Parker was asleep on Michael's lap after a very long and stressful day of watching TV and playing Mario Kart. It wasn't normally like Parker to fall asleep at only 4:30 in the afternoon, but he'd woken up at around three in the morning that day and just wouldn't go back to sleep, so it made sense that he was tired.
Michael was tired as well (mostly from being woken up by his son so early), so he was using the fact that Parker was finally not jumping or talking or yelling to his advantage. He was leaning back on the couch, using one hand to mindlessly rake his fingers through Parker's hair and the other to text Calum, who was having a huge meltdown about not remembering the name of this "really really frick dickin' hot" girl he slept with the night before.
The sound of Michael's phone ringing brought him out of the little trance he was in, and he answered the call without even looking at who it was, just so the annoying sound of his ringtone would stop and Parker wouldn't wake up.
"Hello?" Michael asked, silently hoping that it wasn't his mom calling, because he knew that if it was he'd be on the phone for hours.
"Hi, it's Beth."
"Oh, hi!" Michael said a little too enthusiastically. He quickly slid out from under Parker, careful not to wake him, and left him on the couch while Michael made his way into the kitchen.
"Hi." Beth said, and she only sounded slightly annoyed today, which was good. "Why wasn't Park at school today?"
Oh, so that's why she sounded slightly annoyed.
"I kept him at home, he wasn't feeling - wait, how did you know?" Michael questioned, wondering if all moms could just tell when their kid ditched school. Michael's mom certainly had that sense, because Michael never got away with skipping school when he was younger.
"They called me." Beth said casually.
"Why didn't they call me, though? I'm his father. I live with him." Michael asked. He didn't get it, shouldn't the school call the parent that the kid actually lived with when they had a question? Beth lived almost two hours away, what was she going to do?
"But my name is on all the forms." Beth vaguely explained, making Michael pout. His name should be on his sons school forms, not hers.
"Why isn't my name on the forms?" Michael whined. He also had a bad habit of acting like a child when he didn't get what he wanted.
"I pay for everything?" Beth said, almost like she was asking a question and wasn't sure herself. "Anyway, why wasn't he there?"
"I told you, he wasn't feeling good." Michael said again, and the short memory of what happened to Parker last night during their tickle fight flashed through Michael's mind. "He was complaining about his throat, he couldn't breath for a second."
"That happened again?" Beth gasped, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to Michael.
"Wait, he did it when he was with you, too?" Michael asked, suddenly growing more worried than before. He'd thought that it was just a one time thing, Parker never told him that this had happened more than once.
"Yeah, he was running around the kitchen and laughing while I was making some lunch and then he started to say he couldn't breathe." Beth explained.
"Why didn't you tell me when you dropped him off yesterday?" Michael asked. He didn't know about Beth, but he thought that this was pretty important, and if it was him in Beth's place he would have called right away.
"I didn't think it was a very big deal, I thought he was just out of breath and freaked out because it's never happened before." Beth said, sounding a little apologetic, like she felt bad.
