Telling Me, Love [Normila]

Chapter Eleven

I look down at Louis and my daughter, Louis turns pink. “Sorry, Daddy.” He says and walks over to his leg giving it a gentle hug, Liam just sighs and pats his head

“You scared me, is all.”

I stand there dumbfounded. Liam had a son? A son I knew? How did I not notice sooner?

I pick up Ally and turn to Liam again, “Nice to see you Liam.” I say “This is Allyson… my daughter, say hi Ally.”

Ally looks down at Louis and then up at his father “Hi,” she says and then hides her face in my neck

“Wow,” Liam says to me and lets out a shaky breath. “Um, didn’t see that coming,”

I nod completely understanding what he means “Right?”

The laugh we share is rather forced and we can’t look at each other, it stays like that for a while before I decided to put on my big girl pants.

“OK, um,” I put Ally down next to Liam and look at the both of them “Why don’t you guys play on the slides? And then MommyBear and Liam can watch you guys while we sit down.”

They both enthusiastically and start running towards the slides, I grab Liam’s hand and we follow behind our kids, I try to ignore that he entwines our fingers together and the sparks that come from it.  

The kids are running around the slides before even climbing up and Liam and I sit down and watch them play and laugh together before turning to each other.

“So, we both have kids.” I state and smile at Liam

He nods “Yeah, guess we do, I would say something like sorry I didn’t tell you but we did met at a club.”

“Yeah, no apologies needed.” I say and then run a hand through my hair “But what I don’t get is why I don’t ever see you at my dance studio,”

“That’s how you know Louis?”

I nod “He’s in my Tuesday classes”

“Oh, see his mom has him on the weekdays I usually only have him on weekends and every other holiday.”  

I nod “Oh, well that’s why I never see you then.”

“I’ll have to stop by and see you now, so that’s you daughter?” He says pointing at the kids in front of us “She’s beautiful, and has your eyes.”

I smile “Yeah, thanks, Ally and Louis get along great, it’s actually kind of crazy how they’re always together.” 

“Like us,” he says and turns to me giving me a smile, and I can’t even stop myself from smiling back, I let out a little laugh.

“Yeah, something like that Liam… so can I ask about Louis’ mom?”

Liam nods “Yeah, we had a pretty bad breakup, so instead of just trying to get me for child support, which I would have paid, no problem, but instead she went for custody rights, said I wasn’t a fit parent, when the social workers couldn’t come up with anything to help her accusations they decided that it would be best to let her have partial custody just to shut her up.”  

“Damn,” I say before I can help it, but Liam just shrugs and then I lean back against the bench “Well… at least you weren’t married for a year before he suddenly decided he couldn’t do it anymore, left without a goodbye and leaving the papers on his pillow instead. Then, you find him living it up on a beach with a whole bunch of girls, because, that sucked.”

Liam looks at me eyes wide “My life sounds like a walk in the park.”

“Yeah… I usually win this.” I say and give him a smile which he returns and then begins to clap his hands