Fresh out of the orphanage

22| Sunday

Alex's jittering shook the whole kitchen table while he anxiously tried to compose himself.

"Look, I think we should call, should we call?" Alex quickly blurted out, looking up at all his brothers.

"Alex, as much as I'd like to ruin Daniels chances, we can't. It's part of the agreement that we all signed." Ed sighed, even though he himself thought Alex's idea wasn't a bad one and was actually thinking of doing that.

"But what if something's happened? What if he relapsed!?" Alex argued.

That thought alone made a shiver down all their spines and bought silence to the kitchen.

A helpless Alexa sitting in the corner upset while her dad drunkenly shouted demands at her.

"No no no" Ed said breaking the silence. "We are not going to call because right now, Alexa will be having the best time with Daniel and whether we like it or not, we have to accept that we're not her only family anymore." Ed said, breaking the deathly silence.

"But-

"Alex drop it" Ed irritably said, walking out of the kitchen trying to think straight himself.

While Ed stomped out, Alex turned to Simon.

"I just don't trust him" Alex ranged to Simon, could we at least just drop by to see how she's doing?"

"Alex, we can't! We're picking her up this evening anyway, you only have to wait until then. And plus, we would be breaching the contract." Simon repeated, for what felt like the tenth time, even though, the more Alex said that plan, the better it sounded.

"Not if no one finds out"

Simon looked up at Alex and for once in his life, he took Alex's advice that wasn't about how to pick up a girl.

"Fine."
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Alexa sat down on the sofa, flicking though the endless amount of channels. While Daniel attempted to break the silence.

"So Uh Lex, what do you want to do today?" He asked, attempting to keep up the conversation at least.

So far, although he didn't want to admit it, he had no idea what to do. The whole morning Alexa had declined wanting to do anything because she had already done it with her 'brothers.' How he wished he hadn't messed up so much.
Cinema? Nope, Ed had already taken her to see the new Disney film
Beach? Too cold.
Ice cream? Nope, She didn't have her brother Alex to smush ice cream into.
But no, he wasn't going to get defeated by these 'brothers' he needed to up his game.

"I know Lex, do you want to bake some of those brownies Mummy and you used to make?" He hopefully said, although it felt like he was talking to a wall.

How was it this hard to connect with your daughter?

"Is Mummy here to make them with us?" She grinned at her, hope written all over her face. He sighed I guilt, scrap that, distract the girl, distract the girl, THINK DANIEL THINK.

Alexa stared at her dad in hope.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DANIEL, SAY SOMETHING- ohh I got something.

"You wanna go to the park?"

Expecting another decline, Alexa's face morphed from really hopeful, to curiosity.
Okay, that's better than a decline, now he just needed to convince her.

"Well, we could get some ice cream, play on the swings, go down that massive slide......

Apparently the massive slide was all he needed because-