arms.

Ethan squirmed. “Down.”

“Stop wiggling before you fall on your head,” Harrison told the child. He walked into the spare bedroom where he’d been storing the empty moving boxes until he could recycle them and selected one. He carried it and the child outside on the patio. “This should keep you busy for a while.” He put Ethan on the ground and then stepped outside the screened patio door to do some gardening. He looked back and spotted Ethan putting some of his toys into the box. Moments later, he dumped the toys out and then got inside the box.

Harrison chuckled and got to work pulling weeds out of the flower bed. About fifteen minutes later into the process, he noticed a small set of hands in the garden with his. He looked over. Ethan had somehow managed to open the patio door and walked out without making a sound. Harrison looked toward the patio. Ethan had moved the box to the door and used it as a step stool to push the latch and unlock the door. Harrison sighed. He’d have to go to the hardware store to see if he could find something to secure the door so Ethan couldn’t get out of it when he wasn’t around.

“See,” Ethan said, pointing down to a little brown worm. He giggled and tried to touch it.

“Yes, I see it, Houdini.”

Ethan captured the worm and tried to put it in his mouth.

“No,” Harrison told him, removing the worm from the protesting child’s hand and freeing it back into the garden. “Worms are for fishing, not for eating. You have a perfectly good sandbox over there. Why don’t you pretend you’re at the beach?” Harrison carried him over to the sand box and put him down next to plastic pail and spade.

Ethan giggled and began beating the pail with the spade like a drummer, making noise, but obviously having fun.

Harrison went back to work on the weeds.

“Hey, you guys.”

Harrison looked up to find his girlfriend carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a tube top.

“I thought you might want to take a break.”

Harrison stood up, wiped the dust from his knees, and removed his gloves.

Ethan spotted her and ran over to her, grabbing her around the legs and squealing happily.

“Whoa, partner. You’re going to knock Angel over.” Upon closer inspection of the tray, he noticed a couple of sandwiches, a sipping cup for Ethan, and a bowl of bite-sized fruit. “Thanks,” he said, taking the tray from her and putting it down on the picnic bench. “How did you know that we were in the yard?”

Angel smiled as she picked Ethan up. “I heard this one serenading you with his sand bucket drum. So I peeked out of my patio door and saw you working in the garden.”

“Let me go wash up. I’ll be right back.” Harrison hurried out of the yard, opened the screen door, and moved the box out his way so he could get to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. When he returned, he found Angel busy feeding Ethan. He sat down at the table and handed her the wipes for Ethan’s hands. Angel gently cleaned his hands and fingers so he could feed himself the fruit.

“I hope you like chicken salad,” she said as she helped herself to one of the sandwiches. She had already poured their lemonade.

“Yes, I do,” Harrison said. “But I haven’t eaten it in a long time.”

“Why not?” Angel asked.

“I didn’t have anyone around to make it for me. My mother used to make it and I remember watching her do it one time. It takes a lot of work grinding up the chicken and cutting the seasonings down small enough. We didn’t have a food processor back then. So thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I like cooking and my mother taught me how to prepare it. With a family as large as ours, chicken and tuna salad went a long way.”

Harrison bit into the sandwich and sighed. “It’s perfect,” he said. And tasted remarkably like his mother’s. He’d eaten others before, but found it too chunky and the seasonings usually overtook the taste of the chicken. He sipped the lemonade. Ice cold, tart, and sweet. He sighed. Angel sure knew how to make a man happy. “So, how have you been enjoying your Sunday?”

“I went to church and then I came home and started cooking dinner.”

“When did you rest?” Harrison asked.

“I’ll rest later,” she told him. “I wanted to get the pot roast on.”

No, she did not say pot roast. “You’re fixing pot roast?”

Angel nodded. “And red beans and rice. I thought you’d like something hot and filling.”

Since they’d met, she had fixed dinner for him and Ethan almost every night. “You’re going to spoil me,” he said, looking over at her breasts through the tube top. Ethan moved on her lap, making the top inch down a little.

“I can see your nipples,” he told her as he sipped his lemonade. “And if my charming son wiggles any more against you, I’m going to see a lot more.”

Angel used her free hand to lift the top. She playfully kicked him under the table. “It’s hot in the kitchen.”

“Shouldn’t you be home watching the pots?”

“No, the roast is ready and the beans are in the slow cooker.”

Harrison continued eyeing Angel’s nipples through the material. “I wonder if Ethan is ready for a nap.” His rubbed his foot against hers under the table. “Daddy has this sudden urge to nurse.”

Angel took another bite of her sandwich and shook her head. “Drink your lemonade. It will cool you off.”

Harrison smirked. She couldn’t fool him. Her nipples were now the size of quarters and he saw the look in her eyes when he mentioned a little after lunch quickie. He gazed down at his son. Ethan didn’t look the least bit sleepy as he ate his cut up bananas and grapes.

Angel smirked as if reading his mind.

“He colored on the walls in the den earlier. As a punishment, I think he needs to take a nap and let Daddy have a little fun.”

“You can’t punish a child for expressing his creativity,” Angel told him. “I have some big sheets of art paper next door. I’ll bring them over for him to draw on. He might be the next Rembrandt.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. I need a little warm spot to bury my treasure.”

Ethan giggled as if he understood.

Angel rose. “You want to take a nap, honey?” she asked Ethan. “Or maybe watch a cartoon?” She carried him into the house.

Harrison watched those hips sway as she walked and then followed her and Ethan into the house.

****

The pot roast just melted in his mouth later that evening after he and Ethan woke up from their nap. Angel had sexually attacked him in the bedroom while Ethan played in his playpen and watched a cartoon. It took only ten minutes to get him off and then she dashed off to check on the red beans.

Ethan wasn’t feeling any pain either as he dined on roasted potatoes, carrots, and some of the beans Angel had smashed for him. For dessert, she’d surprised him with a homemade apple cake. The bigger surprise was that Ethan ate a piece and didn’t push it aside.

“I do believe that he is in love with you,” Harrison replied.

“I love him too,” Angel said. “He’s such a smart little boy. Did you see his drawings? They were very colorful.”

Harrison smirked. He’d seen them. It just looked like big circles to him, even though the test results came back that Ethan was highly intelligent and probably a genius. “Yeah. Hopefully he’ll stop writing on the walls.”

“Daddy,” Ethan said.

“Yes, sport?”

Ethan just giggled.

“He’s getting a kick out of messing with you,” Angel said.

“I’m really looking forward to him becoming a teenager so I can get a kick out of messing with him too.” He laughed. “I’m beginning to enjoy him. I wake up every morning wondering what he’s  going to do next.”

“Ah, so you’re enjoying it now. For a moment I thought you might be considering selling him to a traveling band of gypsies.”

“No, I’m beginning to see that the kid has a talent for drawing good people into our lives.”

“Does that mean Roy?” Angel asked.

“Well, yes. I guess it does. I can’t select his friends. Maybe the two of them will look out for each other as they grow up. Everett and I have been friends since we were toddlers and that hasn’t turned out so bad. Roy might turn into Ethan’s lifelong friend too.”

Chapter Seven

Another week went by. The dojo was officially open and classes had begun. Harrison had been able to pick Ethan up at a reasonable time, except for Friday. He called Angel and she picked the child up and took him home. He rang the doorbell and Angel answered.

“He’s asleep,” Angel told him, leading him into her bedroom.

He found his son lying in Angel’s bed, sleeping peacefully. “He’s in my spot,” Harrison told her.

“Where else was I supposed to put him?” Angel asked, leading him out of the room and into the kitchen.

The aroma of food entered his nose. “You had time to cook with Ethan here?”

“Yes, I let him play with a potato while I cooked.”

Harrison looked around. “I don’t see a mess. What did you do, tie him to a chair?”

“No, you underestimate the power of a potato and a child’s imagination.” She dished up their dinner, pork chops in gravy, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables.

He sat down at the table and she sat down across from him. “You’re amazing,” he said. “You work, take care of a home, and can still juggle a kid and cook.”

“The object is to learn how to multi-task,” she told him. “I hired good teachers so they basically run the place. I’m just there to take care of the administrative work and order supplies.”

“You’re an excellent cook,” he said, sampling the food.

“That’s because I lived in the kitchen with my mother, helping her when her arthritis was acting up.”

“Don’t you have older sisters?”

She nodded. “We all took turns helping out around the house and then I just took over the kitchen when my mother got sick. I’d come straight home after school and fix dinner for her and my two younger siblings since the older ones had moved out.”

He noticed she never really talked about having fun when she was growing up. “What did you do for fun when you were a teenager?”

“I swam,” Angel said. “I worked as a lifeguard at the local beach for a while. That’s where I met Henry. I saved him from drowning.”

“Did you wear that red bikini back then? Because I think he tried to drown on purpose so you could save him.”

“No,” Angel said. “We wore blue bathing suits back then. And no, he wasn’t faking. I had to perform CPR on him until the paramedics arrived. He came back to the beach to thank me after he got out of the hospital, and the rest is history.”

He didn’t push her into sharing her feelings about her rocky marriage. It was hard to talk about Olivia’s death too. “What are you doing next Sunday after church?”

“Nothing much. Why?”

“Would you like to go for a ride with me and Ethan?”

“Sure. Where?”

“Don’t freak out. But I’d like to take him to his mother’s grave at the cemetery, and then for ride along the coast.”

“Sure,” Angel said. “It should be a nice day. I’ll pack a lunch.”

“No,” Harrison said. “You’re going to take the evening off. I’ll treat you to lunch and dinner.”

“I’d like that. What cemetery is she buried at?”

He told her.

“My mother is buried there too. We’ll bring flowers.”

Selfishly, he was glad she didn’t say Henry was buried there. He didn’t want to rehash old memories and make her sad. They finished up dinner and Angel cleaned the kitchen while he checked on Ethan.

“I better take Ethan home and put him to bed.”

“Don’t go yet,” Angel said, leading him to the living room.

He sat down on the sofa and she sat down on his lap and hugged him. The hugging turned into kissing.

“Make love to me,” she said.

“The kid is in the bed,” he reminded her.

“We don’t need a bed,” she said, rising from his lap and turning out the light in the living room. She began undressing and before he knew it, she stood before him naked and beautiful. How could he say no?

Harrison stripped out of his clothes and sat back down on the sofa. Angel mounted him. She didn’t need foreplay. He found her pussy wet and ready for him.