For the Guy with Kids and a WW Dix-Sept

[hopeful4her]

Wow. What a day. Or evening, rather.

Just before the end of my work day, D11 is calling me to let me know that her friends mother can pick her up to take them to go see "High School Musical 3". Fine by me. Finishing a client, the wife calls me and leaves a VM since I couldn't take the call. Ends up, she is letting me know that she just got off of work and she will pick up D7 from daycare. I call her back and she tells me again. I tell her that its ok. She then asks me about D11. I tell her that she is at the movies already.
"Are you sure? She was supposed to call me before she went and she wanted me to pick her up afterward so I could meet her friends mother."
"She's at the movies already" I repeat. We talk a bit about S14 being picked up by his dad. She says she will be at the apartment. I tell her I'll see her there. Because I don't get off until 6pm, I might run the risk of not making it to the daycare on time. Thats why I agreed to her picking up D7.

At the apartment, D7 is changing clothes and the wife has changed and looks like she is ready to go out. D7 tells me, "We're going out to eat, daddy." I look at the wife a little confused. She was going to take D7 to return a bday gift and eat. We have a discussion about what they planned.
She says, "I told you that I was going to pick her up." I said, "Yeah, but I was going to pick her up after." D7 is wanting to go and the wife asks if I want to go to. The wife is asking D7 about what she wants to exchange for the return gift and she says a hamster. The wife and I look at each other and she says that maybe we'll go to Petco and look at them.

So I drive and we go to eat at Chic-fi-let. Inside, I order what we want. I ask the wife if she wants dessert and after she thinks for a second, she says she wants a brownie. I know these are her fave. I grab our food while the wife is getting the napkins, straws and condiments for us. At the table, I sit across from the both of them, but the wife and I face each other. We are all talking about our day and what happened today. Meanwhile, the wife sets a napkin before me and then puts my straw into my drink for me. We have a nice time eating and talking a little to each other and to D7. We finish eating and I offer her the last of my fries. She declines. She starts her brownie and offers me some. I decline. Then we head to the pet store.

D7 is dead set on a hamster and wife is really considering it. I know its a bad idea. We look and look. We are talking and again, just kind of being. Together. I keep trying to change their minds. I know I'm making my faces. D11 calls that she is out of the movie and ends up meeting us at the store. We meet the friends mother and we talk for a while. The lady pretty much changes the wife's mind about the hamster. Now the wife has to back pedal and D7 is pissed. Big time.

As usual, the wife promising things before she really thinks them through. I end up calming D7 down. We all end up walking through the store until closing time. The wife and I and D7 are looking at all the fish. We are all bunched up together, shoulder to shoulder looking at them. D7 gets to hold a ferret and the wife and I are also petting the thing, with our fingers touching. All of us.

Leaving, now the discussion turns to the wife offering for the girls to spend the night. We both have to work and the girls were going to be by themselves at home anyway. They can be closer, the wife justifies. D11 agrees so that she can visit her friends. The wife and I at the same time, let her know that no one leaves the apartment until I get there, so now D11 is upset. D11 now wants to go back home. D7 wants to stay at the apartment. Both are kind of whining. The wife tries to contact her mother to see if she can come stay with the girls at the apartment, but no answer.

Waiting, I decide that we are all just going home. I tell D7 to come inside and stop riding her scooter. She kind of ignores me and rides past me towards the stairwell. I'm telling D11 to get her things, when I hear a thud and then crying. D7 crashed her scooter by taking a turn to sharp. I carry her inside and her little hand is starting to bruise and swell. She won't let me touch her thumb and she cant' move it.

So away we go.

To the TexMed Clinic. We are there for about an hour and a half. Waiting, D7 sits next to me and D11 sits next to her. The wife sits across from all of us in a section of 4 empty chairs. D7 and I share headphones to my MP3 player. She is getting VERY sleepy. The wife looks at her and pats the chair next to her points to her shoulder to invite D7 to go lay on her. D7 just leans over to me and puts her head on my shoulder.

The look on the wife's face was priceless. I start to clean D7's fingernails because they are filthy. I can just see the wife watching us. She keeps getting a far away look. We do end up talking some. And Juli does end up sitting next to her and then falling asleep. In the end and after xrays, nothing broken. Leaving, the wife says that the girls should just spend the night. They are tired and we have a long drive anyway. I agreed with her. We're all tired. I pull into the parking lot and park across from her apartment because there is no parking on the other side in front of her building.

Where I parked, my lights are shining on a tennis shoe.

I turn off my lights and get off to hug the girls and give kisses. To my girls, that is. The wife tells me thank you. She also says goodnight. I tell her goodnight and I leave. I get home just after midnight. Relaxing and starting to post, I get a call from the apartment phone.

"Hey."
"Hey." I say.
"Are you home yet?"
"Yes. Whats the matter?"
Pause.


"Where are Tom's tennies?"
"They're gone."
"You got rid of them? I can't believe you!"
"I told you I got upset."
"You have no right. This my apartment. I can't believe you. That is just so....so childish. You owe him a pair of shoes."
"I don't owe him anything."
"Ughhh!" she grunts.
Click. She hung up.

I wait about fifteen minutes to give her time to call OM and let him know. I call her back. Her home phone rings and rings and rings. No answer machine tells me she is on the phone. After about 25 rings, she answers.
"What!"
"Let me ask you a question."
"I can't believe you did that. You brought this upon yourself." she sounded frustrated, like she had been trying to calm him down.
"I brought WHAT on myself?"
"Nothing." Now she sounded tired.
"What is it?"
"He's PISSED."
"Let me ask you a question."
"WHAT!"
"Would you knowingly leave his things out so that the girls can see them?"
"No, I alway clean up. I don't leave things around. Besides, you have no right. Its my apartment. You have no right to snoop. They were just shoes. HIS shoes. Everyone leaves their shoes by the door. Not like they were underwear or something."
"When Juli sees them and tells me that they are Tom's and then asks why his shoes are there...I told you I got pissed off."
"They weren't left on purpose."
"Yes they were."
"No they weren't."
"Believe me, they were. Its his way of marking his territory. He did it on purpose. Don't think he didn't."
"This is not your place. Snooping around. Like when you left Amanda's report card under his bag. You have no business in there."
"I told you I had to use the restroom. There it was. I'm telling you...I simply had to use the restroom."
"Did you throw them away?"
I pause.
"No."
"Are they in your car?"
"I would NOT have them in my car?"
"Where are they?"

I tell her. Out in the grass by the parking lot. I hear her walking out the door and outside.
"I don't see them. Someone took them."
"No they didn't. I JUST SAW them."
"By my patio?"
"No, where I parked to leave you off."

She walks to finds them. The phone is starting to cut out.
"So he was threating, huh? Yeah, you should have seen his threating texts." I say to her.
She said something that I couldn't understand. She finally finds the other shoe. We were quiet for about 5 minutes while she was looking.
"Are you there?" she asks.
"Yes. You know...it was kind of funny."
"See how funny THIS is."
Click.
I chuckle to myself. I try to call her back. Busy. I try several times. Busy. Means she was dialing him back.

I finally get through. She answers.
"WHAT!"
"Okay, that WASN'T funny."
"I'm DONE talking to you! I need my SLEEP!"

Click. She hung up again.

I didn't mean what I did wasn't funny. Her hanging up wasn't funny.

Even though it made me laugh.

I can just imagine what he was telling her what he was going to do to me. Jack ass.