If You Could See Me Now

26

The week flew by and they were soon packing for another plane ride. Maddy had packed Lukas' bag for the bus while Ryan packed his bag of things to do for the plane. A bunch of cars, a few coloring books, his iPad, and a few snacks should be enough for the 2-year-old on the hour-and-a-half flight.

"Maddy we gotta go!" Ryan called up the steps as Maddy was finishing packing her things.

"I'm coming," She called back before she appeared at the steps and came down.

As soon as they got in the car, they headed to the plane and immediately boarded in a row of 3. Ryan sat on the outside, Lukas was in the middle and Maddy was by the window. They waited for Joey and his family to get on before they took off and they were on their way.

"Alright, buddy. Should we play with cars or should we color?" Ryan asked as he got his bag out and opened it for Lukas to see what he had packed.

"Ca Daddy!" He said as he reached into the bag and found the millions of die-cast cars that they had packed.

"Okay, which one do you want? Green or yellow?" He asked, pulling the first 2 he could find out.

"Wewwow," He smiled, taking it as he identified the color.

Maddy was almost stunned that he was so easily teaching Lukas his colors with die-cast cars. Something she never thought of trying. There were a lot of things she never thought of trying until Ryan came into their lives.

The flight was short and they landed right in time for lunch and Lukas' nap. As soon as they got to the bus, Maddy got him a small sandwich for lunch and was soon rocking Lukas in the recliner.

"He out?" Ryan whispered, looking up from his phone once Maddy got up.

"Yeah," she nodded, pulling his blanket away from his face so Ryan could see the cuteness of his squished little face.

"Aww buddy," he chuckled, smiling even more as Maddy went to put him in the pack-and-play.

"Did we hear anything about my car?" She asked, sitting on the couch beside him as he played whatever video game he was. She never paid attention to it.

"I haven't, but I gave them your number," he nodded, keeping his eyes on the TV while she played on her phone.

"Hopefully by the time we get home they at least have it figured out," she sighed.

"They should. They're pretty good over there. But you know, if we stay together, I'm gonna have to get you out of the Chevy and into a Ford," He told her but he was only half joking.

"I just don't want to get into a big car payment right now when I moved to a new state and have no job," she shrugged, it was a reasonable thought.

"Is that one paid off?" He asked, looking over as she was looking it up on her phone.

"Yeah." She nodded but looked closer at the agreement and saw the name she didn't want to, "Problem is, my ex owns it. He bought it when I was pregnant with Luke,"

"So you can't get rid of it?"

"Nope. Not without him giving me the title. And you know he won't,"

"I do," he told her, stopping the game he was playing to give Maddy his full attention, "What do we do?"

"I don't know what we can do Ry. He owns it. It's not mine,"

"We'll figure something out," he promised, squeezing her hand before he got up to grab her notebook off the table. "We have something else to talk about too,"

"Okay?" She asked, looking at him as he flipped the page.

"If we're planning on staying together, which I am," he said, making her laugh and nod a little.

"I was planning on it," she laughed.

"Well that's good," he smiled, "So if that's the plan, we need to think of some things that we need in the new bus,"

"Are you getting a new one?" She asked, sitting cross-legged on the couch.

"I can. And with Luke here, we need our own space and he's gonna need his own as he gets older,"

"You are not wrong," she chuckled.

"So what would we want in a new bus?" He asked, reaching over to grab a pen.

"Separate room for Luke,"

"Already putting that down, maybe with the crib rails that we can take off when he gets older," he said as he wrote it on the page. "What else?"

"More than one TV. So you can play your games, and Luke and I can watch Bluey?" She asked, debating on whether that was a good one.

"I feel like I would definitely play too much if that were the case. If you didn't come with me all the time then, Yes, but with you guys here all weekend. I don't want it to cut down on family time," he explained, "But I would like more floor space for Luke to play with his games and cars,"

She nodded and smiled a little, looking around to see what she could think of.

"Bathtub. So Luke can take a bath at the track instead of us having to wash him in the sink," she thought since she wasn't really bathing him when they were at the track.

"Keep the recliners?"

"Oh definitely. Otherwise, we wouldn't get him to sleep," she chuckled, getting up to go look in on the little one. "He's still sound asleep,"

"Good," he smiled, "anything else you want?"

"It's your bus," she chuckled, sitting back down on the couch.

"But it's also going to be your bus. At least until we figure out what to do for Luke's schooling," he said as he pulled her legs over his and thought of a few more things to write down. "How long does it take to finish?"

"If we get the order for it in now, we should have it by next season. As long as you plan on sticking around,"

"You know by now that I'm not going anywhere,"