Chapter Eight
Stone
Visit his parents at the end of the week?
After the way he’d basically picked me up off the street, well, okay, technically, it had been a train platform, and I hadn’t been selling my body, just a couple of songs if folks were willing to give me a few minutes of their time.
Still. We were strangers, even after a day spent together. Meeting the parents was something you did with someone you were serious about having in your life forever.
Wait.
Was that what he wanted?
Why?
How?
With me, of all people?
My head was reeling as we entered the dining car.
I seriously doubted his mom would squeeze the stuffing out of me when she realized her son had brought home a man with literally nothing to his name besides some old clothes and his guitar.
My band had come to such an explosively disastrous end that those quarterly royalty checks I used to use to travel all over the world were barely enough these days to supplement my street corner singing.
What a fucking waste.
The least I could have done for myself was buy a house, so I had a place to land when shit went south.
Only I’d never seen the point in buying a home only to have it sit empty while I was off snowboarding or base jumping somewhere.
Which left me exactly where I was right now, glancing between the menu and the schedule, trying to piece together how to make today the new best day ever for Payden, who’d done more than he probably realized by bringing me along with him.
For the first time since my world had fallen apart, I started thinking about what the future might look like beyond which city to test out next.
“I’m going to do something naughty,” I declared, leaning forward and motioning to Payden, lowering my voice more. “I’m going to order dessert for breakfast.”
His eyes widened as he flipped the menu around, skimming the other side before flipping it back again. “Where? I don’t see that. Do you have a special Littles menu?”
“Nope, we have the same menu, Littles on one side, Bigs on the other, but look right here,” I said, pointing to the picture of a giant scoop of ice cream sitting on top of a waffle.
“That chocolate chip waffle screams dessert to me, and the ice cream on top is definitely dessert, and I’d say the strawberries count as both fruit and dessert topping, so, still in the dessert category, thus, dessert for breakfast.”
“Dessert for breakfast. I love that. I want dessert for breakfast too,” Payden declared.
“Would you like an order of bacon to go with yours?" I asked.
“Yes, please.” He replied, turning from the menu to the schedule.
“Did you see that they’re playing Thomas and The Magic Railway at ten?
We’ll have plenty of time to eat and get you changed into your Thomas outfit if you want to go, since I noticed that you had a couple of them, and afterward, we can check out the train car they've turned into a ball pit. I bet we could have plenty of fun in there.”
“You’re going to get into the ball pit with me?” He asked, eyeing me skeptically.
I got it. After seeing the way most of the daddies watched their littles from near whatever boisterous and often messy activity they were engaged in, I figured I was already screwing up in the Daddy department by engaging in activities with him, but he didn’t seem to mind, and that was the only thing that mattered to me.
If he wanted me to stay on the sidelines, I’m sure he would tell me, especially if I was spoiling his fun, so taking my cues from him seemed like the best idea.
“Yup, too bad it’s not a giant one, like they had at this festival I attended in the desert a few years back,” I said. “They had one so deep you could do a cannonball into it.”
Even with the nets they had around it, balls would fly over sometimes, and people would snatch them up and take off with them.
I even had someone give me one to sign at a merch table.
I didn't tell Payden about that part because it always felt weird to talk about being famous, especially when I hadn’t been that guy in over two years.
People still recognized me from time to time or thought they did until I shook my head and insisted it wasn’t me.
A few of them wanted selfies and chucked extra bills in my guitar case when I let them take pictures with me.
Damn.
I really had no other skills besides playing, which was going to be an issue with this whole meet the parent’s thing if I didn’t come up with some sort of game plan that wasn’t going to make me look like a freeloader, especially when I had no intention of being one.
Jesus, was I really considering doing this with Payden?
Yeah, yes I was.
“I would love to do a cannonball into a ball pit,” Payden declared, looking at me all wide-eyed, to the point where I had half a mind to offer to build him one, if I knew how to nail two boards together without necessitating an ER visit.
Shit. I really didn’t have fuck all to offer this man.
“By the time we finish bouncing around in the balls, we’ll probably be hungry again and can play it by ear after that,” I suggested.
“I like that idea,” he said. “We should get milkshakes with lunch too and something with ice cream in it for dinner. Then we can call this the Unicorn Besties Best Day Ever Ice Cream Edition.”
“As long as I’m not the one responsible for fitting all those words on whatever product it’s supposed to go on, I’m good with that,” I said as Payden let out a squeal when his breakfast was placed in front of him.
Not only was the strawberry topping oozing down that giant scoop of ice cream, but there were mini chocolate chips to provide an extra boost of sugar.
I just hoped we’d be able to sit still during the movie.
“So good,” Payden moaned around the spoonful he’d shoved in his mouth. It was mostly ice cream, with a sliver of waffle clinging to the bottom.
I’d better dig in if I was going to keep up, especially if the zoomies hit while he was trying to get ready. We’d have plenty of time to race his new trains around before he got in his Thomas outfit at the rate his breakfast was disappearing.
Damn, it was delicious, especially after I crumbled my bacon over it.
He side-eyed my plate for a moment, since he’d been taking bites of his meat in between those of waffle, and yeah, bacon on ice cream was probably an acquired taste for some, but it was downright fabulous to me.
I chuckled when he crumbled what was left of his bacon over the half a waffle he had left, then wiped the ice cream off the edge of his hand where he’d gotten it.
Definitely not a boy who likes to be sticky.
I wondered if that went along with the OCD he mentioned and hoped my impulsiveness didn’t cause him any issues down the line.
We’d forgotten to order drinks, so I waved our waiter down and ordered apple juice, though I probably should have opted for water, since juice was more sugar added to the yummy pile we’d already consumed.
“Can we build my train track before the movie?” He asked. “We have time, right?”
“I was just thinking about that myself,” I replied. “It’ll get us all hyped up for Thomas and the Magic Railway.”
“Have you ever seen it before?”
“Not since I was a kid,” I replied. “I doubt I remember much of it, which makes it the perfect time to see it again.”
“Did you watch a lot of train movies when you were younger?”
“Hmmm…” Did I tell him I watched a lot of things I only half paid attention to, most of them well out of my age range if the older boys in the group home were controlling the remote that day?
Probably not a great idea to mention any of that stuff.
“I wouldn’t say a lot, but I do remember several that had trains in them.”
“Oh, which ones? Maybe I’ve seen them too,” he asked as I started swirling waffle bits in the melted ice cream and strawberry syrup that had formed a small pool on my plate.
“Ummm,” I stammered, certain none of the ones I was about to name were ones he’d have seen as a kid. “Now that I think about it, none of them were exactly appropriate for a kid besides Thomas and Madagascar 3.”
“Were you naughty even back then?” He asked.
“Yup, but unlike with waffles for breakfast, I usually had help in the matter,” I explained.
We gulped down our apple juice once we’d run out of waffles to soak up the sticky swirls on our plates, not that there was much left.
We’d stopped short of licking them, though I’d have gotten negative Daddy points, I’m sure, for being tempted, but that was the kind of breakfast I hadn’t treated myself to in years.
Back in our room, we washed our hands, then laid out all the pieces for the tracks on my bunk, since it gave us more room than the floor offered and was softer to boot.
“This is the hardest part,” Payden declared as we fit the first two pieces together.
“How so?” I asked. “Unlike IKEA furniture, there are numbers on the bottoms of all the track pieces. All we have to do is put them together in numerical order.”
“Ugh, why did you have to mention IKEA?” He groaned and dramatically flopped over on his side with his arm thrown over his eyes.
“I bought everything from IKEA when I first moved into my apartment. I can’t tell you how many times I sat on the floor bawling my eyes out because I had to take something apart and turn it around because I’d assembled it backward. ”
“I’ve heard horror stories,” I admitted, “but never had the misfortune. This is easy though, see?”
I snapped the next two pieces together and added them to the first two, while he propped himself up on his elbow and reached for another piece.
“I’m glad,” he replied. “It’s hard to be patient and put everything together correctly when all you want to do is play.”
“Then why don’t you go ahead and get out the outfit you want for the movie and grab any stuffies and accessories you’d like to bring with you, and by the time you’re through, it’ll be playtime,” I offered.
“Yay, thanks Daddy Stone!”
He was off the bed and across our cabin before I could blink, not that he had far to go, but if it worked out that I got to be his forever Daddy, then I knew going in to assemble all gifts before I gave them to him so he could jump right into playtime.
Sure enough, by the time he’d finished getting his things together, I had the track assembled and three train engines lined up on it, waiting to take turns around the track.
And the race was on!
“Wee!” He declared as he drove Thomas around first, making me glad I’d positioned him that way. “Chugga, chugga, chugga, I’m off to find the magic railway.”
“Wait for me!” I said, following him with a bright green engine. “Chugga, chugga, chugga, watch out up ahead, there’s another train on the tracks.”
“Screechhhh,” he whined, halting Thomas so he could take over the next train, which he promptly flew off the tracks and onto the bed. “Oh no, it’s jumped the tracks. It’s a runaway train.”
“Come back,” I called, jumping off the track with the green train and following his little orange one onto the bedding, leaving Thomas on the tracks to observe the chaos in a dignified manner.
Well, as dignified as a toy train could be.
“You’re going the wrong way! The magic railway is in the other direction. ”
“Woo-woo!” he cried, playing a merry game of cat and mouse with me as we drove the trains around on the bed. “I’m not going to the magic railway! What if we can never come back.”
"There’s always a way back,” I insisted. “Look at Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.”
“And?” He asked, continuing to keep his train out of reach of mine.
“And…and…ummmm…”
Well, shit. Talk about being out of aces.
“See!” he declared. “Woo-woo! No magic railway for me.”
We had a blast playing trains until it was time to get ready, and we never did find the magic railway either, but the movie would take us there after I grabbed a quick shower and helped him adjust the straps on his Thomas outfit.
He’d chosen dungarees with stripes on them like the conductor’s hat he had perched on his gleaming hair.
The Thomas onesie he wore beneath it had the engine’s face on the front, and I discovered that he didn’t like both shoulder straps clipped, just one, while the other dangled.
There were enough pockets that he could fit anything he needed, including a wide, deep one across his chest where we tucked his Thomas stuffy.
Just seeing the way his face lit up when we stood before the mirror with him standing in front of me looking positively adorable cemented for me how much I wanted this to work beyond this trip.
I couldn’t fuck this up.
I couldn’t lose him.
I needed to kickstart a few brain cells and come up with a plan that would let me keep him forever.
And I needed to do it in less than a week.