Stepdad

FORTY-THREE

"Hey, it's me. I don't know if you even check these but just in case you do, I wanted to leave my voice. I know things didn't exactly go as planned at the hospital but.." Allie trailed off, wiping the tears from her face. Rena gently squeezed her hand to encourage her to continue.

"I just wanted to know if you wanted to talk it over more, maybe? I have a lot that I need to say to you and things that I need to explain." Allie's voice sounded high pitched from all of the crying and the weed finally kicking in.

"I'm gonna get a room at the Hilton. I'll text you the room number. You can come when you're ready." Allie hung up the phone before it could get audibly noticeable that she was crying. She definitely didn't want him to hear that.

"That sounded..." Rena trailed off as soon as Allie hung up the phone, searching her mind for the right word to use. "Fucking depressing. I'm not gonna lie, it sounded like a high school musical moment." Allie still managed to force out a laugh, never really able to be fully sad around Rena.

It was as if Rena wouldn't allow her to be sad for very long. "I still don't know what I'm going to say to him." Allie rested her head against Rena's shoulder, thankful that she was here, and even more thankful for the support.

"It'll come to you when he shows up. I promise." Rena rested her head against Allie's, she really hoped that this worked out for her best friend. She hated seeing her this sad.

"He's gonna be so pissed at me." Allie mumbled before she went into a small panic attack, the weed causing a bit of paranoia after this whole experience. She turned to face Rena with wide eyes before she started giggling like a small child. "I'm so high right now."

Rena was laughing but she was beyond confused about what was going on in front of her. "He quit smoking to show me that he could focus more on us and I'm fucking high." Allie couldn't stop laughing even though she was actually worried.

"Well, he's either going to be pissed about it and call you a hypocrite or he will laugh about it and you guys will have the best talk of your relationship." Rena tried to sound positive but actually hearing that out loud didn't sound too positive to her.

"Oh, god. I really hope it's the second one." Allie was in tears, the good kind of tears. She took a deep breath to contain herself before looking over at Rena once more. "There's no chance of this wearing off before I see him tonight, is there?"

Rena slowly shook her head, giving Allie a sympathetic look. "I doubt it. You might wanna smoke more anyway just in case. I just remembered that he's on tour. He might have a show tonight." Allie could have smacked herself.

She completely forgot about that, but didn't exactly want to leave another voicemail and admit that like a loser. "Maybe I'll catch him high too and he'll think it's an old voicemail." That was wishful thinking and deep down, she knew that.

"Or he could surprise you. You never know. Either way, you'll have an amazing kid free night." Allie didn't exactly find comfort in that, she loved being around her son. He made her truly happy.

"If he doesn't show up by midnight, I'll call you and we can watch Supernatural together." Allie offered which brought a warm smile to Rena's lips. She knew she chose Allie as her best friend for a reason.

"Sounds like a plan. You go pack a bag, I'll roll you a couple blunts out of this just in case. After all of this you deserve to be a hypocrite for the night." Rena laughed as she began grinding up more weed.

Once they opened the hotel room door, Allie was surprised by what she saw, the room being a lot more spacious than she was expecting. There was a living room that you walked into, a small kitchen to the right, and a door to the left that she assumed was the bedroom.