Bluebird

10

December 25, 2010

 Annabel didn't expect to get anything for Christmas. She also didn't feel the need to get out of bed. She didn't expect gifts and she didn't have any gifts to give either so she had hunkered down and she was watching Christmas movies on her phone when a knock came at the bedroom door.

"Come in." She calls,  pausing The Santa Claus. 

"What are you doing in here?" Lindsey asks. 

"Watching Christmas movies." She shrugs. 

"Everyone else is out there, we're getting ready to open presents." Lindsey states.

"I didn't get you guys anything and you didn't get me anything so I was just going to hang out in here." She shrugs. 

"Are you sure you don't want to join us? Kristen made cinnamon rolls." 

"No, I'm okay. Thank you though." She smiles.

"I'll bring you a cinnamon roll." He nods to himself before backing out of the room, leaving the door wide open. 

Annabel rolls her eyes and she waits and stares at the door and it's not ten minutes later when he walks back in with a cup of coffee, and a plate with two cinnamon rolls on it. He walks into the room and then he holds the dishware out to her. She goes to grab it but he moves it out of the way and takes a step back. He creates this little teasing game that physically gets her out of the bedroom and down on the couch in the living room before actually handing her the breakfast. 

She didn't pay much mind to what was going on around her. But what she did focus on was Lindsey and it got her wondering if he knew. Just by the way that he was acting around her, she felt like he did know. But she didn't want to say anything because there was still that possibility that he might not know. 

***

December 27, 2010

Annabel tightened her pony tail as she sat cross legged in the middle of the bed. She spent all of the day prior tanning and relaxing and she was just simply enjoying herself. Her blonde waves were up in a high pony and she was wearing a really cute outfit that she wanted to show off to the world. It was a white tie flutter sleeve blouse paired with a pair of peaach-y colored wide leg tie pants. There was a gorgeous hawaiin-esque pattern on them. Coral and white colored flowers and green leaves. She didn't have them on her feet, but she would be sliding into a pair of brown block heel platform boots. 

Having had enough of sitting around the house she uncrossed her legs, put her shoes on and made her way downstairs. Lindsey was sitting out on the patio looking at something and William and Samantha were making out on the couch. 

"You two are disgusting." Annabel scolds walking in. 

"At least I have a boyfriend." Samantha wiggles her eyebrows and Annabel huffs.

"Kristen took the girls on a beach trail horse ride and we're here doing nothing. That has to change. LINDSEY!" He hears her and turns his head lightly to the door. 

"He's deaf half of the time, but he hears that." William rolls his eyes. 

"What?" He asks coming into the living room.

"Let's do something, I'm in Hawaii, let me go shopping or something to prove that I was here." Annabel begs.

"I'm down....but we're not leaving you two here by yourselves, I may be old, but I'm not ready for grandchildren yet.  Get some shoes on." Lindsey instructs. 

They're walking down a strip of shops and Lindsey watches as Annabel browses Blue Ginger. It was more higher end store in Hawaii, and Samantha had really wanted to go in there because she saw a purse that she liked. Annabel who had already spent what she could on souvenirs kept going back and looking at a gold layer necklace in the jewelry case. It looked like it had three layers the first was just a light blue stone pendant. The other two were covered in brown and blue stones. He watched her look in her wallet and then look down at the bags on her arm and bite her lip, just like her mother, and then she physically walked out of the store and loomed up against the building.

She had already gotten a magnet, a coffee mug, and a shirt. The shirt didn't say Hawaii on it, but it was really cute it was a white faux wrap top. Right in the middle there were three stripes, a light blue stripe at the top, a small copper colored strip, a yellow stripe and then a copper color stripe. It almost looked like the yellow stripe had cut the copper stripe in half. 

As soon as Lindsey saw her slump down against the side of the building he turned to the lady at the counter. "How much is that necklace?" 

"It's 50 dollars, made from genuine sea glass." 

"I'll take it." He sighs. 

"You know that girl?" The woman inquires.

"She's my daughter." He nods. 

The truth was, he still only had the feeling, and nothing had been confirmed but it felt good saying it out loud. He wouldn't give it to her until they were headed back to the mainland, but he at least had it to give to her. He honestly felt really bad not having gotten her anything for Christmas. Even if it just had been a gift card it still would've been better than nothing. Especially knowing that if he and Stevie didn't turn out to be her biological parents she'd have no family left to spend Christmas with. 

Stevie, he had been thinking about her a lot since he and Kristen decided that divorce would be in their best interest. He knew that their relation-ship had sailed. Stevie made that very clear when she told him that he needed to be with Kristen and have William and that family with her instead of being a half-time parent, because it was obvious that Stevie couldn't give him the family he wanted. But at the end of the day, Kristen wasn't Stevie. They had their similarities. The hair mostly, but that was the extent  of it. He had wrestled almost nightly since he got the inclination of Annabel being his kid, on if he should call her or not. Part of him wanted to, the other part of him said he needed to keep her to himself for a while.