Six years post "The Best Years" Epilogue
"Chloe let's go! Knox get your soccer bag on the way out the door." Holland called out through her home to her children. The sounds of hurried footsteps on the stairs reverberating until they stood in front of her.
"I can't find my jersey." Her six year old son said, his bottom lip pouted, holding his soccer backpack open to show her that it was missing.
"When did you see it last?"
"I think it's in the laundry." Chloe yelled from the kitchen as she packed a lunch box of snacks for her day at camp.
"Shit." Holland said, turning and walking in the direction of the laundry room as both Chloe and Knox replied, "Swear jar."
"Fuck!" She groaned.
"Swear jar." They repeated, Knox shooting Chloe an eye roll. Both of them were used to their mother's frustrations and habitual swearing.
"Sometimes I really wish your father wouldn't have introduced you two to that." She said, digging through her purse for two dollars that she shoved into the jar on the counter before returning to her original task, finding Knox's jersey.
"Crap." She said after digging in the clothes pile for a minute as she held up the baby blue colored top.
"That's it!" Knox said from behind her.
"I know bub, but it's dirty. It's just practice tonight so you can wear a t-shirt okay? I'm sure coach Ricky won't mind."
"But I want to wear my jersey." He said, his bottom lip shoving forward as his brown eyes that he had inherited from his father grew wide and glassy.
Holland felt her heart clench in her chest at the sight of his disappointment. She wasn't usually such a softie around Knox and Chloe but she knew that the real reason Knox was getting upset over something so simple was because he missed his dad. Calum had been gone for nearly a month, only half way through the tour his band was currently on and his visit the weekend before had been cancelled due to a storm that grounded all the flights and made it impossible for him to get a flight home. The kids had been devastated and honestly, so had she.
It wasn't often these days that Calum left for such a long period of time. All of the boys were fathers now and that meant that when tours were scheduled they did it in short bursts of typically two weeks away and one week home. This tour had proven to be a complete nightmare for scheduling and they'd been forced to revert back to touring nearly two months straight in order to get all the dates in and make all of the recording times their label had set up for them.
Holland had understood but she had also expected Calum to be able to make at least a few short trips home during off days to help break up the missing him. The kids had been less understanding. Knox idolized his dad and four weeks without him around had broken the kids heart. Holland hated seeing him so upset but there wasn't much, if anything, she could do.
"How about this bubs," She said, crouching down so that she was at his eye level and taking his hands. "Daddy has a bunch of jerseys in his closet. What if mommy gets you one of those to wear for practice?"
"Really?" Knox asked, his face quickly shifting to a small smile at the thought.
"Yeah buddy. I'm sure dad won't mind. We'll even send him a picture of you in it, yeah?"
"Okay." He said happily, Holland breathing a sigh of relief that a meltdown had been avoided. She blew out a puff of air and led the way to she and Calum's bedroom, rooting around in his closet before producing a jersey that was a near identical shade of blue as the practice jerseys his team, 'Hood' emblazoned on the back.
