Chocolate Eyes

Terryn Fadden sat at her desk as her young students slept on mats around the room. As she glanced over their sleeping forms, she couldn't help but smile at the innocence in the room. Their little faces pressed against their personal mats and the blankets they each brought from home covered their little bodies.

Terryn's eyes stopped on one particular little boy. His black and grey stripped blanket was thrown completely off, onto the carpet next to him. His shoes had also been deserted and shirt rode up, exposing his tummy to the teacher.

Ms. Fadden pushed her chair back and stood up. She gingerly stepped over and around students until she got to the disheveled boy. She crouched down next to him and slowly pulled his shirt back into place, reading the words on the front. Silently tasting the words on her tongue, she covered the blonde with his blanket, careful not to wake him since it'd been so hard for her to convince him to take a nap anyways.

The child had claimed that his daddy never made him take naps, instead he said, he swam in the pool and played with his daddy's toys in the basement.

"Oh really?" she had asked quietly, "Don't you get tired?"

EJ Kent shrugged his shoulders and looked up at her with big brown eyes. "If I do I find Daddy and we watch a movie on the couch," he replied, standing on his mat.

After making a quick deal with the four year old, he dropped onto the blue mat and closed his eyes, peeking them open just to make sure she hadn't crept away yet. He watched her silently as she turned and walked back over to the big desk in the front of the room. He fell asleep without another word.

Terryn sat back down at her desk, her students all asleep, and brought up the internet on her computer. She spared another glance at the sleeping blonde and typed the words on his shirt into Google, a bit surprised when images of the men she'd seen earlier covered the Images page.

On the side of the page, a short biography explained what she was seeing. It named a few names before it ended abruptly, leaving only a link to Wikipedia where the rest of the information should've been. Glancing back at the sleeping boy, she clicked the link.

She reread the strange names and was more than a little shocked when her eyes ghosted over "death of their drummer", "number one debut", and "eight million albums worldwide". When her classroom door opened on the left wall, she quickly closed the page, the band members' names running through her mind, and looked up at the woman who stood silently in her doorway.

"Terryn, do you think you could watch my class for just a moment?" Mrs. Conado questioned, a deep frown on her face. "One of my kids is throwing up and I need to walk her to the nurse."

"Oh, of course," the young teacher replied quietly. She pushed out of her chair and headed over to the veteran teacher.

"They're working on a little project, so just peak in and make sure nobody is up making a ruckus, will you? I would've asked Ken, but his kids are in the middle of their About Me's."

"It's no problem," Terryn responded and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. "Mine are all sleeping." She stood in the hall as Sylvia Conado grabbed a little girl's hand and led her down the hall and around the corner. The older woman called a 'thank you' back at her again.

Fifteen minutes later Ms. Fadden was back in her class, rousing her students from sleep so they could start on their First Day Project for their parents. She helped them put their mats and blankets into their cubbies and then directed them back their chairs, where a snack awaited them.

"Ms. Fadden!"

The young redhead turned around quickly at the sound of her name. She looked down at the dark-eyed blonde standing just in front of her. She crouched down in front of him with a frown on her face. "Evander, what's wrong?" she questioned, rubbing his arm gently.

His hair stuck up in places it shouldn't and his cheeks were rosy red, whether from sleep or heat, she didn't know. The little boy fiddled with the end of his t'shirt and flicked his brown eyes towards the door. "When's my daddy coming back?" he asked softly, meeting her eyes.

"Come on, Evander, lets finish your snack and then I'll let you in on a little secret," she explained, leading the child back to his seat with her hands on his shoulders.

"What secret?" he asked loudly as he dropped back in his chair. He looked up at her with bright eyes and a smile, something she hadn't seen from him yet today.

"I'll tell you after you finish." She motioned back to the plate in his spot and met the eyes of other kids who's attention was grasped by the word 'secret'.

Within minutes the blonde was racing over to her desk and clambering onto the chair where his father sat early this morning. "Are you going to tell me now?" he inquired, his hands in his lap and his feet dangling over the edge of the chair.

Ms. Fadden nodded, glancing around the room like what she was about to say was top secret. EJ leaned in and cupped his hands around his ear.

"Go on," he encouraged, his eyes wide, "I promise I won't tell anyone." He nodded to reassure her.

"Okay." She nodded back. "Listen closely, Mr. Kent."

He nodded again, his eyes trained on the white board as he leaned his ear closer to her. "Okay."

"This secret is only for little boys and their daddies," she explained, holding out her hand, "You have to pinky-promise me that you won't tell anyone else."

Evander held out his pinky, his mind shooting back to when his Uncle Zacky taught him exactly what a pinky-swear was. He linked his finger with his teacher's and leaned in again.

"When you feel like you want your daddy to come get you," she whispered, touching the boy's arm, "Just think about how proud he'll be that you made it a whole day without him."

EJ frowned, expecting different words to come out of her mouth. "What?" he asked, even looking confused.

Terryn Fadden chuckled and nodded reassuringly. "I know today is hard for you, Evander," she spoke comfortingly, "But just think of how proud your mom and dad will be when you go home later."

Completely lacking a filter and ignorant of the word sympathy, Evander spoke only on instinct. "My mommy is dead," he stated emotionlessly, unaware of his teacher's shocked reaction.

She composed herself as best she could and nodded, practically stammering out an apology to the young child. "I'm sorry, Evander. I didn't know."

"That's how I met my daddy," he added, looking her in the eye. "When Mommy died Daddy came to stop me from going to Olahoma with my mommy's mommy and daddy."

In just two sentences from the unabashed boy, Terryn Fadden learned more about his life before school than she ever needed to know. Googling his t'shirt on the internet, she figured she'd learn about the band his clothing was supporting, but she never imagined that today would be the day she learned, more than anyone else, about a musician she'd hardly heard of before he carried his newly found son into her class room.

She ushered Evander back into the group of kids and began showing them how to make puppets to take home with them tonight. EJ followed along like all the other kids, but Ms. Terryn Fadden now knew that his life was far different than anyone could conceive.

When the dark-haired man came walking into the room at the end of the day, she put a smile on her face and pointed him out to his son. "Look who's here, Evander."

The blonde's head snapped up and his eyes settled on the matching pair. "Daddy!" he shouted before he pushed out of chair. He took off across the room and attempted to jump into his dad's arms.

Brian reached down and lifted the boy up. He held onto him tightly, his nervousness dissolving now that his son was back in his grasp. "I missed you, Ev."

"I missed you too, Daddy."

Brian kissed the side of his son's head and held him against him for just another moment, savoring the fact that they'd made it through their first day apart and were now back together. "How was your day?" Bri questioned as his son leaned back in his arms, trusting his father to keep him from hitting the ground.

The smart four year old shrugged his shoulders. "My teacher didn't know mommy's dead," he said, his eyes meeting Brian's, "but that's okay, I explained everything."

Hearing his son's words, Brian's eyes met the teacher's and a new nervousness settled where the other kind just sat. For a moment, Brian cursed himself for not teaching his son about personal and public information, then, when the young teacher wouldn't meet his eyes any longer, Bri knew there was nothing to worry about. The media wasn't going to know anything about his and EJ's situation any time soon... He was sure of it.