This Is Love, This Is Life

If I Was Your Mother (Bongiovi/Sambora)

Author's Notes:

Hello and welcome to a little fun for your weekend.

I'm so excited for you to read this one. It was so much fun to write and it was done in almost a day.

Also, I'm trialling a new header for my stories, so I'd love to know what you think. Any chapters that go together from now on will have the same picture so you know that they're a story within a story. You'll see this in upcoming chapters.

Eek...I'm giggling about what I hope your reactions will be to this.

Love you all...

J💕💕💕

Chapter 16

If I Was Your Mother

"Paapaa!" Lia yelled. "Where is you?!"

Richie's head popped up from the paperwork Jon had left for him to read and sign off. It was his turn to watch Lia, which was fine because he had a few errands to run and he wanted to check in on his mom too.

"I'm in the kitchen, Babygirl," he called back. "Where I've been for the last five times you've asked," he mumbled to himself as he tried to regain his place within the new supplier contract he was reading.

"Come now, Papa!" his daughter replied.

"I'm a bit busy, Li-Li," he said. "I'll come soon, I promise."

"No! Now, Papa! Pwease."

Richie recognised the tone of his three-year-old on the verge of a meltdown. He sighed and marked his place in the legal jargon with an arrow before pushing away from the kitchen table.

Yawning and stretching, Richie walked toward the kids' bedrooms. He'd been the one to close Rosie's last night or, technically, early this morning. He hadn't intended to have a particularly late night, but he'd been persuaded to take the stage to play a couple of songs. That couple had inevitably turned into a few and then a few more. Before he'd realised, it was closing time and he'd still needed to close up the cash registers and help clean the bar. This had all led to a much later night than he'd expected, which was why Jon was on duty there today and not him.

"What's up, Babygirl?" he said, walking into Lia's room. "Oh no!" he groaned. Lia had all her dolls and stuffed toys lined up on her bed and a kids' makeup kit open on the little table that sat in the corner of her room. Each of the toys had brightly coloured faces, as did his daughter.

"You next, Papa!" Lia said, reaching for his hand and tugging him inside. "Sit! Sit!"

"Lia...what are you doing?" he asked, putting his brakes on.

"It's Spa Day, Papa," she said, her blue eyes sparkled like her father's amidst the coloured powders over her face.

Richie also mentally cursed Amber, Gabby and Lily for introducing Lia to the idea of Spa Day .

"Is it? Is that why all your toys...and you," he booped her on the nose, "have makeup on?"

"Yeah," Lia replied, her happy grin splitting her face. She turned and grabbed her favourite dolly with long hair that was now a matted bunch of synthetic fibres, and said, "I do her hair too."

"I see that!" Richie nodded, wondering how the hell he was going to fix it as he allowed himself to be pulled to the ground beside her bed.

The last time Lia had tried her hairdressing skills, she'd shorn the poor Barbie almost bald. Jon had sent him an urgent SOS to buy a replacement on his way home from Rosie's that afternoon. He made a mental note to ring Amber to see if she had any tips for untangling doll hair.