THE RETURN

Chapter 30

Once they heard the front door close, Elliot sat on the bed. "So, we're going to give your mom a few days and then I'll call her."

"And what if she still says no?" Eli asked, lifting his head off of Olivia's shoulder to sit straight up.

"Then we'll have to go a different route than talking but we're not going to worry about that yet."

"A different route? Like court?"

"Well ultimately that would be your decision Eli. If you want to do family court, we will. But if you rather not and your mother doesn't agree to change the arrangements, then it will have to stay as it is."

"Mom?" Noah whispered, causing all three people to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"What's family court mean?"

She smiled, "It's a court where families go to help them decide things that they can't decide by themselves. Like since Eli's mom and dad live separately, it's somewhere they would go to help them decide who Eli will live with."

"I want Eli to stay here with us."

Eli reached his hand across Olivia's lap and rubbed Noah's hair. He made eye contact with his dad when he said, "I want to stay here with you guys too."

"I'm going to try my hardest to make it happen. I promise." Elliot responded.

"I know dad."

As Olivia watched Elliot pulled Eli into a side hug, she couldn't help the guilt that flooded through her. Because of Kathy's more than negative reaction towards her, she knew that part of the reason she was denying the change was because her and Noah were currently staying with them. Maybe once Kathy found out that it was just a temporary thing until she could get around on her own again, she would reconsider. Court was something that Olivia did not want Eli to have to go through again. Court was where it got ugly, something he didn't need to be part of. However, the thought saddened her. In just the past week, she had grown more than accustomed to living with Elliot and she knew Noah had too. The boys were getting along great and her and Elliot hadn't even had one disagreement yet. The man was treating her like a queen, something she had never experienced before and to give that up was going to be difficult for her. If they could, her and Noah would never leave. But, because of his want for his son, they were going to have to. Which meant that she was going to have to stop being so dependent on him during this recovery. Being dependent on him during recovery was only going to make becoming independent again harder.

The loud growling of her stomach caused her to withdraw from her thoughts. When her eyes connected with Elliot's, she knew that he could tell that she had been overthinking about something. She tried to give him the best reassuring smile she could before stating, "I'm hungry."

Noah laughed beside her, "Yeah, we heard mom."

Deciding not to bring up the saddened look on her face, that she obviously tried to cover up, until later, Elliot said, "I'll order the Chinese and get you something to snack on."

"I want to get out of bed."

"You don't need to get out of bed Liv. You're in pain. We can just watch TV and eat in here tonight."

"I have to build my strength up. That's not going to happen if I'm in bed all day."

He raised his eyebrows slightly at her. Just an hour ago she was agreeing with him that she needed to lay down and now she was refusing to. He didn't know what transpired inside her head that was causing her to act the way she was at that moment but he knew that whatever it was, it was not good. "You need to be worried about resting babe, not getting your strength back. You probably put a lot of strain on your ribs getting up..."