her. // dacre montgomery

1.

"You ready buddy?" Dacre looks back at David in the mirror at his son. He grins and eagerly nods his head. "Ready!"

It was a rare, cool afternoon in southern Alabama. They were on their way to the park for David's classmates birthday party. David had been talking about this all week, and deciding to take off work, Dacre had finally given in to take him.

"Is mommy gonna be there?" David asks.

"No Dave, she's not." Dacre shakes his head. David still doesn't understand the divorce, not that Dacre was trying to make him understand. He was only three, it would be a while before him knowing would matter anyways.

Dacre pulls into the parking lot, turning down the radio. Of course his mind was bombarded with thoughts of Jennifer now, and the last painful days of their marriage. The constant abuse, the yelling, the fighting the–

"You have arrived at your destination." The GPS reminds him. He sighs as he unbuckles himself before doing the same for David.

"C'mon buddy." He slings his little backpack over his shoulder and takes David by the hand before he can run off.

Dacre mumbles under his breath as he looks around the small picnic table area. He's the only dad here. It's been almost eight months  but he still hadn't gotten used to this part of parenting by himself.

He shakes away the thought regardless, and continues walking towards the tables. He approaches the first mom he recognizes from the school.

"Hello."

"Hi! I'm Sharon. You are?" Sharon reaches out to shake his hand quickly.

"I'm Dacre. Dacre Montgomery." He responds nodding his head. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, mister Dacre. And this must be little David Montgomery! How are you pumpkin?" Sharon ruffles his hair and he giggles.

"Sorry you had to be the only father here, my husband had work." Sharon sucks her teeth. "Let me know if you need anything though." She smiles before walking off to tend to more party things.

"Hey Dave, why don't you go over there and play with your friends?" Dacre kneels to face him, helping him out of his jacket before he runs to the playground.

Finding a bench to watch David from, he takes a seat. As rude as it sounded, he really didn't want to be around the other moms. He had seen them plenty of times while picking up David from school and has no desire to talk to them at the moment. Sharon was enough, and he really didn't have the energy to force small talk with them.

He scrolls on his phone–keeping a close eye on David simultaneously–for a while. He lets his eyes roam before they settle on to one of the moms helping set up the table for the kids to eat.

She was wearing a loose-fitted tank top and a pair of athletic pants. Her skin was an even shade of brown that looked golden as the sun reflected off it. He felt his heart flutter as she let out the most amazing laugh, and watched her curly hair spilling from her bun on top of her head bounce as she threw her head back. She was, she was–

"Daddy look at me!" He hears David's squeal at the top of the slide. He smiles and waves to him.

"Beautiful." Dacre mutters to himself as he stands up.

"Time to come eat!" Sharon's voice rings over the park. Little kids begin to shuffle their way over to the tables. Sandwiches fill the kids plates as fruit cups spill every which way. Moms rush towards them with napkins to clean up the mess–Dacre just laughs silently as he pours the juice from Davids cup into the grass before handing it back to him. Sharon places a Caprisun in the middle of David and Jason, inadvertently skipping one of the boys who both grab the pouch.

"No, it's mine!" Both boys tug at the Caprisun before David lays a hard smack to the side of Jasons head who begins to cry and sends the rest of the kids around them into high pitched wails.

"Hey, hey, hey. What have I told you about hitting? Now say you're sorry to Jason. You're a big boy, I know you can do it." David sniffles and wipes his eyes.

"Sorry." He mumbles as he buries his face in his dad's pants leg.

"It's okay." Dacre hears a female voice reassure both boys as he reaches down to pat David's back. It was the lady he saw earlier, and Dacre would be lying if he said his heart wasn't about to beat out of his chest.

"How about you both finish your food, okay?" She suggests to the kids who nod and move on like nothing happened.

"Yeah sorry about that." Dacre scratches the back of his head. "He usually knows better than that."

"Kids." She smiles and shakes her head. Dacre can feel himself holding his breath. She was beautiful.

"I'm Dacre, by the way." He reaches out to shake her hand. "Dave really didn't mean to hit your son."

"Shay, and no, no, Jason is my nephew." Shay laughs. "My sister in law is over there. I have no kids."

"Not your thing, huh?" Dacre asks, picking up a still sniffling David, and setting him on his hip.

"I wouldn't say that. I just haven't found the right guy yet, I guess." Shay looks away. "Soon though."

"Yeah, maybe sooner than you think." Dacre adds. 'What the hell." He thinks to himself brushing it off.

"Maybe." Shay smiles.

"Cake and ice cream time!" Sharon announces juggling plates and forks her hand, again.

"That's my call." Shay says waving her hand and dismissing herself leaving Dacre standing by himself.

The next 20 minutes Dacre spends watching Shay. They go through cake and presents and Dacre barely notices the party is over until he hears the kids squealing about candy bags.

He watches from a distance as Shay gives David a goody-bag. She makes eye contact with Dacre as she slips a piece of paper into it before smiling and waving. David skips back over to his dad before jumping into his arms.

"Let's see what you got in here buddy!" Dacre pulls it from David's chubby hands and pulls out the paper inside. On it, was a phone number and a note that read:

I'd really like to get to know you more, Dacre. Call me sometime.
-Shay

He smiles to himself as he folds the paper back up and shoves it into his back pocket.

"What's so funny daddy?" David asks, grabbing Dacre's face to look at him.

"Nothing, Dave. Just nothing." He smiles even harder, placing David in his seatbelt and then doing to himself the same.

____

do we even like this? by we i mean you? yes? no? okay?

woo im writing a dacre montgomery fic that im gonna rarely update like i did w all my other fics,, where is my oscar. i posted on twitter the other day that 2019 me wanted to write 2014 fanfiction again so we r gonna try that w mister dacre. i posted it before but i wasnt too sure about it but then i grew some balls and im gonna make it work i promise okayyy.

also we are having some black main characters like i said its 2019 and im black and yeah if you dont read this because his love interest is black then uh..... bye.

if you're here bc you're trying figure out what happened to my larry fic... yeah um those days are over so we unpublished that.

 comment n like n stuff tho i appreciate it

-h