Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

So the last post was posted in haste...I left out some stuff that I wanted to mention so this post will have the moments before and after Reed left on Saturday. I should never post in haste, I hate backtracking!

While Reed was over visiting Alexis on Saturday, I mentioned that I would be cooking dinner Sunday. At first Reed laughed but when he saw I wasn't laughing, he stopped. "You are serious? Amber, do you know how to cook?"

I would've been insulted, if I didn't know that he had no idea that I could. I chuckled, "I have talents you don't even know about Reed." He raised a brow but didn't say anything. "So what do you think? Chicken? Beef? Pork?"

"Whatever you guys want is fine with me."

Chris, who was sitting on the couch with me, leaned forward. "I'm not going to be here."

Reed glanced at him and shrugged his shoulders. "Then whatever you feel like cooking Amber, it doesn't matter." He turned back to Alexis and the book she was holding onto. "What does this button do?" He asked her and she pressed it, "Mooooooo!" They both started to laugh.

Meanwhile I was a little upset with his comment. Sure I didn't expect him to be overly excited about my cooking seeing I've never cooked for him but I did hope that he would at least show a little interest in it. "Forget about it," he looked up at me. "Forget I mentioned cooking at all."

Chris leaned back against the couch and wrapped his arms around me. Reed frowned, "That wasn't what I meant. I like all of them, so it doesn't matter to me which one you cook."

When I didn't say anything he sighed, "Alexis, help daddy here." He pulled the tub of her toys over to him and started to dig through it. It took a couple minutes but he finally had what he was looking for because he pushed the tub away again. He turned Alexis to face the couch and sat behind her. In front of her he placed three of the plastic barn yard animals that came with some toy he had bought her. That's right, he placed a cow, a pig and a chicken in front of her. "Those are the choices princess and daddy likes them all. So what do you think?"

Alexis looked over her shoulder at him, her hands were up to her mouth. "Come on Lexi help daddy out. What is mommy going to cook tomorrow?"

I rolled my eyes, "Reed don't do that to her."

Alexis giggled and looked at the animals in front of her, she pointed to them. "That's right Lexi, pick one. The cow, the chicken, or the pig?" For the longest time she just looked back and forth between the animals and Reed but finally she made a move, she knocked them all over! But then she picked up the chicken and brought it to her mouth.

Reed smiled at me, "How does chicken sound?" I told him it was fine and he continued to play with Alexis until it was time for bed. He left not long after she was asleep saying he'd be back in the morning.

Later that night, Chris made some snide comment about getting Alexis to pick the food was stupid.

"I thought it was cute."

Chris rolled his eyes, "Cute? The guy can't even make a food choice without using her?"

"Hey! At least he's trying to connect with her. That's what I wanted and they are getting along great." I glared at him. "What is your problem with him?"

"I don't trust him," Chris stated. "There's something about him that doesn't sit right with me."

I shook my head, "Well that's too bad because he's Alexis' father and I trust him."

"Come on Amber he's clearly -"

I held up my hand to him, "Look Chris at this moment you are stepping on really thin ice. I don't appreciate you coming in here and judging him when you don't even know him. If anyone has the right to judge anyone, it would be him. But you know he has yet to say anything to me that he hasn't said to you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Chris demanded.

"He tried to introduce himself and you ignored him -"

He cut in. "I apologized for that, I told you why that happened."

I nodded, "Yeah you did. But when are you going to apologize to me?"

He stared at me blankly. "What are you talking about?"

"You grabbed me and held me hard enough to leave bruises and you don't even seem to care about that!" I got up from the couch and walked over to the balcony doors to look out. "You had no right to touch me like that, in anger."

Chris came over to me, I could see his reflection in the glass as he hesitated before resting his hands on my shoulders. "I told you I was sorry about that Amber, I would never intentionally hurt you, you know that."

I turned to face him. "Do I Chris? Honestly I don't know that much about you, we haven't known each other all that long."

He stared into my eyes and I could see a tiny bit of hurt in his. "I would never hurt you Amber. I'm sorry I did, I wish I could take it back. It'll never happen again, I promise."

Did I believe him, I don't know but I knew that I wanted him to be telling me the truth, I wanted this to work out with him. We went back to the couch and talked/made out for a while before he left for the night. He had wanted to stay the night but we both decided that it would be better if he just went home, it wasn't like he was all that far away anyway.

Sunday morning, I was sitting on the floor with Alexis as we went through the basket of goodies that I bought for her for Easter. I was trying to get a picture of her holding the stuffed bunny that I bought her but she wasn't at all interested in the bunny.

Reed showed up around 10 and asked to take Alexis out for the morning, he wouldn't tell me where they were going and he didn't ask me to go along. When they got back an hour later, they were both smiling but he still wouldn't tell me where they went. "It's our little secret, isn't it Princess?"

I had expected him to leave after Alexis was down for her nap but he didn't. "Amber, can we talk?" He asked the moment I had Alexis' door closed.

I nodded and headed for the couch, pulling a cushion onto my lap as I sat facing him. "What's on your mind Reed?"

"I wanted to talk about Alexis."

"What about her?" I asked caustiously.

He smiled, "Nothing bad Amber. I just wanted you to know what I wanted in regards to visitation."

The moment he mentioned 'visitation' I could feel my guard going up. "I thought we already spoke about that."

"We did, somewhat. I plan on seeing her as much as I can swing it work wise." I nodded, waiting for the big bomb that he was certainly going to drop. "I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to come to a reasonable agreement about that I just wanted to let you know, I'm looking at every weekend."

"Every weekend?" I echoed, still waiting for the bomb to drop.

"Yes, I was looking into some activities that Alexis and I can do together while I'm visiting. I made some calls last week to see what there was to do around here and got talking to this coordinator for a 'daddy and me' group. This morning they had an Easter egg hunt in the park, that's where I took her." He jumped of the couch and went for his jacket. As he searched through the pockets he continued.

"At first Alexis didn't want to join in with the egg hunt but," he pulled a couple things out of his pocket and came back to sit next to me. "When we found this," he showed me a brightly colored plastic egg. "She wanted to find more. Of course, we didn't find anymore but it was fun to watch her giggle as we walked around looking for them."

I took the egg from him and looked it over. "So you want to join this group?"

He nodded, "Yes. They meet every Saturday afternoon, I think it would be good for us."

I laughed, "Well I hope it turns out better than the 'mommy and me' group we went too." When Reed gave me a puzzled look I filled him in on the group and then found myself telling him about running into Donna and Tyler the other day. "It sounds like such a nice group, I just wish we could get there."

"Why can't you?"

I laughed, "Because it's not in town." When he stared at me blankly, I continued. "Reed, I don't have a car and taking a taxi would be way too expensive, not to mention, time consuming. So we are still looking for something in town."

He thought about this for a moment and then he nodded. "Yeah I guess that would be a problem. But you have no problems with me taking her to the group?"

"No, I think it's great."

Reed stuck around for most of the afternoon and helped me as much as he could with dinner. He was truly in awe when he realized that I did know what I was doing in the kitchen. He left for a while before dinner was actually ready, he said he wanted to go clean up.

While he was gone, Chris stopped over for a few minutes before he left for his parents house, I was in the middle of giving Alexis a bath, so he didn't say long.

At 5 on the nose, Reed buzzed my apartment. I didn't even think about how strange that was since he had keys to get in. When I told Alexis he was on his way up, she abandoned the toys she was playing with and tried to crawl to the door. She didn't get too far though, she kept kneeling on the dress I put on her. She started to whine and stared at me with those big eyes and I just had to go pick her up.

We opened the door just as Reed was about to knock, or something. He had his hands full, so I wasn't sure what he was going to do. "What's all this?" I asked as he set the things he was carrying on the couch.

He turned to us with a smile on his face. "Happy Easter," he exclaimed before he pulled both of us into his arms.