Dillon

True love can stand the test of time…

 

 

 

Today is a day of celebration, I’m having a son! Not that I would’ve been disappointed to be having a daughter, but having a boy first means that any future daughters we could have will have an automatic protector in their big brother. I’ll need eyes on her whenever I can’t be there, and what better spy is there to have than an older brother? These thoughts however will not be shared with Ariel, her being a strong, independent woman, she wouldn’t take that the way it’s intended. What am I saying, she’d rip me a new asshole and never let me be involved in my daughter’s life and would hide things from me! That would cause tons of arguments and would be unacceptable.

“Are you two going by the shop and letting your sisters know?” Glory asks us.

“That was the plan, Mom,” Ariel answers her. I was kinda hoping we’d stop by my place and celebrate quickly before we get sucked into the whirlwind that is her sisters. But whatever my girl wants she’ll get, I’ll do anything to keep that smile on her face. She hasn’t stopped looking at the sonogram picture of our son since we left the room.

“A boy! I can’t believe it, there haven’t been any boys born into our family for at least two generations! I need to go shopping, let’s get together for dinner soon,” Glory says.

“What, now? You’re going shopping now and not coming with us? I thought if the shop was slow we could shut it down and all go to dinner together,” my girl says in disappointment at the thought of not having her mom there with us.

“How about you let your mom shop for an hour or so and we’ll meet up for dinner at eight,” I say, trying to form a compromise because I can see Glory is going shopping whether we throw a fit about it or not.

“Sweetie, please let me shop for a little bit without making me feel bad. I’m so excited to shop for my grandson I just can’t stand it.”

“Alright, Mom, let’s just do dinner Monday. The shop is closed then anyways, and we won’t have to be making any concessions for anyone.”

“Yes! That sounds like an excellent idea, sweetie. I must run now, shops are calling my name and my grandson needs to be well-provided for when he makes his debut appearance.” Glory leans in and gives Ariel a kiss on the cheek and comes over and gives me a hug. “I’m so very happy you came home, Dillon. I couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law or father for my grandson.”

“Thank you, Glory, you have no idea what those words mean to me,” I tell her.

“Don’t let it go to your head, boy,” she says wagging her finger at me as she heads down the parking lot to where she’s parked her car. I laugh at her statement, because it was one she used on me often in her classroom.

I grab Ariel’s hand and lead her to the car, “Let’s go see your sisters, baby.”

“Eeeek,” she calls out. “I can’t wait to see their faces when they find out it’s a boy. Growing up we’d always talked about what we wanted to have. All three of us said we wanted a boy first. I can’t wait to tell them it’s a reality for us.”

“So, Rainey wants a boy first? I can get down with that,” Levi says.

“Just because you said that, Levi, you’re going to end up with a girl,” Ariel tells him. He clutches his chest with a hurt expression on his face.

“You wound me sister, you truly do.”

“Sister?” Ariel asks confused by his statement.

“One day, Ariel, you will be my sister. I will put a ring on Rainey’s finger and make sure she’s mine forever.”

“What about your brother?” I ask him. He just smiles at me, “We have an agreement, I get to put the ring on her finger and he gets the first baby with her.”

“Okay! That’s enough, I really don’t want to hear about this,” Ariel says and her body shivers in my arms. She really doesn’t know what to do with their relationship but loving her sister the way she does, she’ll accept anything that makes Rainey happy. Family really does mean everything to my girl.

 

 

“Really!” I cover my ears at Em’s squealing. “You’re really having a boy?”

“Yes,” Ariel answers her question.

“That’s awesome!” Rainey gets in on the squealing action. Note to self, I must invest in ear plugs with these two as sisters.

“Congratulations, Dillon,” Carson comes up to me and shakes my hand.

“That’s great news,” Marcus says. “We have all kinds of things to teach the little guy.” I can see the wheels turning in his head. My son is going to be one lucky boy with so many people loving him. I can’t help but feel a little envious, I wish I’d had uncles and aunts to care about my well-being as a child.

“Oh yeah, congratulations, Dillon.” Rainey says coming up to give me a hug.

“Good to know you didn’t forget I was involved in the process too,” I say teasing her.

“Ha-ha, very funny. We’d never forget about you,” Em says coming to join in the making of a Dillon sandwich. They are on both sides of me squeezing me as hard as they can.

“Alright ladies, stop squeezing the air from my man’s lungs,” Ariel says while laughing. I personally don’t find anything funny about the fact that my face is turning blue from lack of oxygen.

“Don’t you ladies have work to do?” I wheeze out.

“Yeah, Ariel, that guy you’ve been working on his arm piece called earlier and set up an appointment in about thirty-minutes. I was going to take him, but since you’re here I won’t have to squeeze him in,” Emory informs my girl.

“Thank you, I really want to be the one to work on him. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into it and want to apply the final piece to it. Shouldn’t take but a couple of hours, Dillon, if you want to go check on that empty space you’ve been eyeing across the road. I think now would be a perfect time for you to invest in the property and get your practice up and running.” My girl is amazing, always thinking about me and making sure my needs are met and taken care of.

“I’ll give the realtor a call and see if she can meet me, I’ll be back here in a couple of hours. If you’re done, I’d like to take you home and celebrate,” I say the last part in her ear and notice lust in her eyes.

“We can definitely do that,” she says. Damn I’m so lucky to have found my perfect match in her.

 

 

An hour and half later I’m meeting with a very anxious realtor. She keeps rattling on about how ‘perfect this location is for a medical practice’, and ‘how the town would be grateful to me if I opened up one’. The town is so small that general practitioners are in demand. You have to travel an hour to meet up with a family doctor. I remember how anxious I was travelling that far the day Ariel was ill. Luckily, she chose to use a local OB/GYN at the hospital instead of her family doctor to deliver our baby. So, the drive time is twenty minutes to the hospital instead of an hour and two towns away.

I try to get away from her and look around on my own but she’s following my every move and getting on my last nerve. “I would like to spend some time on my own and get a feel for the place. Do you think that would be possible?” I ask, praying she gets the hint.

“Sure, I’ll just go out front and give you a few minutes to look around,” she says walking away from me—finally. I go through each room and think of the possibility of each one. It will need a lot of clean up, and possibly some new counter tops and cabinets since it seems this place has been empty and on the market for a long time. I start to mentally calculate the cost of the repairs and the asking price of the building. It is separated by two suites, but I’d like to purchase the entire building and maybe find a physical therapist or a different practicing doctor for the unit over from the one I want to use. I’ll have to renovate both so the other is appealing to whoever would be willing to open up business on that side. Knowing I’ll need to get them down on the asking price by at least twenty grand I start thinking of a way to approach the seller without losing it all together. I walk out of the building, looking over my shoulder one last time with hopes and dreams of the future.