Doctor Dash

Chapter 2

"Lex, you need to get dressed," Danny shouted from the bottom of the stairs. When he checked the time on his watch, his impatience grew. "Now!"

"Do I have to go?" Lex stood at the top of the stairs in his pajama pants and a shirt that was several sizes too big. His blond hair looked even more wild than usual from complete lack of brushing. He pouted miserably, his blue eyes begging to let him stay home another day.

"I already told them that you would be there today," Danny told his son firmly as he fold his arms, trying to look the part of a stern father. "You can't simply stay home every day. You need to go to school. Now hurry up or you'll have to skip breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. If you don't eat, you'll just fall asleep in class."

"And that's a bad thing?" Lex muttered grumpily as he turned down the hallway to walk back to his room to get dressed for his first day at school.

Shaking his head, Danny sighed as he hoped this wouldn't be repeated every single day. He made his way into the kitchen, grabbing eggs out of the refrigerator and a bowl from the cabinet. Cooking wasn't always his specialty. In his early years at college, his skills at cooking were quite laughable. As he cracked an egg open on the side of the bowl, Danny frowned as his mind turned back to the beginning of his freshmen year at college.

Sam taught him how to cook, laughing and joking when his failed attempts either came out completely inedible to taste or burnt to a blackened crisp. But he got better over the years under her guidance until he could make fairly decent meals. Or at the very least, he didn't make her spit out the food with a grimace that said it tasted like salty tar.

When he had three eggs in the bowl, Danny sprinkled some garlic powder into it then grabbed a fork to mix it up into a gooey yellow mess. As Danny poured the mixture into a hot pan on the stove, Lex wandered into the kitchen and slumped into a chair at the table. From the miserable pout on his face, it was clear that he was not happy with being forced to go to school. Running a brush through his hair only helped somewhat to tame the wild locks. He didn't put much care in getting dress, throwing on a pair of loose pants and a gray shirt with a ketchup stain on the right side. He slipped on his Velcro strapped sandals instead of his tennis shoes.

"Do you want lots of cheese in your eggs?" Danny grinned at his son as he walked to the refrigerator to grab the shredded cheese.

"I don't care," Lex grumbled, folding his arms over the table and laying his head on them.

Danny sighed as he returned to the stove and added a handful of the shredded cheddar cheese to the scrambled eggs. He thought the move would make things better, but Lex continued acting out and making trouble. Rubbing at his forehead as he mixed the eggs and cheese in the pan, he wondered what he was doing wrong. When the eggs were done, Danny grabbed two plates from the cabinet and served up the eggs onto each other them.

"Eat up, big guy," Danny said cheerily as he sat down at the table with Lex, placing the plates before them. "We've got about ten minutes before we have to be out the door." Eating his breakfast quickly, Danny imagined the drive to the school and dropping Lex off would as troublesome as dragging his son to the doctor's office. That memory made him halt with the fork still in his mouth. He was still shocked that he ended up moving to the same town where Dash Baxter, of all people, lived. Dash was a pediatrician. Danny could hardly believe it.

When he finished his eggs, Danny glanced over at his son. Lex only ate half his breakfast before giving up and putting down his fork. With a tired sigh, Danny collected the plates to put into the sink. After he grabbed his keys from the hook by the back door, he turned back and smiled big and wide at his son.

"Okay. Time to go." Danny opened the back door, and Lex begrudgingly climbed off the chair and followed his father outside to the car.

Once inside the car, Danny glanced over at his son, who hugged his bag to his chest as he pouted unhappily. He tried not to sigh out loud as he started the car and pulled out of the driveway, turning down the street and heading toward the school. It was a quick thirty minute drive to the school, one of the reason he liked that house best when he was looking for a place in this new town. When he parked out front, he turned to Lex, who was already unlatching the seatbelt as he prepared to get out of the car.