Forever the Taylors?

32

Fatima exited the bathroom after her shower fully dressed. Richard was waiting for her. He wanted to apologize about earlier.

"Tima. Can we please talk before you go?"

"No. It's late and I'd like to go be with my son before he goes to sleep." Fatima said never breaking her stride through the room. Amaya was still up and moving about in her room, so Fatima knocked on the door. "Just wanted to say, goodnight princess." She hugged Amaya and kissed her on the forehead. "see you in the morning." she said closing the door.

"I'm glad you found Zane. I would have been really sad." Amaya smiled.

"Thank you, sweetie. I'm glad we found him too." Fatima left the room and then the suite completely.

Fatima used her key to open the door to Zac's suite. He had given it to her earlier so she could let herself in. "Hi Mommy" Zane said jumping on the couch. "Daddy is in the bathroom."

"Hey baby. Please get down."

Zane jumped once more and landed on his behind. "You ready for bed?"

"NO!" Zane protested.

"Well too bad! Let's go." She said swatting him on his behind as he stood. Fatima and Zane snuggled in Zac's bed after saying their bedtime prayers. They used her iPad to select a bedtime story from the library. "Zane chose "The Giving Tree." It was one of his favorites. They turned off the bedroom lights and used the light from the iPad to read. They'd only been reading for five minutes before they were both snoring. The iPad was rising and falling with each of Fatima's breaths. Zac stood in the doorway wearing only his towel watching them sleep peacefully. He couldn't help but to smile. He grabbed his cell phone and snapped a photo. He sent the picture to Fatima and captioned it. Tailor-made the Taylor way . He quietly got dressed for bed letting Fatima and Zane cuddle for as long as possible. That boy didn't play about his momma's cuddles. And she don't play about her sleep.

Zac tapped her lightly. He wanted to let her sleep but he knew she was conflicted so he wanted to make sure. "T, hey you dozed off." He said seeing her eyes open slowly.

"Damn, I must've been tired. How long was I asleep for?" She asked sitting up. gently moving Zane from nestled in her side to the middle of the bed.

"about 45 minutes. I came out the shower and saw you two knocked out."

"Thanks for waking me. I should be getting back."

"Tima." Zac said allowing the end of the word disappear in his hesitation to address the elephant in the room.

"I'm sorry about earlier. I really should have been paying more attention." Zac admitted

"Well what had you so distracted that y'all got separated like this in the first place?"

"Umm."

Fatima could tell he was stalling. "Zachary." she asked realizing there were things he wasn't telling her.

"You know I hate when you do that." He said referring to her calling him by his full name.

"you know I don't care right? What had you so distracted that you didn't notice your five year old was not with you for long enough time that he ended up on a completely different side of the park?"

"Tima. It was nothing." Zac said not wanting to seem like a bitch complaining about her new man to her.

"Zac. You know I have a gun right?" Fatima said calmly. Too calmly for Zac's liking.

"Heffa you don't scare me. but it was ya man. He was tryna tell me about his check bouncing and shit. I told him I didn't want the money but he was so insistent on paying and now he out here writing checks he can't cash literally. I don't like that shit T!" Zac ranted off, his voice rising a little causing Zane to stir.