How Do We Pick Ourselves up Now?

"Daaaaavey!" I called with a sing-song tone.

I heard his little exclamations as I walked through the apartment. I thanked our babysitter and walked into his room where he sat in the center of his crib.

"Hello love," I cooed, bending to pick him up.

His little arms flew up to my neck immediately wrapping themselves around it. I snuggled my nose to his and he giggled and smiled at me. I returned the loving gesture and walked into the living room where Daniella had thrown herself onto the couch.

"Curtis and Chase are gonna be here pretty quick," she told me, looking at me upside down from the couch.

"Don't they have anything better to do than come here all the time?" I joked.

She smiled at the remark and shook her head.

"Well, no obviously not," she said returning her attention to the television.

"I'm just gonna give the little guy a bath and get him to bed," I said.

"M'right," she said.

I filled up the bathtub with enough warm water to clean Davey up in, and began the short and easy process. He cooed and slapped the water with his tiny hands, looking up at me with excited hazel colored eyes. Those eyes were a remembrance of someone from my past and something I hardly allowed myself to think about.

It really had been quite a long time ago. Three years ago when I had been with who I thought was the love of my life, hadn't I been the naive nineteen year old. I guess it was unavoidable though, my parents had set me into the trap and I, well I took the bait.

I wrapped a fuzzy towel around Davey and dried him off before carrying him, and his dirty little outfit to his room. I riffled through for something he could wear in that wouldn't be too hot or cold to sleep in.

After he was dressed, I kissed him on the forehead and put him back into his crib. I pulled the blanket over him and adjusted the pillow for him as well. I walked over to the wall and flicked the nightlight on and walked out of the room shutting off the main light so he could sleep.

As soon as I stepped foot in the living room, two boys busted through the door laughing as they came in. Curtis's tall frame swayed as he shoved his shoes off of his feet, where as Chase just flung his shoes off and said hi.

"Hey Chase," I said sitting down on the love seat.

"Hello, hello babes," he said plopping down next to me with a wicked grin.

I laughed at his expression and turned towards Curtis and Daniella.

"How was work?" Curtis asked as he sat next to Daniella.

Daniella put her legs into his lap and faced him, "Borin as shit, not even gonna lie."

Now you see, there'd been some kind of thing going between Daniella and Curtis. However Daniella couldn't see it, Curtis had been madly in love with her. The sight itself wasn't hard to spot out whenever she'd walk passed him, or said his name to get his attention.

No doubt the boy would do anything for her, even if she only thought of him as a very good friend.

"Then maybe you should find things to make it interesting eh?" He suggested.

Daniella snorted and smacked his arm lightly, "Yeah, smart idea you big oaf!"

"I'm no oaf!" He exclaimed.

"Ya are too," she said.

He shook his head with a happy smile on his face.

"Those two, are such children," I heard to my left.

"Oh, I surely know Chasey boy," I said, looking over at him.

His blue eyes gave me their attention and a white smile was sent my way. Now we'd only really just met Chase last year when Curtis dragged us girls out with him to get drunk on his birthday. Somewhere along the night Curtis made friends with him, and the next day when we all woke up with a hangover each in our apartment.

The boy was a real riot, let me tell you. It was fun having someone like him around, he'd always had so much energy to throw out to get us all excited for anything actually.

Chase let out a sigh and then began to throw his legs over the armrest of the love seat, resting his head in my lap. I looked down at him and he caught my gaze.

"So, how was work for you?" He asked, yawning.

"Well, I did a couple of tattoo's actually. Finally people are deciding to come in, I was starting to think that I'd never get to do anything," I explained.

Three years ago after I had gotten settled in with Daniella I began taking a course to become a tattoo artist, and now here I was doing art on skin. I'd only just got into the place I'm working at a couple of months ago, and it'd been pretty dead up until recently.

Over the passed couple years I had also added some of my own ink onto my skin. In a way, they were very much like the ones that someone I once knew had. It was weird, I never really thought of them like that up until Daniella pointed out that 'one of those blokes right there have the same kind of tat's as ya!'

I only had a sleeve on my right arm, and that was all I'd planned on getting. Any piercings I had were now gone, seeing as they were just so trivial and a pain in the ass.

Absentmindedly I began playing with Chases hair, twirling the blond pieces in my fingers. I watched him as he closed his eyes and let out a contented sigh. There wasn't anything going on with the two of us, we'd just seemed to be like this from the start. I think that's why I liked him so much as a friend though, because he didn't make anything awkward or anything.

"So, I was around earlier and your mom called, Amelia," Curtis said.

"Oh yeah?" I asked.

"She and your pops are heading down here pretty soon to visit for Christmas," he said.

"Awe, shucks, now we actually gotta get our asses movin' with the tree an' shit," Daniella groaned.

This year we were trying to avoid grabbing a tree, and making dinner. The plan was to beat out to a nice restaurant and feast there, as to avoid the hours of cleaning we'd have to do.

"I'm pretty stoked for Amelia's dinner though," Chase said.

Curtis nodded in agreement, "Last years was so goddamn good, where the hell did you even learn to cook like that?"

I shrugged, "I was a hermit as a teenager so I was the one who did all the cookin,"

"Man, am I glad for that," Daniella added in.

We all shared a good laugh, and I looked over at the clock on the wall and sighed tiredly.

"I'm gonna hit the hay, I'm pooped," I said.

Chase let out a little protest.

"Awe, I'm sorry, but I'm so butchered," I told him.

He sighed dramatically, "Alright, alright, I better get a hug outta this,"

I rolled my eyes and bent over to give him a hug. It wasn't that much of a hassle giving him a hug cause he was definitely the type of person who gave amazing hugs, and he smelled pretty good all the time.

"Night guys," I said as I walked down the hallway.

They all said their good-nights to me, and I disappeared into my bedroom.