2021-01-11 - Boy's Day Out.
The Turner boys have a day to themselves while Mom is working. Dad makes a few phone calls and gets a little spooked.
IC Date: 2021-01-11
OOC Date: 2020-05-17
Location: Sweet Retreat - Apartment
Related Scenes: None
Plot: None
Scene Number: 5650
On the second floor of the candy store, some space has been set aside for storage for the store more long-term needs: replacement dishes, stools, and articles of that nature. Behind a door at the top of the flight of stairs is the only other feature: an open flat.
Hardwood dark cherry flooring covers the sparse open space. Nearest the door, to the right, a modest kitchen with modern though used equipment, the fridge giving a gentle hum, which grows too quiet to rake the brain the further to the left one keeps. A small wooden table that was painted a decade ago and shows it is bookcased by wooden dining chairs with cushions on their seats before the kitchenette. A sage green and cream folding bassinet, with safari animals rampage across it has been tucked into that corner.
With modest furniture, an alarm clock and lamp are poised on the floor near the left side of the bed, and a ratty dresser with one drawer missing, is a California King bed, without box spring, laying on a heavy black metal bedframe. Covered in clean looking sheets that have been randomly sown on the mattress as though they and the comforter had little regard if they stayed there. On top of the dresser a blue Halloween cowl belonging to The Tick rests as does a ticket granting the holder $100 to One Up Comics and a child's book: The Dinosaur vs. Bedtime.
The scent of the store below flirts with the nostrils everywhere one goes, even the small bathroom, which doesn't have a door, but opaque flowery curtain hanging delicately from tacks to keep one's pride intact. Likewise, at the height of its noisiest sometimes a low din can be heard from below. The loft's only decoration is a picture frame hoisted near the bathroom by a spent tranq dart pushed into the wall. It contains a single, crumbled dollar bill and a note that reads: My first honest buck.
Perhaps the only thing this loft has going for it are the two rather large windows, one in the bed space, the other in what might be a living room area, that give beautiful testament to the scenery of living so close to the water. The occasional flashing lights from the Boardwalk and the Ferris wheel only diminish it.
The door opened and ducking under the low doorframe, Everett stepped sideways into the room carrying his 'treasures' as his manager downstairs had referred to them as. The pungent stale stink hit his nose first, followed swiftly by a caramelized whiff that always lingered from downstairs. "Ugh," he commented aloud while dropping baby bag on the floor by the table on to which he gently deposited a dozing blue bedizened red-headed baby boy in a rather unremarkable car seat.
Boy's day out.
While Mom's working, something has to be done with the child and with business slow on winter season, Dad has little excuse save those he wants few to know of not to watch his son. His first course is to the window overlooking the bay and pausing to admire the view after opening the blinds one of his paramours put up when nesting. He loses himself in a train of thought, a small train, heavy lifting not required. That seems so long ago now.
Shaking his head briefly to clear the cobwebs from the corners of his mind, big hands open the window with a soft grunt, recalling late this is the window that sticks. And when it slides open, having to hold it open with one hand while the other props the stick under the window to keep it open while fresh, cold and salty air comes in to chase the stale air away and playfully strum the split ends of his long hair before he returns to the table with his back to the window, pulls one of the two chairs from the table, extracts his phone from his front pocket and sits gingerly.
Dad takes a look at his phone while lifting it to his face, then remembers he isn't alone. "You don't mind if I make some phone calls, do you?" he asks the baby and waits for a reply. The only indication he gets from the infant, a couple of nursing lip twitches and a wiggle. Dreaming about food, the older man figures, "Yeah. Me too," his deep voice murmurs, under his breath while he drifts his green eyes to the dresser, leans back against the chair. Putting his beefy forearm against the back of the chair is a balancing act that feels almost as uncomfortable as it looks while he looks over his contacts, hits dial and brings the phone to his ear.
The conversations he has on the phone quickly piece together a network of deliveries coming and going with various special packages of ingredients. Careful not to use names or to speak of what's being moved, exactly, the large man scratches the old painted surface of the table, watching the faded tattooed '1' of his forefinger appear and disappear from his vantage while toying with the surface. At one point the phone stops vibrating and he puts it down in favor of getting up and opening the refrigerator to look inside.
Old deli meat that just might be past its expiration, an old container of hummus. A lemon. Why is there always a lemon? But behind it, what he's looking for after all that talking. Pushing the citrus aside with the back of his left hand, Everett withdraws a Bud Lite. A shifting behind him lets him know the new person, only a few months old is squirming again. Turning from the fridge, his eyes down on the bottle, he murmurs aloud to his son, "You think there's expiration on these too?" while turning the cold bottle over in his big paw. The answer he gets is a stifled whimper. Father knows that sound. "Hey, hey," he starts, twisting the cap off the bottle to throw it into the sink.
Nothing but net.
The cap ceases bouncing around the sink, making its distinctive metallic sound before the bottle is raised to his lips and he takes a quick, guilty pull. On the counter, the beer bottle is placed back down before he takes the few steps back to the small table his son's on. His hands free, Everett's able to rock the red-headed boy with his left, while the awkward opening of the baby bag begins with the other then searching for lunch. "We'll start with this," Everett murmurs, putting the bottle down, then unclasping the baby from the car seat. Both hands reach to extract the boy from the restrictive device, then into the crook of his left arm. The bottle picked up, cap pulled off with both hands and brought to his son's mouth to be greedily accepted, "then we'll check that diaper, little man."
Seagulls crying competed with the sounds of heavy, hungry suckling. The baby looked up, seeing but not really seeing the big man's face contrasted with the curtain of long black hair, which his small right hand grabs a fistful of much like his sister had, does. His mouth is occupied, or that fist of hair would likely have found its way towards that ever hungry hole.
A few paces, then Everett sits on the corner of the bed, holding his son protectively, watching him feast. For long enough to remember his own thirst. His eyes look up, seeing his bottle on the table, more than an arm's reach away. And then his eyes looked back down at his boy, whose own green eyes were hooding, tiredly. The suckling coming slower, almost disinterested. He'll be asleep soon, Dad figures, and leans forward, getting ready to shift baby and bottle both to the same limb so he can suckle on his own, adult, beverage.
But the shift wakes the baby, the famished suckling renewing, eyes snapping awake to look up at his father as if to say, 'Don't even think about it, Old Man.' Not even a half a year old, and already keeping his father from the evil carbs. Everett snorts with amusement, "Ok. Not until you're asleep," he says to his son, using the pinkie holding the bottle to stroke chubby baby cheek several times. Enough to cause the green eyes to start to hood again, then close. The sounds from the open window get louder with the easing of the baby feeding.
This time.
This time Everett just looks longingly at his open bottle, knowing to move is a trap. And while he stares, looking at the shape of the bottle, the amber liquid inside, nearly down past the neck, and the condensation on the side that causes a tear drop to roll down the bottle, past its label and on to the painted table surface, crying, weeping that it's not being drank. Not sating this thirst.
The bottle shifts.
Not much. Just skirts, slides an inch over the top of the table.
Everett blinks and jerks his head back. The confusion on his face remains while he waits for the bottle to dare to further its advance again. But nothing. His focus remains on the beer bottle singularly, he doesn't notice his boy's grip on his hair go limp and loose as he drifts back to sleep.
A seagull cry. The sea breeze pulls the drapes into the room. The table vibrates, his phone wiggling on the table earning his attention for a quick moment. "Ah, fu--," he starts catches himself and ends with, "-- udge," after a glance down at the weight in his arm. A swift stand and putting the milk bottle down, Everett picks up the vibrating phone and puts it to his ear while he takes a step towards the open window to look out of it, into the open expanse of water and answers the call. Back to business, another business.
Naw. Kailey's crazy. It was just the wind.
Tags: