Her Last Plea✨

Chapter 64

Alexis sat at the table with Marvin in her lap, helping guide his hand with the butter knife loaded up with sugar free icing as the two of them smeared it quite messily on the heart shaped cookie.

"Yum!" Marvin exclaimed as he jabbed a finger into the icing and bringing it to his mouth.
"Le-si bite?"

She eyed his icing covered finger he'd placed in front of her face before playfully sucking it off with her mouth, making the boy giggle. "You're right, Marv. That is very yum!"

Beaming, he wiggled his way off her lap, running over towards Faith with his hand outstretched so that she could wipe it of with a wet cloth. Alexis looked over at Ara, who was carefully placing sprinkles in an intricate design whereas Layla had a mountain of various sprinkles piled on each of her cookies. Karl iced all of his cookies with blue or green icing, after determining that they were the boy colours and he was also leaving them sprinkle free, as sprinkles were, in Karl's eyes, the mark of a girl.

"Oh look," Hailey said as the men wandered into the kitchen. She smiled as Garrett passed her, sneaking a kiss as he made his way to the children. "Amazing, how men always know the perfect moment to come back into the kitchen."

"Isn't it though?" William remarked, snagging an sugar cookie off a plate he was certain his wife set aside for him as they were cookies sans icing. He took a bite and made a noise. "Delicious, honey, as usual."

Faith smiled. "Why thank you, sweetheart."

"Daddy look!" Ara exclaimed, holding up her plate that held her masterpiece - a heart shaped cookie with pink icing with an M made out of sprinkles in the middle. "I made it for Mommy! Do you think your copter could take this up to Mommy?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking of how to process his words so that his answer didn't upset his daughter. "Well, sweetheart, I'm not sure a helicopter can fly that high..."

"But a balloon could," Karl chimed in before Ara's lip could begin to quiver. "You know, Layla let go of hers once and it flew all the way up past the clouds!"

Layla pouted at the thought of her beloved red balloon. "I was so sad when I lostded that balloon."

"We could put your cookie and your valentine in a bag, tie it to a balloon, and send it to your Mom that way!" Karl exclaimed, clearly proud of his plan. "Nana, do you think we could do that?"

"I think that's a really excellent idea Karl," Faith said with just the right amount of enthusiasm , making the boy beam proudly.

Ara seemed skeptical of this plan as she looked to her Dad for some sort of rebuttal. "But....what if someone else takes it on the way up?"

"We'll write her name on the bag," Faith offered. "That way there will be no mistaking whom it's going to."

Ara kept her eye on her father, her shoulders tense until he gave her a simple nod of approval. She looked over at Alexis, smiling as Alexis's eyes brightened a bit. "Lexi, do you think it will work?"

"Of course it will!" Alexis exclaimed. "I think Karl has a brilliant plan!"

"Obviously this calls for an adventure to the store to buy some balloons — who's coming along for the ride?" William asked, laughing as four little hands shot into the air immediately. "Fay, care to come with?"

Catching onto her husband's hint, she smirked and nodded. "I'm always up for an adventure! Gary, Hails, what about you?"

Gary didn't even bother hiding his laugh as he nodded. "If I go, can I have a balloon too?"

"Of course!" Faith exclaimed. "Balloons for everyone!"

Mike and Alexis could hardly get a word out in protest at being left alone before her parents had everyone swept out of the house in record time. Suddenly, the house seemed bigger, quieter, with tension slowly rising as Mike and Alexis stood at opposite ends of the kitchen table. Minutes passed by, painfully slow, both of them waiting for the other one to say something. Alexis wanted an apology. Mike knew he had no ability to speak without mucking it up further, unless he used brutal honesty, and he wasn't sure if he was ready for those admissions to be hanging in the air.