But Loving Him Was Red...

[9 Days Later]

Lucia and I came in Sidney’s front door, inhaling the scent of fresh pine, and cinnamon. It was Christmas Eve and Sidney invited us over for some dinner and then we can bake some cookies. I was excited to try and be a family with Sidney and Lucia and maybe see if there was something that could be salvaged with us.

Ever since our talk at the coffeehouse, I just haven’t felt the same way about him. I wanted him back, but now I was starting to think I was falling for him all over again and I didn’t want to do that at all, because he was with Carly and the last thing I wanted to do was trash a relationship. I hated my life sometimes.

“Good evening ladies,” Sidney smiled, walking out of his kitchen with an apron tied around him and oven mitts on his hands. IS he cooking? “Take your coats off, and we can have some dinner,” He knelt down and accepted Lucia’s hug. “I made your favourite, princess, pasta,” Oh shit, he better have made it the way she likes it.

I unzipped my coat and hung it up on his coat rack, while my purse sat on his shoe rack. I kicked off my ballet flats and pulled out the fabric of my white v-neck over thick brown leggings and walked across the hardwood.

Sidney took off Lucia’s coat and sat it on the arm chair. She was in the kitchen with him, standing on a stool by the sink, what looked like 50 miles away from the stove where Sidney was standing stirring something in a pot.

He looked so cute wearing his apron. It was pink with a billion red flowers all over it. Ten bucks it’s his mothers.

“I’ll give you a hand,” I smiled, moving my curls off my shoulder. He motioned for the sauce in the fry pan beside him and held up a wooden spoon. I took it and started stirring the sauce. “Since when do you cook?” I asked, nudging his shoulder.

“I started watching cooking shows and reading recipes and asked my Mom for help with the oven,”
He laughed. “So far, it’s going good, but baking isn’t that great yet,” How did he ever feed himself? “I decided on spaghetti tonight, so I know you’ll like it and Loosh will too,”

“She doesn’t like sauce,”

He smirked and motioned for a bowl of noodles off to the side. “I am letting them cool before I chop them up. She lets me put ketchup on, but only a little,”

What felt like ages later, we got the supper on the table and we started eating it; I was wary about the ketchup on the pasta, but I was mesmerized by her actually eating it. I let my jaw hang open. “I can’t believe it; she won’t eat what I cook her,” Lucia was on a booster seat beside Sidney at the other end of the round table. Dark brown wooden table, with tall chairs. We were at least 5 feet off the ground.

“Daddy’s got the secret,” Sidney beamed. “SO, Loosh, you excited about Santa coming tonight?” He reached over and wiped her chin.

She slowly looked up at Sid and then at me, she had this odd look on her face. “Will Santa know I’m here?” She sighed. “Will he forget me?” Sidney and I shared a look; we didn’t know what to tell her. What do you tell a kid who asks this question?

Sidney sighed, breaking the silence and I hoped he was taking this. “Loosh…” Sidney set his fork down and put his hand on her back. “See, there are other kids who don’t have their parents together either, and Santa still finds them, sometimes Santa will bring presents to both houses,” I had presents already wrapped and sitting under our tree, but I brought the big ones here the other day after Sidney and I did some extra shopping. He was spending so much money on her, it was crazy.
Lucia dropped her jaw. She seemed pleased. Typical girl.

“That’s right,” I smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised when we go home there are presents under the tree at our house for you,”

“Wow,” Lucia giggled. “Can we go home now?” Sidney and I shared a laugh and Lucia seemed pleased with her answer. What else could we tell her? Would it always be like this? Even when she’s older, two Christmases, one at my house and at Sidneys. I never in my life pictured my life like this. Sharing custody of a child.

= = =

“Are they almost ready?” Sidney peeked over my shoulder when I was looking in the oven at the cookies. Lucia was standing on her stool, pretending to be stirring batter but she was eating the chocolate chips out of the bag.

“Five more minutes,” I smiled, standing up and wiping my hands off on his apron. Both of us were covered in batter and flour. Sidney had random sections of melted chocolate chips on his face and hands. We were making chocolate chip cookies from scratch. “They smell awesome,”

“Once these are out of the oven, it’s time for bed young lady,” Sidney pointed his finger at Lucia. It was 830, but we still had so much to do to get ready for Christmas morning. We had tones of presents to put under his tree.

Lucia helped him decorate it a few weeks ago and you could tell it was decorated by a child, but that’s what made me smile the most. His house had a family atmosphere and he never ever tried to hide the fact that he had a daughter.

“Okay Daddy,” Lucia nodded. “Put out cookies for Santa,”

I smiled, grabbing down the Santa plate from the cupboard and setting it aside. I loved the faith that Santa put in children, it was so beautiful. I felt like part of me even now as a grown-up, still believes in the magic of Santa. Everything made him seem so real.

The timer dinged and Sidney almost hip checked me out of the way to get to the cookies first. “Hon, you need the mitts,” I took them off my own hands and handed them off to him. He smirked and pulled out both cookie sheets and sat them on the stove to cool down. They looked and smelled amazing.

“You ready for bed, Looshy mooshy?” Sidney giggled, picking her off the stool and throwing her up on his shoulders. She was laughing the whole way up the stairs. “The faster you go to sleep, the sooner Santa will come,” I heard his voice say as they climbed the stairs. Should I go up there with them? I decided not to tread on it and stayed in the kitchen, blowing on the cookies.

I used his spatula and scooped a couple on a plate, took the drawing Lucia had for him and sat them on the table she ordered be placed by the tree next to the fireplace.

I knelt down on the ground and looked at her drawing. I wasn’t sure right off the bat what this drawing was supposed to resemble, but as I kept looking at it, it started to make sense. It wasn’t a picture of a toy, or a pony, it was of a house and three people were inside of it.

She was labeled and then myself and next to me at the back behind Lucia was ‘Daddy’. Did Lucia want us to be together? She was two, she didn’t know what ‘together’ meant…

“She’s so fucking cute,” Sidney smiled, walking into the living room. He had a box in his hand. “She’s ‘reading’ before lights out, so I thought I’d bring these down,” He sat the box of presents down beside me and I noticed he saw the drawing. “What is that?”

“Lucia drew it,” I handed him the paper and scooted in beside him. “I can’t figure out what this is of, though…” He sat down beside me and looked it over, obviously thinking about it. “Can you?”

“No. Except that she wants us in the same house together, but she’s two, she doesn’t really notice, does she?” He asked, locking eyes on mine.

“But she’s smart for her age, maybe it’s because all the other kids in her grade have their parents together and hers aren’t, so she feels left out,” It all clicked. She wanted Santa to bring us together, so she’d not be left out at school. My poor baby. I folded the picture back up and sat it on the plate. “So, you want to start setting up?”

“I think we are going to be up all night,” He groaned. “I haven’t been up past midnight, since that night in Mrs. Fields hottub, you remember that?” He asked, pulling presents out of the box and placed them under the tree. Mrs. Fields was a neighbor of his when we first started dating, and she asked Sidney to care for her backyard. We snuck in there and had sex in her hottub.

“Remember? It was my idea,” I laughed. “And you cut your ass on the knob, you couldn’t sit for a week,” I took presents from his hand and started placing them under the tree. There was at least 20 presents down here, and he still had more in his guest room closet.

An embarrassed smirk presented itself on his face as his cheeks turned red. “I’ll never forget the doctors face, he didn’t believe that I fell in the shower,” Sidney giggled. “Hey remember when we did it in the park, we almost got caught by those guards,”

“We grabbed our clothes and ran out of the park, it was like 2 in the morning, we dressed in the bathrooms and went to TacoBell,” I laughed, remembering all these moments. They were so fun. It was never a dull moment for us. We sat in silence for a few seconds placing presents with the quiet noise of ESPN playing on his TV above my head, hanging on the wall. “Where are the other gifts at?” I asked, standing up noticing only three left in the box.

“Check on Lucia first, make sure she’s sleeping and if she is; go down the hall past my room and it’s the door on the end, look in the closet,” He explained. I nodded my head and hurried up the stairs. I knew his upstairs off by heart. In the early stages of the relationship, we spent more time in his upstairs than we did out of it.

I peeked in Lucia’s room when I got off the stairs and saw her snoozing on her side, still holding her book. So precious. I snuck in, took her book and kissed her forehead as I tucked her in and turned her light off. She groaned and rolled over, pulling the blankets over her head.

That was my father right there. He had to have something covering his face when he slept, whether it was a sweater, a blanket or a pillow. I do it from time to time, but Lucia is definitely picking it up.

She had a giant bed in the middle of the room, that looked like a princess bed, with a Disney Princess comforter and matching pillowcases. A toy box in the corner of her room, a desk next to it with a lamp and her closet on the other wall was chucked full of clothes. Spoiled. She had the bear Troy gave her at the Mother’s Day celebration tucked under her arm.

I lightly let her door close and I hurried down the hall to the guest room, gathered the giant box of presents and ran down the stairs with it. Sidney had a cookie in his hand when I got to the bottom.

“Oh good, how was Lucia?” He said, putting the cookie between his teeth and taking the box from me.

“More and more like my father everyday,” I commented, rolling my eyes. Sidney looked back at me while he was walking with the box towards the tree. “She’s covering her face with the blanket, god, as long as I’ve known my Dad, he’s done that,”

“Did you notice the way she was eating at supper?” He asked, setting the box down and taking presents out of it. I shook my head. “Oh, well, she was using a knife to stir her pasta onto her fork, only my Dad does that,” He smiled. “Taylor doesn’t and I don’t, she’s been doing it for a while now,”
What? I’ll have to watch her next time she eats pasta. “My Dad almost cried the first time he saw it,"

“Awh, that’s so sweet,” I beamed. “When are your parents coming in tomorrow?” I asked, sliding in beside him and putting the presents down under the tree.

I knew right away when I picked the box up that Sidney bought more presents for her. She had to have at least 40 if not 50 presents under the tree.

“Not sure, I think Mom said they fly in around noon and wont be here until 3ish,” He smiled, reaching for Lucia’s stocking off the arm chair. “Mom wants to be here early to help me cook the dinner,”

“I can help you,” I offered, handing him the stuff for her stocking. “What are you making?”

“I think Mom said something about a Roast, but that is like all she said, I left it up to her, when I was a kid, we had turkey,” He explained, stuffing it and reaching across me to hang it off the fireplace. “If you want to help, I don’t think my Mom would mind,”

It was around 1AM when we finally got everything done and he and I went up the stairs after shutting everything off. We stood at the top of the stairs awkwardly and part of me wanted to follow him into his room, but he said he put new sheets on the guest bed just for me and we parted ways there. I climbed into the bed and the second I shut my eyes, I was gone.