The Good and the Bad

Joyriding

Chapter Twenty-One

*~*~*~*

"Here you go, bubba." Scout smiled as Maclean as she poured some Cheerios onto the tray of his high chair before also giving him a sippy cup of milk.

The one-year-old didn't hesitate to starting chowing away at the cereal, shoving fistful of it into his mouth. Offering his mother random garbles of delight in response. She couldn't help but chuckle at his theatrics before she moved towards the stairs.

"DJ, come on, sweetie!" She called up the stairs, the other boy having yet to come down for breakfast. "Time for breakfast!"

"I'm not hungry." DJ muttered as he finally came down the stairs, still dressed in his Toy Story pajamas rather than the clothes Scout had given him to change into before she brought Maclean downstairs.

"Why aren't you dressed?" Scout asked as she started to pour him a bowl of his favorite cereal, Fruit Loops. "I'm supposed to drop you off at school on my way to work, you know that."

"I don't feel good." DJ crossed his arms over his chest as he sat in his chair at the kitchen table. A frown filled Scout's lips as she pressed her hand against his forehead to check for a fever.

"You're not hot," she pointed out. She glanced towards the clock on the stove before she knelt down in front of his chair, recalling the similar occurrences they'd been having her last few shifts. "Is this like your headache from the other day? Or your stomachache last Friday?"

"I'm sick," he insisted.

"Sweetie," she sighed as she ran a hand through his hair, her heart breaking at the thought of what he was doing-- always trying to claim he was sick in hopes of trying to get her to stay home from work, whether it was the firehouse or the bar. "You know what? How about I call the school and let them know you're not coming in today. Then you can stay home and hang out with Mackie and Hazel?"

"I don't want Hazel. You can stay with me!" He shook his head at the thought of the babysitter Scout had brought on roughly a month earlier in hopes of lightening the load on her friends that had been helping her with the kids-- The woman also serving as a preferred alternative to Carly. Hazel was a nice woman in her late fifties that had retired from teaching the previous year and loved to still be around kids. "Don't go to work!"

"I have to," she tried to tell him, his face getting red in frustration. "You know this, DJ. I've gotta go and help Uncle Matt save people."

"No you don't," he argued. "Stay with us. Please! I don't want you to leave!"

*~*~*~*

"Hey, Scout," Gaby frowned when she spotted the woman sitting at the table in the kitchen, away from the others that were milling around there after shift had started. The Keltner woman had her gaze focused on her phone, her brows furrowed as she skimmed through her emails. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just a tough morning," Scout admitted.

"What happened?" Gaby asked as she took a seat next to her, coffee in hand.

"DJ tried playing sick again," Scout shared, catching Herrmann's attention as he joined the pair of women at the table.

"So he doesn't like school," Herrmann chimed in. "My kids are the same way, but he'll get better once he finds him groove."

"It's not about school, though," Scout hook her head. "He's fine if it's one of our off days. But he's been doing every time I need to go to work lately. Today he started yelling, begging me to not leave him and Mackie... It broke my heart."