Changing Seasons

Two

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"Daddy!" 3-year-old Rocco shouted from the front porch of his grandmother's house, dropping the chalk he was drawing with to run towards his father.

Krist lugged a basket of their laundry from his car towards the house, "Hey, son!" He greeted him with a grin, "You having fun with grandma and grandpa?"

"Grandpa let me drive his car!" Rocco jumped off the porch with a grin.

"You drove a car?!"

"Bill let him steer when he moved the car," Linda, Krist's mother, clarified, holding open the door for the duo.

"I drove, Grandma," Rocco scowled.

"I believe you, bud," Krist ruffled his son's dark brown hair.

Rocco laughed, darting into the den that his grandparents had converted into a play area for him. They loved that little boy and spoiled him like crazy. It was hard to believe that they were less than thrilled when Krist announced that he'd discovered he was a father of the three-month-old belonging to a woman they'd never met, let alone heard of.

Linda had asked to meet Karla, stressing that Rocco's mother could come over anytime. "She is family now, even if you aren't with her." Yeah. No. Even if Krist had wanted Karla to meet his mom, Karla would have refused unless there was something in it for her. His mother and stepfather were reasonably well off financially, and he knew Karla would have tried to milk them dry. That's the type of woman Karla was. When they asked for a photo of her, he'd told them he had none. It wasn't a lie, although her social media accounts were filled with countless pictures of herself, not the types you'd want to show your mother. He knew Bill and his older brother, Brad, had all kinds of theories about why they hadn't seen or heard of this Karla. That she was ugly, maybe he'd paid her for sex, or perhaps she was underage. Regardless, they agreed that Krist was embarrassed by her. Those assumptions pissed him off to no end. He would have never paid for sex, and he was undoubtedly no weirdo who liked underage girls.

Eventually, he caved and showed them one of the few photos of her that were not complete thirst traps or showed her with saucer-sized pupils.

"She's beautiful," Linda remarked while his stepfather held back a smug look. His mom wasn't wrong. Karla was pretty. Before Rocco came along, Krist thought she was fine as fuck. He'd initially met her through her sister when he was seventeen and Karla was nineteen. She was short and curvy with almond-shaped eyes and full lips covered in deep red and straight black hair that hung to her waist. The first time he'd seen her, Karla wore a tube top resembling a blue bandana with cut-off jeans, knee-high socks, and sneakers. She looked like one of those cholas you'd see in lowrider magazines.

He had lusted over her for months before that first opportunity had come up. He'd been getting gas when Karla had come up to him. Her friend had ditched her, and she could not get home. She asked for a ride. It was nowhere near where he was headed, but he was a thirsty motherfucker back then and gladly obliged.

About ten minutes into the car ride, she looked at him with a grin, "You know, I'm not normally into white boys, but you cute as fuck."

Krist felt a stirring in his pants, "Is that right?"

Karla nodded, "Yeah, that's right. And you know Fabian is locked up for the next, like, three months. I need a lil something, you know?"

Even though Krist had a girlfriend then, he knew what she meant and wanted to give it to her. She'd known of a private place they could park before he dropped her off. That one time turned into several times over a few weeks. It would have continued had word not gotten out and reached Fabian and Krist's, at the time, girlfriend. Karla had told him she wasn't worried about Fabian and wanted to keep it up until her man was released from jail. In a slump due to his girlfriend leaving his sorry ass, Krist wasn't feeling it. Not to mention, he was also intimidated by Fabian. Krist was just a run-of-the-mill white boy from an upper-middle-class family; he'd heard stories about Fabian. He was not trying to make shit worse for himself. No way.