Ice, Love & Building Blocks

" A Special Delivery"

"Oh that's a huge tower love" Natalie said, while looking at her son playing with his favorite ever toys: his building blocks.
The more she looked at him, the more she saw her ex-husband in him and for this she was so happy: Owen might have never had the chance to meet his daddy but he had had the luck to have Jeff be with him everywhere he went through the shape of his eyes and that of his nose, all through his determination and his cheekiness; yeah, sometimes he was a hard little boy to handle but she wouldn't want him to be anybody else but himself. She loved him so much, and she had loved him from the moment she had seen those two lines on the test, despite all the fear that being alone imposed on her.
All of a sudden, Owen knocked down his tower with a powerful shove, which made Natalie laugh; after eyeing all the pieces for some time though, the boy started to build something again.
"How is he not bored of this game yet" The woman thought to herself while watching her son carefully stacking one block on top of the other for what must have been the fiftieth time that evening only; the noise made by the bell ringing forced her to take her gaze off of the child though, so she quickly got to her feet and went to open the door.

"Delivery" Said Will from outside as soon as he got face to face with Natalie and oh my god, she couldn't believe her eyes when she saw what he was holding under his arm: "What is that?" She asked incredulously, while getting out of the way, allowing Will to enter the house.
"What does it look like? It's a truck!" Answered the man obviously; while he was at work, he'd managed to get ahold of a guide to children's minds to try and find some ways for Owen to like him, and one of the chapters in it talked about how great presents are to get a child to warm to you. He didn't want to be a cheap date and just get a small and lousy toy, so he went all big and decided to head to the greatest toy store in Chicago as soon as his shift ended and, with a little help from Jay through a phone call, he settled on a shiny red truck that looked entirely too cool to be real. But it was indeed real and Will ended up buying just that. He really hoped this would help him win the little man over.

"Hey buddy, I got a little something for you" Said Will making his way to the living room, and being immediately met with Owen's full attention: as soon as he spotted what the tall man was holding his eyes went wide.
Will set the truck on the ground and looked between it and the boy before asking him: "Do you know what this is?" to which Owen very quickly replied " 's a truck!" in his adorable excited toddler voice;
"Yeah! Do you wanna try it? Come on, go and take a ride." Will said, gesturing for the youngster to get up from his seat and try his brand new toy; the little guy didn't let Will tell him twice, running to it and starting to drive around the living room instantly.
Natalie was a bit scared of the dangers of this present but her fears calmed down a bit when she saw how much fun her son was having: "Do you like it baby? - the child vigorously nodded his head up and down - What do we say to Will?" She asked him, and she was satisfied when Owen basically shouted "Thank you Will!" over his shoulders. "You're very welcome buddy." Natalie then heard her boyfriend say, and when she turned to look at him she found him staring at her son with the biggest and cutest smile on his face.

He was unbelievable, but God how much she loved and appreciated him, especially because of the lengths he would go to not only for her but for the most important person in her life as well; Will turned to her and didn't say anything because his eyes already did all the talking: the hopeful crease of his eyebrows clearly said something along the lines of "Did I do it?" to which Natalie replied by pulling him into a deep, loving kiss.

Owen drove around for another couple of minutes before eventually deciding he had had enough; he opened the truck's door, climbed down and got back to his building blocks. The truck was very fun but building towers and then knocking 'em down still was the most entertaining thing in the world to him.

After Will and Natalie pulled away from their kiss, Will decided he would take another shot at Owen's favorite game so he let go of his girlfriend's waist and walked to the little table he knew so well by now: "Mind if I join you?" he asked, pointing to the same chair he had sat on that morning. Owen did the same thing he did in the morning too, he just shook his head and kept playing.
He didn't really know what to do then, so Will looked at Natalie for some kind of help but she just mouthed "Go on" to him which was, yeah, very unhelpful but still got him to
ask the boy a question: " Can I help you like I did this morning buddy? Do you remember? You gave me one of your blocks and I put it on top of the others. I did a pretty good job, didn't I?" Moment of Truth. Was Owen gonna be accepting of him and let him play for more than just a second, or was he gonna pull another one of his little antics? Unfortunately, Will wasn't lucky this time either, as the little man totally went with the latter: once again, he stared at him for a moment and then threw another block at his other eye. Well, two black eyes were definitely a look.

"Owen! Will you stop doing that!" Natalie shouted but she really couldn't hide the fact that she was laughing; her son looked at her and then looked back at Will, who was holding his slightly injured eye looking so miserable, before going back to playing with a small smile on his face.
The Doctor got up from the chair and walked to the kitchen sliding his feet to the ground: he was defeated.

"Why does he hate me so much? I even bought him an awesome truck" He asked Natalie, who was already handing him a pack of ice for his other eye. If not even a present had granted him a good place in Owen's mind, then he had no idea what else he could have done: for some reason, the little man absolutely hated him even though Will had never done anything to him, and apparently there was nothing he could do to change it. Maybe Owen would have never liked him. Maybe Natalie would leave him because her son's opinion matters too much for her to let it slide. Will would understand obviously, but that'd still hurt like a bitch.

Natalie wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and tilted her head to look up at him: "He doesn't hate you; I think that might just be his way of thanking you actually. He's only little, Will, he'll grow and stop doing that. Besides, I already told you you're not the only one he does it to. Don't worry, love. He absolutely adores you. Just like I do." She said, before trying to capture his lips and kiss him again; however, Will had other plans because he backed away to speak again: "But - "Will, I promise. He's totally fine with you. Stop worrying and kiss me". And how could he have said no to that when she had sounded so bossy. So he forgot all the talking he had previously wanted to do and got down to business.

As the two pulled away after a couple of seconds and stayed together in a warm embrace, Will just hoped that Natalie was right; he didn't want to be a threat to Owen's eyes, so he decided to wait and see what the little guy had in store for him. "Only time will tell" he thought to himself.