Spoil The Little Ones

I was happy that we were leaving Mike’s place, not because I couldn’t wait to get away from them, that wasn’t it at all. Despite the drama that the one night contained, I was really happy to have seen them. The fact that I got to know Eric a lot better, made me happy. I knew that he was good for Mike and I was sure that once they figured out how to deal with Mike’s desire to be around his family again, things will be better for the two of them. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, they knew that too, but the fact that Eric was willing to try for Mike, really showed just how important Mike was to him.

But I still couldn’t wait to get home. I was dying to see Josh and get a few hours sleep. Of course I was hoping for that few hours of sleep to be in his arms. I missed him, it was crazy but I did.

Nick interrupted my daydream of lying in Josh’s arms in his bed talking about random stuff as we drifted off into dreamland together with a tap on my shoulder, he said something but I didn’t catch it. “Sorry,” I turned to him. “I didn’t catch what you said, I was daydreaming.”

“At least you’re honest,” he chuckled. “I asked if I could borrow your phone, I wanted to give Amy a quick call to let her know that we were on our way.”

“Oh yeah, sure,” I fished around my bag for my phone, it was half stuffed into a sock. “Here you go,” I handed it back to him and went back to my daydream, barely noticing five minutes later when he slipped it back to me with a smile and a ‘thanks’.

I didn’t tune back into reality until Jordan parked the truck and turned to get out. “Wait!” I looked around, realizing that we were no where near we should’ve been if we were leaving the city. “Why are we at the mall?”

“Because,” Jordan hopped out. “Nick and I saw a couple kid clothing stores last night as we were leaving; we wanted to check them out.”

It sounded so sincere and if it was coming from any other person but Jordan about him and Nick, I wouldn’t have laughed but they had to be the worse shoppers when it came to clothes. I opened my mouth to say that but Nick jumped in.

“We know,” he stated. “We suck at this but that’s why you are here with us! You can give us some advice!”

“Plus,” Jordan jumped in. “You do have a niece or nephew coming in a month too – maybe you’ll find something cute for the baby.”

“Yeah!” Nick exclaimed. “And don’t forget about my baby.”

I hopped out of the truck, “Ok girls, if you want to go shopping,” I threw over my shoulder as I took off for the entrance.

Three hours later, I realized that a couple stores to the guys meant every single clothing store in the mall that sold kids clothing! By the time they were ready to stop to grab something to for lunch, at 1pm, they had scoured only half the stores and already had a shopping cart full of clothes and toys. Most of the stuff in the cart was for Jenna, Jordan said that he was tired of having to pack Jenna’s clothes and toys every single time she came to visit. Nick had picked out a couple things for the baby and I picked up some stuff for Jesse, Jenna and the two babies on the way.

Lunch was Beef n’ cheddar combos with curly fries at Arby’s but it seemed to take us an hour to get through it; we were talking about everything from the kids to Mike and Eric, and the relationships we were in. Well, Nick and I talked about our relationship, Jordan avoided the issue like it was the plague – turning the conversation back to one of us whenever we asked him how things were going with Bella.

“What are the chances that they aren’t dating anymore?” Nick asked me when Jordan got up to get himself an ice cream treat from Dairy Queen.

“I say pretty damn good,” I replied. “Either that or things aren’t going that great and they are close to breaking up.”

Nick nodded as he observed Jordan flirting with the girl at the Dairy Queen counter. “Some times I get the feeling that Jordan will never settle down,” he glanced at me and shrugged. “I know he doesn’t like being single though, he admitted that much to me before.”

“That’s sad Nick,” I picked up my garbage and threw it on the empty tray in front of me. “I really hope that’s not true, I can’t imagine Jordan not finding his perfect match.”

“Well,” he balled up the wrapper from his burger. “If his perfect match is already taken, then what choice does he have?”

My brow shot up. “Who? Heather?” He shook his head and then pointed at me. “Oh good lord!” I snapped, grabbing the tray of garbage. “I’m not Jordan’s perfect match! I wish everyone would get off that topic and let it die already! I’m with Josh, I love Josh and Jordan is just a friend, that’s all he’ll ever be!”

For a while, I thought Nick was going to argue with me but he shrugged, “Ok Anna, I’m wrong.”

Jordan came over before I could tell Nick he was wrong. “Wrong about what?” He asked, eyeing both of us as he licked the ice cream from his spoon before plunging it back into the Oreo blizzard he held in his hand. “Want some?” He pulled out a spoonful and held it out to me.

I absolutely love Oreo blizzards, they both knew that. I found myself starting to lean forward to that the yummy spoonful offered when I saw Nick’s smirk out of the corner of my eye – I pulled back and coughed. “No,” I grabbed the cart of stuff. “Let’s get the shopping down so I can go home to Josh.”

Jordan shrugged and in one movement, he flipped the spoon and plopped it in his mouth. “Ok,” he said with his mouthful.

Five stores and two hours later, we were finally on our way out of the mall and to the promise of really heading home.

“Jenna is really spoiled,” I said jokingly as Jordan loaded the stuff he bought into the back seat with Nick.

“Well,” he glanced at me before grabbing the last couple bags. “She is my only child…”

“Yeah,” I opened his passenger door to get in. “But it’s not like she’ll always be the only one.”

“Yes she will Anna.”

“No,” I scoffed. “You can’t say that you’ll never have another child. What about Bella? How does she ­–”

“Anna!” Jordan slammed the back door closed. “Unless a miracle happens, Jenna will never have any half siblings from me!”

“Ok,” I muttered as he stomped around the back of the truck to the drivers’ side. “You don’t have to snap!”

The ride home would’ve been very tense and the silence strained if, ten minutes out of the city, I didn’t fall asleep and remain that way until we came to a stop outside Josh’s apartment building.

Yes! He’s home! I cried out in my head as I saw his car in front of the building. I said a quick good bye to the boys, grabbed my bags and high tailed it out of the truck and into the apartment building.