New life

Chapter 2

“Aiden is this man your father?”Arianna asked still clutching the little boy

“Ya.” The little boy reached for the man and Arianna let him go into his arms. Arianna took one look at the hulking man and shrunk back. The man before her was probably the most attractive male she had ever seen, and attractive men intimidated her. So she decided to leave. Arianna had left her purse trying to leave the crazy lady, so she returned to the table, grabbed her purse. She searched for a tip, left a few bills and headed out.

“Wait,” the man said stepping in front of her exit. “You are not leaving until you tell me what happened.” He stated trying to intimidate her like she did something wrong and Ari was having none of it.

“Your son came in, alone.” She stressed, to which he winced. “I approached him, and he was very upset, told me he was lost but that you two came here all the time. So I decided to wait and see if you showed up. He was eating when this lady decided to go all psycho on us and try and take him.”

“That’s not true I-“

“Silence.” He said and urged her to go on.

“Since he told me his mom was dead, I knew she wasn’t her, your son didn’t react well to her so I assumed she was lying. I thought it best to go to the police, that’s where I was going when she started to assault me.” After a pause, she decided to put him on the spot.

“So now the question is, where the hell were you.”

…

Lachlan stood with his son in his arms and two women glaring at him. Who the hell was this woman to question him.

“She’s your mate you moron,” his inner wolf said to him.

“What concern is it if yours?” He hissed.

“No stop, you are making her mad!”

“It’s not, it’s his, he was terrified. What if I wasn’t there? What if he didn’t walk into somewhere familiar. He could have been snatched up by child traffickers.” She said sneering to him.

“Or rogues.” His wolf told him. Lachlan let out a loud sigh,

“Victoria please excuse us.” Victoria looked between the two of them and stomped off.

“Will you please sit with me.”

“I really can’t, I have to get going.”

“Please, just to apologize.”

“Fine,” she let out a sigh, and headed back to the table she was originally at. The three of them sat at the table awkwardly before she finally started,

“Well if that’s all, I need to go to the store and pick up my kids from school.”

“You have children?” He asked surprised, thought he should be as she was clearly very maternal.

“Ya daddy, one’s a boy and one’s my age.” The woman, whose name he didn’t even know laughed at his sons antics.

“Yes I have a son whose six, a daughter whose four, and another daughter whose five.” His eyebrows pulled up high at that.

“Yeah, I know what can I say I’m just fertile. By the time me and my husband were deciding if we wanted another one or turns out I was pregnant.” In that statement the only thing he heard was husband.

“No!” His wolf cried out in his head. Lachlan looked down at her hand looking for her wedding ring, but didn’t see one.

“Husband?”

“Oh ex-husband, I guess I’m just not used to it.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” he said politely even though he really wasn’t. The woman let out a smile,

“It’s okay, we tried but in the end we just didn’t make each other happy, but he’s a good dad to his kids and that’s all that matters.”

“Yes it is, since his mother died I’ve been trying my best but I’ve just been falling short.” She gave him a look of sympathy,

“Don’t think like that, we all have those days and thoughts but we are doing the best we can.”

“Have you ever lost your children?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen to me. I’ve taken my eyes off my youngest daughter for a moment and when I looked back she was down the aisle. I was lucky something didn’t happen to her.”

“That’s scary, yeah it is.” They fell into silence, but not a bad one.

“I really have to go, I have to find something for dinner before I go pick up the kids from school.” She moved to stand up,

“Wait can I get your name and number.”

“It’s Arianna, and yeah I’d love to have a friend in a new city.”

“What you just moved here?”

“Yeah this week, I should actually be unpacking.” She said as she took his phone and put in her information. He grabbed his phone and sent a quick text to make sure it was the right one.

“Do you want any help?”

“Thank you but no,” she said as she help up her phone saying she got it.

Arianna picked up her purse and bid goodbye to the father-son duo. She ran to the store, and decided on spaghetti for dinner. It was quick, easy, and everyone ate it. Piper dropped off the groceries real quick then headed to pick up the kids from school. The pick up line was already crazy long, and Piper was her fifteen minutes early.

Thirty minutes later, Rory was buckled in and they were headed to get the other two kiddos.

“Come on baby let’s go get Declan and Lili,” Arianna said to Rory. Aurora was at the stage where she mimicked everything her mother said.

“Let’s go get decco and wia.” I swear that little girl couldn’t get any cuter. Ari felt her phone buzz in her pocket, but she ignored it as she was trying to cross the street with her daughter.

She got to the pick up area and waited with all the other parents. The elementary seemed to have all the parents who didn’t have their kids do a bus route just stand on the lawn waiting for the kids. Ari checked her phone real quick and saw it was a message from Oliver.

Oliver: can I come over to see the kids tonight?

Me: ya wut time?

Oliver: not sure yet, but I’ll stop by after work, I’ll let u kno.

Me: k, I’ll ttyl picking up kids from school.

Ari put her phone away and looked to Rory who was hanging from her legs.

“Daddy’s coming over for tonight.” Rory smiled a huge toothy smile,

“Yay!!! Daddy!” She giggled. She took our separation very hard, but Declan probably took it the hardest. With Declan’s autism he simply didn’t understand why daddy’s wasn’t home every night like he used to be, and why he wasn’t there when he woke up. When she and Oliver first separated Oliver would only be able to visit once during the week, so on Sunday Declan would cry himself to sleep.

It was so hard, so when Oliver suggested that he move back in, she agreed her heart couldn’t take any more. Arianna saw movement finally and watched as kids came out in a single file line.

“Look there’s decco and wia!” Rory shouted. Sure enough there was Lili and Declan standing there in the second smaller line. Rory started waving like crazy and Ari couldn’t help but laugh at her antics.

Ari picks up the kids and buckles them up in their boosters and heads home. She still needs to use the GPS on her phone so she doesn’t get lost. She hears her phone buzzing and pulls it out at a red light.

Unk: hey, hope your day is going well.

Me: who is this?

It can’t be the man from earlier. That man was the most attractive man she had every seen. There is no way he would be talking to her.

Unk: Lachlan, from the coffee shop earlier.

Me: oh hey. How’s Aiden?

Lachlan: he’s perfect, been talking about you and your kids nonstop.

Oh he must be wanting to get a play date set up or something. She was used to that. Ari started back to driving, heard her phone buzz another time, but couldn’t pull away from her phone. She finally pulled into her drive when she was able to pull out her phone.

Lachlan: we should get together.

Me: ya I bet the kids would love that. I gotta get the kids inside and start dinner, we can set up the details later.

Arianna headed inside with the kids and grocery’s and started in on the evening routine.