Phenomenal

2~ Here Comes The Sun

'Attention to everyone: Change of plans for the welcoming party! It's to be made 'Child-Friendly''

Clarissa set her phone down once she was back in her room, went and made her cup of tea, came back and, just as expected, opened her phone to several dozen replies.

Everyone in the apartment complex was connected to each other through chat so group messages could be sent out instantly - or gossip.

Now, Clarissa scrolled through the messages and messages and messages all saying much the same thing.

'What?!'

'Child friendly?!'

'He has a kid?'

'Wait! Is that the little girl I saw?'

'He doesn't look old enough to have a kid!'

'Omg, a child is living here now?!'

'Does that mean he's married?'

'There was no ring, I checked.'

'Of course you did -.-'

'What does that mean?'

'Hey! Concentrate you two!'

'Should I have a sandwich or a full burger for lunch?'

'Sandwich.'

Clarissa grinned as she worked her way through them, cutting in as the messages kept coming - about both the child and lunch.

'Yes, he has a kid, her name is Violet and she has a toy rabbit called Pepper. She's very sweet and we have to make her feel at home.'

'This is so not the place to raise a child,' came Jason's text.

'So let's make it work!' Clarissa said, 'She's here now, we deal with it. So lay off the alcohol at the party, at least until she's gone to bed.'

'Does this mean we have to make the entire complex child-friendly?'

'Well we can at least be mindful.'

'Aw c'mon, this is a place for young people, but not THAT young.'

'Stop complaining, we can't change it so we'll deal with it. So everyone just keep it in mind when sorting everything out.'

Just then, Sasha's text cut in. 'Alright everyone, I've just spoken to them, and Darcy - he's the dad - said that, only if we didn't mind, he'd like to bring Violet to the welcoming party. I told him we, of course, didn't mind. Welcoming party is tonight. Daniel and I are going to get the food this evening, so I want everyone's money paid by then. Let me know if you can't make it."

'Yes Ma'am,' came around thirty replies and the group chat buzz eased off as everyone returned to whatever they'd been doing or moved to personal chats to discuss the fact that the new guy had a kid.

And that was the last anyone heard of it until that evening.

~~~~

Come evening, the weather was good enough to give them a warm cloudless sky so the garden furniture was dragged out into courtyard, the tables with food and drink set up on the ground floor walk ways and a carefully selected playlist crafted so that there wouldn't be anything too explicit for the little kid.

The welcoming party started at seven - pre-drinking not encouraged - but the guests of honour weren't able to make it until eight, something to do with last-minute moving.