unconditional

5| apologizing

IT'S BEEN A week since Cagney called me, and every day since, she's called me again.

I block her every time, but by the next day she's using a different number and she manages to contact me again.

I've stopped picking up, letting her keep her empty threats to herself.

I've tried bringing it up to Sam, I really have, but he's been so worried with finding a new department to get transferred into and his graduation coming up, I didn't want to add on.

So I've kept quiet, ignored the calls and blocked the caller, and we've been doing fine.

Since another Saturday has rolled around, leaving one week until Sam's graduation, we decided to have a family dinner.

Like, family dinner.

Ricky, Maya, and their kids are coming over, so are Lia, Roman, and the twins, Ley and Ollie, Winn and Autumn, Emmett and Ezra, and Leo and Parker.

Oh, and all of Sam's family too.

It's gonna be very crowded.

We each have to bring a dish, Sam and I chose brownies since I know the kids will like us best if we bring those, and it's currently baking while we get ready.

"You know, I've never understood how you do that," Sam mumbles, laying with his head on my lap while I do my makeup, sitting on our bed.

It would probably be easier to do it in the bathroom, but the dresser has more space to hold my stuff plus I have a nice sized mirror I can put on the bed too.

"Do what?" I hum, attempting to put my mascara on without smudging it on my eyelid.

"How you do that without stabbing your eye out."

"It's easy, you just don't aim for your eye."

"Can I do it?" He sits up, and I hand him the wand.

"You can try it if you want."

"No, I wanna put it on you." He replies, putting the wand near my face, and I quickly sit back.

"Do it to yourself." I say, and he frowns, rolling his eyes.

"I could do it."

"You're gonna hurt me." I tell him, and he shakes his head vehemently.

"No, I'll never hurt you, I can do this." He says, so confidently that I huff out a breath.

"Fine."

He grins, holding my jaw in on hand, using the other to hold the wand and bring it to my eye.

"Keep them open." He instructs gently, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and I do as I'm told.

It takes a couple minutes, but not too long later, my mascara is done.

Checking it out in the mirror, I smile. "You did a good job, baby, it looks great."

Resting his chin on my shoulder and looking at me in the little mirror I hold up, he asks, "You ever doubted me?"

Turning and pecking his lips, I say, "Of course I did. Now I have to go get dressed, so please go grab the brownies out of the oven."

Standing off the bed and gathering all my makeup into a bag, he sits on the bed, looking offended.

"Excuse me? Ma'am, did you not just see how professional that mascara was? I could do all your makeup flawlessly."

"What's this?" I hold up my powder, not worried about him reading the label since the words have rubbed off from time, and he grins.

"Powder." He says confidently.