Flowers from a lover [rewrite]

11.0

Usually, when Lucas waited for Leo to call him, he'd occupy himself with his work. He had finished early though so he had nothing to do, and no call to expect since Leo was going to go over to his sister's for a while and leaving the phone at home. He sat in silence in his room for a while before deciding he'd spend the time outside. He had not gone on a walk for a while so he decided it would be best, and also because he knew Leo would get mad at him for not using his free day wisely. He put on a hoodie, pocketed his phone, and trudged downstairs, walking outside onto his porch. He checked the flowers, and as expected nothing had grown yet. It was the scary part about growing flowers, in the beginning you don't know if anything was happening at all yet.

He decided he would go to the park. He brought a small notebook and pencil to sketch his surroundings as he used to do with his mother when he was young. He caught sight of the swingset and found a bench close by. He sat down, sighed, and started scratching lines on his notebook. "No Oliver, I told you not to be mean, and you didn't listen." Lucas heard a woman say. He turned around and saw Mary, scolding Oliver who looked grumpy. "But I want ice cream like William! It's not fair." He cried, but his mom wasn't letting up. Mary pointed a finger at him, "I told you a million times. Don't be mean to girls! What do you do? You call Maggie 'Midge' until she cried."

Oliver's mouth gaped open, "SHE LIKES TO BE CALLED THAT. IT'S HER NICKNAME, MUM!" "Fine then," Mary said, "if that didn't make her cry. What did?" Oliver put his head down in defeat, "I chased her around with a stick and told her if I got close enough I'd poke her." Mary groaned, "Oliver, you can't go around doing that." "She de-deserv-" "Deserves?" Mary finished. "Yes. That word," Oliver pleaded. "Why does she deserve it?" Mary tried to understand her son. Oliver waved his hands, "She's a girl!"

Mary sighed and turned away. She caught sight of Lucas on the bench and waved, "Oh, hello! You talked to my husband the other day I believe?" Lucas nodded, "Ryan. Yes." He smiled at her and then gestures toward Oliver, who had his arms crossed and flared his nose up when he looked at him, "So that little man is still being trouble, I see." Ryan was walking with William toward them now. William looked at Oliver, "Here Oliver, we can split it!" Oliver was trying to stay pretend mad, but eventually gave in as William gave him some of his ice cream. Ryan's eyes glanced at Mary and Lucas talking, "Lucas!" He exclaimed, "Pleasure to see you here." "Hello Ryan," he greeted, "how was the meet up with your father?"

Ryan thought for a second, "Quite odd. He's constantly refused to come home here but suddenly we get a call saying he's on a flight to Florida and to get the guest room ready." Lucas chuckled, "Dinner go well, though?" Ryan nodded, "I'd say so. Oliver was a bit shy and weary of him at first, but he warmed up to him when he protected Oliver from Uncle Scott." Lucas smiled, "Seemed like a good time." Ryan shook his head with a grin, "We don't even have a guest room." He rolled his eyes, "He took Mary and I's room and made us sleep with Oliver." "Sounds like a very 'old person' thing to do." Lucas told him, and they both shared a laugh.

Ryan watched Lucas closely, almost as if he was waiting for a certain reaction, but found nothing there. "Oh," Ryan saw Lucas's book and pencil, "may I borrow your pencil for a moment?" Lucas nodded and handed him the pencil. Ryan took out his pocket notebook and scratched a few lines on before returning it, "Thank you." Lucas took the pencil, "No problem. What brings you to the park?" Ryan turned to Mary and then back to Lucas and whispered, "In all honesty, to escape my father." "He that bad?" Lucas said.

"Not necessarily." Ryan explained, "He lives in England. Obviously I'm a Brit and I was born there, but he wasn't. Anyway that's too long of a story, basically he's moody because he's old and because of jetlag." "I've actually thought about how funny it was that us Brits ended up in a neighborhood a couple houses from each other in Florida." Lucas joked. Ryan nodded, "Yeah, well," he ate a spoon of ice cream, "dad bought us a house here, said Florida was fun. I mean who'd say no to a house." Lucas was giving what Ryan said some thought when suddenly, out of nowhere, Scott was walking towards them. "You come here to escape him too, Scott?" Ryan grinned.

Scott rolled his eyes, "He keeps wanting me to fight him." He complained, "An old man wanting to fight me." Ryan turned to Lucas, "Dad and his old friend used to come over and teach us how to fight. We'd fence, kick-box, you name it." Lucas let out a breath of laughter, "Sounds like quite the man." "That he is." Scott said plainly as he picked up an ice cream cup from the table. "Oh Scott," Mary said, and Scott turned toward her, "that's William's ice cream, he left it there to go play with Oliver." "So I'm stealing from a child?" Scott questioned, "That makes it so much better." Lucas thought he actually was going to steal the ice cream, but he put it down and sat on the table part of the bench.

"So Scott, you're American but I presume you and Ryan are brothers?" Lucas asked. Scott nodded, "Got used to this country, I guess." "It's an impressive American accent." Lucas complimented "Yeah well, I do it because it sounds better than my British one." Scott admitted with a shrug. "Mary are you sure William doesn't want this ice cream?" "Leave it alone, Scott."Mary scolded, and Scott sighed in defeat, he couldn't win against her. There was a vibration coming from the bench, Lucas checked his phone but it wasn't his, "It's not mine that's ringing, I reckon it's yours." Ryan checked his back pocket and indeed his phone was ringing, "Oh, it's dad."

Scott glanced over, "What does the old man want this time." He said plainly. Ryan answered, and Lucas could hear faint mumbling. "Mhm." Ryan said, "Yes, I have, dad. No that's tomorrow, not today. How do I know? Dad you were the one that wrote that date down, how do you not know? Alright that's fine. Bye dad." Scott raised his eyebrows. "He was just uh- checking in on where we went. Said it was a mistake leaving him alone in the house." "Oh no, what did he do to the house." Mary said. "We'll have to see." Ryan sighed, "We're going to head home now, Lucas. I'm a bit scared as to what he's done to the house, but maybe if we get there earlier enough we can prevent more damage."

Lucas laughed, "Alright then. It's getting late and I should probably head home as well." Ryan smiled, "Sounds good. Have a nice evening, Lucas!" "You and your family as well." Lucas waved them goodbye.