'Til Sun Beams Find You [COMPLETE]

Sixty-one (Part 1)

A bit of a time jump for y'all......... lol

———

2.5 years later...

"Mommy look."

"Hm.." she said, although she was busy reading the text on her phone and smiling small.

Good morning baby

Morning 😊

"Mommmyyyy!! Look!"

"I'm looking," she said, exiting the messages thread to look back at the Google Maps app on her phone, telling her it would take her 25 minutes to get to the hotel.

She grumbled, knowing she was cutting it close.

"No you're not!" Zay yelled at her, pulling her attention from the phone to look at him just as the elevator arrived.

He smiled when he got her attention.

"This is how I'm gonna walk," Xavier said, holding his ziplock bag of carrots in his hands like it was a pillow. "I'm gonna go like this... and like this..." he demonstrated, taking short labored steps, balancing the carrots in his hand.

He'd practiced this walk a million times, as he was excited to be the ring bearer at Jada's wedding. 

It was all he talked about for the last month.

"Are you looking?" He glanced over his shoulder to check, but she was typing something on her phone.

He threw the bag of carrots onto the ground.

"Eli," Nico said calmly, hitting send on the text she was sending her friends, updating them on her ETA as they were all at the hotel already, before she put her phone away and gave him a fixed look. "Pick it up now and get your butt in this elevator."

He made a face at her as he squatted down to grab the ziplock back, stomping his way into the elevator.

"Uh uh... go back and start again and walk properly this time," she said.

It was 7 in the morning, and she was too stressed to be dealing with a tantrum.

Xavier huffed, stomping back to where he had started from and then walked like he had sense this time back into the elevator.

"Thank you," she said, hitting the button to the 23rd floor of the building.

The elevator slowly moved through the floors.

"...And stop making that face," she said, not even looking his way as she reached into her bag again to grab her phone to check the weather.

It was the hundredth time she was checking to see if it would rain today, and for the hundredth time she made a prayer that 10% chance of rain would turn to 0%.

Zay giggled. "How do you know everything??" He wondered, because he was making a face behind her back, but she didn't have eyes there.

"Because I'm your mommy," she put her phone away and turned to look at him before making a silly face at him herself. "I know everything you do. I know everything you think about. I know what you're thinking right now."

He smiled. "No you don't!"

"Yes I do. You're thinking about......... how much you love me," she said, reaching for him and giving him a big hug before kissing all over his face.

Zay giggled. "No! I'm thinking about my carrots!" He said, fighting out of her hold as he bit off another piece.

"Gimme," she requested, and he put the rest of his carrot into her mouth. "But you do love me, right?" She asked as she crunched the veggie.