The New Ginger Princess

Monday mornings have a habit of bringing a feeling of grumpiness to the general population, marking the end of the weekend and the beginning of another long week. Weekdays mean having to get up early and go to work, or school depending on the person, and for most people this is a task that would be impossible to accomplish without a wake up call of some sort.

In the Carlile-Ashby household the wake up call comes at 6 and is in the form of a beeping alarm clock that starts off quiet and gets louder until it is shut off. As usual, the alam wakes Alan up first but continues to go off because it sits on the table next to Austin's side of the bed where Alan can't get to without getting up.

After the alarm makes two more beeps Austin wakes up and shuts off the dreadful noise, then removes the pillow that Alan had been using to block out the alarm. "We really need to move the alarm clock to my side of the bed," the ginger grumbles.

"Really?" the other inquires as he nudges his husband into finally sitting up.

"Yes. You take too long to wake up so I have to hear it go off until you make it stop," the younger complains to his husband who is already in the process of getting dressed.

"That is exactly why it's on my side, Alan. If you could reach it you would shut it off before it manages to wake me up and then you would go back to sleep, causing both of us to be late," Austin explains as he grabs a pair of clean boxers for his husband. "Now get dressed, I am going to go check on Marissa," he commands, throwing the boxers at Alan and leaving the room.

Austin stands in the doorway of Marissa's room and looks at the little girl peacefully sleeping on the mattress that sits on the floor, made up into a bed with the comforter set she picked out. He walks quietly over to the mattress and sits down on the edge, careful to avoid sitting on the plushy puppy that he already forgot the name of. 

"Marissa, honey, it's time to wake up," the parent says, gently tapping the child's shoulder to help wake her up. As her eyes flutter open he lightly strokes the messy ginger hair which he fully intends on having Alan deal with trying to brush this morning. 

"Good morning Daddy," the small ginger says following an adorable yawn. She sits up and rubs her eyes before looking back at her father with a smile.

"Good morning. How would you like to come with Alan and I to work today?" The parent questions, even though the plan is already set.

"I'd love to," the girl exclaims cheerfully.

"Alright, well I'm going to go make breakfast, so you can meet us in the kitchen when you get dressed," he says pointing to the small chair in the corner, receiving a small nod. The girl quickly gets up and grabs the outfit on the chair that the guys set out after Marissa fell asleep the night before.

Austin walks to the door, grabbing the hairbrush off the dresser, before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. He heads into the kitchen and grabs the cup of coffee Alan made sure to pour for him, taking a sip before setting it down on the counter with the hairbrush. He goes over to the freezer and pulls out toaster waffles that he plans on making for their breakfast.

With the waffles in the toaster Austin sits himself down on the couch next to his husband, each of them holding a cup of coffee, the hairbrush hidden from view behind Austin. "You know, she is actually easier to wake in the morning than you are," the taller one says with a chuckle earning him a glare from his husband.

"At least I got dressed like you wanted," the ginger points out, "and I made coffee."

"True, but since I did wake her up and have her get dressed there's something that I need you to do," the brunette reasons.

"What do you need?" The younger spouse inquires. Instead of explaining Austin just smirks, reaching behind his back and handing the hairbrush to Alan before leaving with his coffee to grab the toasted waffles. 

Marissa walks into the living room fully dressed, but upon seeing her already tangled hair now combined with the messiness of bed head Alan frowns and grumbles into his coffee. 

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The family arrives at the small music shop, Austin locating the right key to unlock the door and open the shop for the day. The lights are flicked on to reveal instruments covering the walls, and shelves in the middle of the space holding a ton of CDs.

"This is Aspire and Create. It's a music store that we have been running together for the past five years," Alan informs their little girl who is gazing at the store.

"Hey Al, the new CDs arrived last night and need to be set up on the shelves. There are two bands that just released new albums, which are what's in the box, and I know for a fact that a ton of people are going to want to buy them today, so prepare for it to be busy," Austin informs his husband, setting a box of CDs down in front of him.

"You're going to help me with it right?" The younger asks in a hopeful tone.

"You know I would, but today I have a ton of paperwork to go through," Austin replies with a sigh.

"We could switch for the day," Alan suggests. "I can deal with paperwork, depending on which paperwork it is this time."

"It involves going over the inventory sheets, checking the profits from over the weekend, and establishing the total profit of last week." This response causes a look of disgust to cross Alan's face.

"You know I hate math. I would rather stock shelves and deal with a mob of overexcited customers," the ginger concludes.

"I will be in my office and my door will stay open. Beau will be here for his shift at 3 but if it gets really busy we can call him and ask him to come in early," Austin reassures his husband as he heads into his office to deal with the paperwork.

Alan gets to work on stocking the shelves with the brand new albums while Marissa sits on the floor with the new coloring book and crayons she got on Sunday. Her father is grateful for the calm behavior of the child allowing him to focus and stock the shelves, reorganizing any other CDs that are out of place. 

After a half hour of that Alan decides to just pull out his acoustic and keep himself occupied while he waits through the Monday morning lull. He stops playing to help the occasional customer that wanders in between 8 and noon, but mostly spends the hours lost in the peaceful strumming. Marissa also gets lost in the music, enjoying the sound of the guitar while she continues to color.

When the time reaches around noon the lull of the morning is replaced by a crowd of people on their afternoon breaks who are desperate for one of the newly released albums. As people arrive Marissa becomes uneasy, feeling shy and needing to be with one of her parents. She remembered Austin saying he had a ton of paperwork so she runs to Alan and clings onto him.

Alan realizes that his daughter is upset but with the crowd, and him being the only person there to deal with the customers, he can't effectively do his job with her holding onto him for dear life. Knowing he needs the extra help he shouts for his husband to call Beau, continuing to ring up CDs and occasionally stroke his daughter's hair.

It's about fifteen minutes later when Beau arrives. The crowd is basically gone but the schools are going to be getting out soon so he knows that the shop is going to be full again before the hour is up. 

"How are you holding up dude?" Beau asks as he sees Alan standing behind the counter with his head in his hands.

Alan looks up to see Beau restocking the shelves with the highly sought after albums, also noticing the emptiness of the shop, grateful of both things. He gives Beau a quick smile before looking down to the girl still latched on to him.

"It's alright, the people are gone for now," he reassures her daughter so she will release her grip. When she does he picks her up and sets her on the counter to let her see that the crowd has left. She relaxes for a second, but becomes uneasy again as Beau stands up and walks over to the counter.

"Well hello there little one, what's your name," Beau says sweetly to the little girl. Despite the kindness of the new man Marissa responds by wrapping her arms and legs around her father and hides her face against his chest.

Alan sighs and lifts his daughter into his arms so he can move to sit down in the chair. He places a kiss to the top of her head before looking back at Beau explaining, "This is Marissa, Austin and I adopted her on Saturday. She is really shy and uncomfortable around new people. I just spent the past half hour with her latched onto me while I dealt with the customers."

Beau gives them a sad smile and decides to introduce himself, "I'm Beau, I am a friend of your parents."

The introduction gets the attention of the girl, who looks up at her father for reassurance that Beau is in fact a friend. Alan smiles and nods lightly to assure her, helping her unwrap her limbs from around him and setting her down on her feet in front of Beau.

She gives him an unsure look before she smiles up at him and chirps, "Hi," before returning to her coloring book. 

The two adults share a pleasant conversation to fill the short time they have left before the store is once again full of people. When the first group of teenagers file into the shop Marissa quickly attaches herself to Alan like before. The father works to the best of his ability with the added difficulty of being anchored down by the distraught child.

Austin comes out of his office to take a short break and check on the others, noticing the predicament his husband is in. Austin walks over to Alan and Marissa, "Hey Marissa why don't you come with me and color in my office where there aren't any people," the taller parent suggests pulling their daughter into his arms. He sits her down in the extra chair in his office and goes back to the front of the store to retrieve the coloring book and crayons.

"Thank you for that. You can shut your door if you want, since it's going to get noisy and it will help keep her from getting so upset," Alan says to his husband who kisses his cheek and heads back to his office, shutting the door behind him.

Inside his office Austin works on finishing up the paperwork while Marissa sits next to him coloring away. With the door closed the room is quiet, making it easier to focus, leading Austin to hum quietly to himself like he usually does while he works.

When Austin takes a moment to go over a set of numbers his mind shifts fully to his work and stops his humming. He figures out the answer and is about to start humming once more when his ears pick up a softer hum coming from directly next to him. He looks over to Marissa seeing her totally absorbed in the picture she's coloring, humming to herself just as he had been doing. He listens to her as he continues to work and realizes that the tune she's humming is one that he heard Alan playing earlier on his guitar. 

The afternoon continues with both parents working and Marissa coloring until it is time for the family to go home, Austin having finished his paperwork to the sound of quiet humming from him and his daughter.

During the drive home the parents discuss their schedule for the week, establishing that while one of them is at work the other will be home with Marissa. They are both thankful for the fact that they own the store and can set up their own schedule, that day having been a situation where they both needed to be there and didn't know far enough in advance to change it.

The other thing on the parents' minds being the way their daughter had reacted to the people. It was understandable for her to be upset about the crowd of people, but as the couple remembers how the little girl was when they met her they realize that she needs to make at least one friend her own age. The parents decide that they should talk to their friend who they know has a daughter around Marissa's age about having the girls together for a play date. They figure it will also give them a chance to talk to another parent about what it's like raising a little girl, so they agree to give their friend a call when they get home so they can set up a play date.