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 Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 2:36 pm
Tag never had one of those mornings where you wake up and claim, “I’m never drinking again.” No, Tag was far above that, and wouldn’t even be able to make such an obviously false claim. But if he a normal less-awesome person, this would definitely be one of those mornings. His head was ringing, his stomach was queasy and he was naked in bed with an unfamiliar woman with long auburn hair. In shorter words: it was an average Sunday morning.
He pulled himself off the pillow and looked around the room for his clothes sprinkled about the floor, mixed with hers. Aw, ********, what was her name? Cathy? Karen? Ilene? No, right. It was Colleen. Definitely Colleen. What was that damn noise? Was there a toddler crying?
Then, a brief moment from the night before flashed before his eyes:
The music was blaring at The Blackbird Club as the crowd shouted their intimate conversations each other just to be heard over an awful techno remix of Cat Stevens’ The Wind.
“Before we get back to my place, I should tell you, I have a son!” Colleen shouted as she pounded down the last of her martini.
“Did you say you have to s**t?” he shouted back, confused and deafened by the music.
“Yeah!” she shouted back. There was plenty of miscommunication.
Tag tapped the sleeping woman on the shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”
“Please don’t wake me, I’m going to puke,” she groaned.
“Your kid is crying,” Tag said. “Do you want me to take care of it?” He had a son of his own, so knew the basics of parenting.
“Can you?” she asked. “Thanks.” She passed out before he could respond.
“Great,” Tag groaned as he pulled on his boxer briefs and pants. He tossed his shirt over his torso, left unbuttoned as he picked up the crying child – about the same age as his own son – and began to scout around for the kitchen.
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Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:56 am
A little over three years ago it would not have been unusual to wake up and discover a strange man in their home. Pregnancy and the birth of her son had meant (predictably) massive changes in Coleen's lifestyle. It had taken some time, and more than one argument with her mother, but she'd learned.
Nobody had asked Jack if he wanted to be an uncle. They'd simply shipped him to the basement, repainted his bedroom a soft shade of blue, and filled his home with diapers. At the time, these things had frustrated Jack, who was opposed to having his needs overlooked. He'd whined and moaned about the inconveniences of this 'stupid baby' like the little b***h that he was. That was, until his mother cuffed him around the back of the head and told him to, "Just ******** deal with it."
So he'd suffered, usually pretty quietly, and moped around until little Freddie was born.
But then-- there he was; tiny and pink, swaddled in yellow, and as wrinkled as a prune. And suddenly the sacrifices he'd been forced to make just… didn't matter. Freddie was vulnerable and loud. He did all sorts of things that Jack didn't approve of. But Jack could not begrudge him his helplessness, and stepped up to the plate like a champion.
Coleen worked odd hours. She couldn't be around all of the time to take care of her son. When he wasn't at school, it was Jack who had to look after little Freddie. He'd learned to walk holding Jack's thumbs, and adopted a couple of very choice words from his uncle's vocabulary. And nobody else's. It made Jack's heart swell with pride.
One night every couple of weeks, Jack volunteered to stay home with Freddie so Coleen could go out and have fun. Sometimes she came home alone. Sometimes she didn't.
Jack was asleep downstairs when Freddie started crying. He padded into the kitchen just in time to see an unfamiliar man exiting his nephew's room. Freddie was cheerful in Tag's arms, though his cheeks were stained red from his tears. He clutched a little red fire truck in one hand, and sucked complacently on the thumb of the other.
"You must be Coleen's latest conquest," Jack drawled, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and beckoned to Tag with a lazy wave of his arm. "Might as well stick around for breakfast. I make some pretty mean pancakes."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:00 pm
Tag raised a brow as another male voice spoke to him. Was it the baby’s father? Or some relative? He turned around to get a look at the other man, but alas, it was just a teenager. That ruled him out of the running to be the baby’s father, or at least he hoped considering his age. Not to mention the ‘I just ******** your baby-mama, but sure I would like some pancakes’ conversation would have been an awkward one that he was glad to avoid.
“Pancakes?” he repeated with a slight smirk. Even if the boy wasn’t the babydaddy, he wasn’t quite sold on the idea of eating breakfast at his one-night-stand’s house with one of her relatives and without her there. But there was an offer for free homemade pancakes at stake, and that just wasn’t something he could give up that easily. “Uh, I guess I could go for some pancakes.”
“Is there baby food around here anywhere, or do you want to feed him? I think he’s hungry.” He offered the small child to the teenager, ready to hand over the child gently. “You must be…Coleen’s brother?”
He flashed his signature smile at the teen. He didn’t feel the need to introduce himself. He was on television. The kid should know who he is. Granted, that was only true barely 50% of the time, but Tag’s ego inflated those statistics a bit.
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Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 3:07 am
Jack wasn't generally in the habit of befriending the men his sister brought home. There were two reasons for this.
a) Every single one of them, with the notable exception of Freddie's father, all but disappeared off the face of the earth the morning after.
and b) While the men probably didn't know it, or assumed otherwise, Coleen was just as eager to watch them walk out the door as they were to leave. Jack knew this.
He also was looking forward to the expression that would, surely, pass over Coleen's features when she followed the magical scent of fresh pancakes into the kitchen and discovered… her date. Probably, she'd end up throwing something at him later.
It would be worth it.
"My name's Jack," Jack nodded agreeably, in reply to Tag's question. Yes, he was Coleen's brother. And yes, he would feed his nephew. Jack scooped Freddie easily out of this stranger's arms, and tossed him tenderly into the air. The toddler's expression wavered somewhere dangerously between shock and awe for a heartbeat, but then he was safely back in his uncle's arms, and his cherubic features illuminated at once with joy. Jack cooed at him.
"There's some apple juice in the fridge. Milk too," he offered kindly, glanced at Tag over his shoulder, and then gestured at a nearby cupboard. "Cups are in there. You can help yourself, if you like."
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 10:30 pm
"Thanks," Tag said as he opened a cupboard and grabbed a small glass. He flipped it around in his hand as he opened the fridge, pulling out the jug of apple juice and poured himself a glass. "I gotta say, I don't really make it a habit of having breakfast with a relative of the girl that I just fuc---"
He paused. For once, Tag's eloquence seemed to be failing him. What was the kind way to say this?
...that I made lov---" He couldn't even finish that word. It was venomous.
There was a long, extended pause. "I ******** your sister."
He took a sip of his apple juice. Yup. It was just as awkward as he thought it'd be.
"How about those pancakes?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:46 pm
Tag's word choice made Jack's eyebrows lift. It was as sudden as a blink, and disappeared almost as quickly. He made a soft sound, which might have been disapproving, and placed Freddie in his highchair. It was old and wooden, but well kept and sturdy. Jack had used it when he was small.
Theirs was a family that never threw anything away.
"You're not the only one," Jack drawled. There was something clipped about his tone. He glanced at Tag over his shoulder on his way to a nearby cabinet. The soles of his slippers whispered softly where he dragged them across the floor. "You should probably go get checked out, honestly."
It was unkind of him, to speak of Coleen in such a fashion. Jack knew that his sister liked to practice safe sex, because she had taken it upon herself to talk to him about the importance of protection.
But he wanted to make Tag uncomfortable, for being so callous.
Coleen was his sister. Not some slut they could brofist over.
"Take a seat," Jack nodded in the direction of the kitchen table, which was pushed up against a wall, and placed a bowl of cheerios down in front of Freddie. "Pancakes'll be a second."
He set about preparing them.
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:17 pm
"Oh," he said, a bit uncomfortably at the mention of getting tested. It wouldn't be the first time that he had to do so, and thankfully he had always tested clean, but Jack's candid way of dropping the bombshell was a bit startling. Then again, he had just blatantly said how he ******** the boy's sister, so he couldn't exactly fault him.
He moved over to the kitchen table and sat down on request beside the toddler Freddie and his bowl of Cheerios. As Jack turned to start on the pancakes, Tag slyly picked up one Cheerio from the rim of the bowl and popped it in his mouth.
Freddie glared at him. Smart baby.
"So, Jack, right?" he asked, double-checking the name. He still had not introduced himself yet, and was unsure if the teenager was able to recognize him. Nonetheless, he tried to make some small talk to ease up the awkwardness and stray away from the topic of ramming Colleen. "You must be what, seventeen or eighteen? Are you in high school?"
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