Family Ties

Part 47

"Mr Dealer? There are two gentlemen who insist on seeing you." His sour assistant informed him as if annoyed by the interruption. "They refuse to give their names."

"Okay, let them in." He sighed. Hopefully, he can get whatever this was out of the way within a minute. When the two men entered, Jackson jumped out of his seat and nearly ran toward them to shake their hands.

"Mr Cook, Mr Priestly, what brings you here?" He looked at Raymond's dad, in his colourful Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants, while his Pops was dressed to the nines in a business suit.

"We're here to invite you to a week away. Just us guys. Ray doesn't like camping very much, so we won't take him." Jesse informed him, taking a seat opposite his desk.

"Camping?" He swallowed. He knew little to nothing about camping, but he was certain that it couldn't be a good experience. "I'm not really the camping type." He smiled nervously.

"Excellent!" Damon exclaimed, slapping his knee. "You'll have lots to learn then, but don't worry, you have us to show you the ropes."

"What I meant was that I, er, I'm not certain that..." He stammered trying to get out of their god-awful idea.

"What you meant was that you're looking forward to spending time with us." Jesse looked over at Damon with a smirk. Jackson swallowed uncomfortably. He didn't have a great feeling about this. 

"Okay, what should I bring along?" He tried to smile, but his fear kept his eyes glued to the two men in front of him.

"Nothing at all. Well, maybe wear something warm. It gets cold out there this time of the year." Jesse informed him, getting up.

"We'll pick you up on Sunday." He waived and left with Damon, still chatting.

Camping! Why the hell would they want to go camping? He went to summer camps, but at least there you got to have a warm bed and three solid meals a day. From the way they dressed, it was easy to see that Raymond's dad was fanatical about it and would be a pain, but at least from what he knew about Damon, was that he liked to be comfortable. So it might not be such a bad thing after all.

Deciding to worry about Raymond's dads later, he left that afternoon to collect Skye from school. He watched as he kicked a ball around with his friends for a few minutes before calling him.

"Jackson!" He threw himself into Jackson's arms and immediately proceeded to climb onto his shoulders.

"Hi to you too!" He laughed. "Where's your bag?" With a quick word to his teacher, they left.

"Grandpa says we're going camping!" Skye excitedly informed him. "You're going to have so much fun. There's going to be fishing, making fires, swimming and if we are really good, then Grandpa will let us help when he goes hunting." He excitedly ticked off his fingers each activity.

"I think it's a bit cold for swimming, but it all sounds like fun." It didn't sound too bad at all, especially since Skye was super excited by the prospect of going.

For the rest of the afternoon, they worked on Skye's homework. He wasn't allowed TV, so they lazed about playing with his collection of cars and planes. By the time that Raymond arrived, the deliveryman had just dropped off their food.

"Ah, this is the life!" Raymond sighed, giving Skye a hug before kissing Jackson. "I should let you pick him up from school more often," he joked.

"Come on, sit down. Everything is ready to go." He held a chair for Raymond. "Your dads came to see me this morning." He casually informed Raymond.

"What?!" He said sharply, his fork hanging in mid-air.

"We're all going camping, Papa!" Skye's excitement was barely contained.