4. Chapter 4
OLIVER
“So, I’m not going to see you anymore?” Theo mumbles with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen whilst mid-way through trying to take a big chomp out of his cheeseburger. I honestly wasn’t expecting such a response from him. I swallow my food before replying,
“Of course you’re gonna still see me, bud! I’ll still take you to school in the morning and be home in time to say goodnight, but I just won’t be around that much during the evening; that’s all.” I state, biting into a chip.
“…a-are we still gonna have bro days?” he asks, using those painfully irresistible puppy dog eyes of his. If he brought out the pouty lip, I’d be ready to throw my job away and spend every second with him, something I’d never do for anyone else, only for him alone.
“Are you kidding? What do you think we’re doing right now?
” I respond, using my clean hand to ruffle his hair.
It took a few seconds for him to believe me, then he tucked back into his cheeseburger.
I hate that I’m having this conversation with him today of all days, but there hasn’t been much time to do otherwise.
Yesterday was another day off gone wrong, with all the new material I needed to go over for my upcoming cases, meant I spent half the day cooped up in my home office, only really leaving to feed Theo lunch and then once it hit after hours I had to take us back to the office, a habit I tried not to let happen often as an office is no place for a child to grow up, but as he’s still without a nanny, there hasn’t been another option.
Communication with my top paralegal only worked more efficiently when I was physically there, not to mention Nigel had a tower worth of stuff that needed to be signed off by tomorrow because some corporate assholes didn’t see the difference between the week and the weekend.
I’m all for my job, just not when it intertwines with my personal life. One of the many deals I made with Buckley he hadn’t complained once about coming here or had a tantrum when I told him bro day was being moved to Sunday cause Big Bro had work to do; instead, he just smiled and played on his own, only coming to bug us when he needed the loo.
Soon enough, the clock hit 7 pm, and like clockwork, Theo was already drifting off and ended up falling asleep while talking to Min-Joon on the sofa in my office. I forgot to bring a blanket, thinking I wouldn’t be here so long, so I used my suit jacket to keep him warm.
I planned to work a little longer, but when I looked at the time again, it had gone past 11 pm.
Nigel and I had gotten a fair amount done, but decided to call it quits and head home.
I carried Theo down to the car and then again to his bed once we reached home, without waking him both times, thank God.
Sometimes it was a blessing that the little boy slept like a log.
I didn’t want to do anything else that might risk him waking up because disturbing his sleeping pattern would only make things worse, so I left him in yesterday’s clothes, only removing his jacket, socks and shoes and left him to sleep.
I knew he’d be upset about forgetting to brush his teeth when he woke up, but that was tomorrow’s problem, and once I closed his bedroom door, all I could think about was work, so I headed downstairs and into my office for a few more hours.
****
I worked until the sun came up, then got about an hour and a half of sleep before Theo jumped into my bed, forcing me to smell how bad his breath was because he forgot to brush his teeth last night. I knew that was going to come back to bite me in the ass.
Hiding between my pillows for protection, I told Theo to go brush his teeth, which he does happily, after bungee jumping off my bed. That at least gave me five more minutes of peace, but that was all I was getting, as much as I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep.
I had to get up.
Today was Sunday, which, at least for this weekend, was changed to ‘Bro-Day ’-the one day, every other week, when I’m not working, where Theo and I spend the whole day together, no calendar girls, no Min-Joon (when the bastard was here) and no work allowed.
A promise made between the two of us that Bro-Day would always be reserved for each other.
It was bad enough that Theo was about to see a whole lot less of me, so I had no intention of letting him down on this front.
Theo was the one person in my life whose promises I have never broken, and I have no intention of doing so in the future, so even though I don’t remember taking myself up to bed a while ago, I swing my legs around and push myself to stand.
I could already feel the exhaustion trying to weigh me down; nevertheless, I pushed myself to my feet and headed down to make Theo breakfast, then after a long shower to wake me up because Bro-Day was a go, even if I had to work on overdrive, to get through it.
We invented Bro-Day when Theo started school, and I started going back to work full-time. He wasn’t happy about starting school or being apart from me, so this ended up being our compromise.
Declaring that Bro-Day would be every other Sunday when I wasn’t working, the day was always the same.
It would start with Theo, and I would go to a football game.
Doesn’t matter who was playing; there was always a match on.
We’d cheer along with the crowd when the team we picked to root for scored and yell when their goalie failed to block a goal.
Then, we headed to the local burger joint for our post-game lunch.
We always ordered a child’s cheeseburger meal with a fruit juice, a large triple cheese burger meal with a Coke and 20 chicken nuggets.
Theo always ate six of the nuggets, eight if he was extra hungry, and the rest was for me to consume; then we’d order ice creams on the way out to eat in the car.
Theo liked the one with Smarties, and I preferred Oreo.
We’d happily eat our ice cream in the car and talk about the game on the way home. Once we were home, we did whatever Theo wanted to do, whether it was play Mario Kart, dress up or LEGO, up until bedtime; then his usual routine fell back into place.
The only difference was that now that Min-Joon was gone, the old weekday routine had been destroyed. Shattered into a thousand pieces, if I were capable of such emotions, it would make me sad if I thought about it, making me flash back to the year Theo started school.
Min-Joon moved here around the same time, took up the guest room opposite my office and agreed that he’d watch Theo during the evenings since he got off work in the early hours of the morning, while I dropped Theo off at school; he slept through the day until it was time to pick up Theo.
He’d cook dinner, help Theo with his homework and keep him entertained until I came home; then the three of us ate dinner together unless I was running late, which wasn’t often, but I was always home in time to tuck Theo in and say goodnight.
Then Min-Joon and I would chat a while before he left for work, and I headed back to work in my office for a few more hours. It was the perfect system before bed.
It was the perfect system.
And not that I’d ever admit it, but Min-Joon was the perfect housewife. How dare he make advances in his career and leave me struggling?
I miss that fucker.
But enough of that sappy crap.
Min-Joon was gone, and I had more pressing matters to deal with. Right now, we are at the eating stage of Bro Day, but two things are going to be different today.
One was that I had to continue to fill Theo in about the changes that were about to happen, as we got interrupted yesterday, and the second was to do with the text I’d gotten during half-time.
Mother was here.
That meant she was either waiting for us when we got home, or she would use her scary superpower and end up showing up at the door minutes after we got in. I didn’t have an issue with her showing up on Bro-Day, despite my feelings towards her; I know Theo enjoys seeing her.
The part I didn’t like was the fact it was the only part of his routine that wasn’t scheduled, Mother just showed up when it suited her and you’d think after so many arguments or like she liked to describe them as ‘discussions’, she would understand that she can’t keep being so inconsistent but then again, she never did it with her firstborn who was stuck with her almost every second up until the legal age of eighteen, so why would she change for the second child she left on her other child’s doorstep.
The mere mention of her presence always puts me on edge, but today just made it worse.
Theo is already having so many changes to his daily life, and I didn’t want to put him through another one of her visits, too. My mother has no idea what it was like for me having to re-explain to a child why he doesn’t see his mum more often.
Well, actually, to be fair, a little over a year ago, he had stopped asking constantly, but he still does it every so often. It feels wrong to be happy about that, but his mother has no idea how hard it was hearing phrases like:
“When is JJ coming to visit?”
“I miss JJ.”
“I want to go home.”