Chapter Eight
Oliver
By some miracle, we managed to get the basement, the living room, and three of the bedrooms painted, including my room and Christopher’s. I left the other rooms for Kayden and Jackson to decide on the color, after all they'd be living here in a few more weeks.
Sunday morning, I got up and made coffee. Philip hadn't gone home at all throughout the weekend. Instead, he’d opted to stay with me, in my bed. I worried about what others in town would say, but then again, I didn't really care. In the past two weeks, Philip had informed a number of people about Christopher and myself. He’d done a good job stating enough of the facts to not spark malicious rumors, but also give off the vibe that it was nobody's business but our own. By now, I’m sure everyone in town knew that Christopher was Philip’s son.
“When do you have to leave to pick Christopher up?” Philip asked. He wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed my neck.
I glanced at the clock on the stove. “I need to leave in about fifteen minutes if I'm going to make it there and back before lunch. Otherwise, we'll have to pick up some fast food or something. Christopher will need a bath before bed tonight and I'm sure he'll be exhausted from playing with Jackson all weekend, so he may take a nap this afternoon.”
Philip hugged me tighter. “I want to see our son, but I don't want this weekend to end.”
I turned around in his arms so that we were facing each other. “It doesn't have to really. I mean, unless you want it to. I just figured that…”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Well, unless this was just a…” I trailed off again, words weren’t coming to me.
Philip chuckled. “No, this was not just a one-time thing. But how do we tell Christopher?”
“I don't know. I would think he'd be ecstatic that we're together. But I don't want to throw too much at him at once. New school, new house, new dad, and me in a relationship. He's never seen that before. Let's just take it slow.”
“Okay,” Philip nodded. “That's what I was thinking. We can continue like we've been doing. Maybe on the days I don't have to work, I'll just stay overnight, and we'll see what happens? I can sneak in and out.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But we can also talk to him about it. No sneaking required.”
Philip grinned. “I'm going to take your lead on this. You're the expert. I'm still new.”
I smiled. “You're doing a great job though. Christopher already loves you.”
“I love him,” Philip said. “He's amazing.”
“Yeah, he is. Do you want to come with me to go get him? You can meet my friend Kaden. Once he moves in here, you’ll be seeing quite a bit of him.”
“Sure,” Philip said. “I don't have anything to do today. I've got to work first thing in the morning, but that's all right.”
“What’s your schedule for the next month,” I said. “Christopher has a class field trip to tour the town at the end of the month.”
“I know. I made sure I was on shift for that.” Philip’s face lit up with delight. “I’ve been waiting to show him the station. He's going to love it.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Christopher had loved all things firefighting and fire engines since he’d been born. It shouldn’t have surprised me, his Alpha dad was the same way.
“Are you guys going to the library first, then the fire station?”
I grabbed the paperwork off the fridge. “Library, Post Office, then Fire Department and we finish up the day at the town hall. It's going to be a full day of Millerstown history. For Christopher it'll actually be a lot of Miller's family history as well. Since you all own the damn town.”
Philip rolled his eyes. “Oh, God. Don't get me started. Saying things like that will give my dad an even bigger ego.”
“I think his is already out of control.”
“I know,” Philip said sadly and looked away.
“Have you talked to him much since you confronted him?”
Philip shook his head. “I’ve talked to my mom. She said he hasn't changed his mind at all. Still doesn't think he did anything wrong.”
“I noticed on the next town hall agenda is a motion to enforce term limits for the office of the mayor. A petition has been going around. Seems to have quite a bit of support.”
Philip grimaced. “It's does. My dad's done an okay job. But personally, I think the place could manage money a little bit better. Seems like every time we turn around, there's a budget cut. A couple of things around the town could be fixed up. Hell, the crosswalk lights haven’t worked for over two years now. The town could use some different leadership.”
“Yeah, that is kind of weird. You’d think the town would have money for that kind of thing.”
“Right?”
“I noticed the treasurer position is empty, who handles all of the budget stuff.”
Philip shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m terrible at paying attention to that stuff.”
“Don’t you go to the town hall meetings?”
He shook his head. “Not as much as I should. Attendance has been pretty terrible. No one has time for that stuff anymore.”
The back of my neck tingled, and I got goosebumps at the thought of Philip’s dad, a man I knew to have an awful heart, running this town completely unchecked by it’s citizens. I’d have to look into that more.
I kissed Philip. “C’mon, let's go get our son.”