Days In (Parrish&Darius #2)

Day 8

We went for a walk around the lake after eating. Kody was walking ahead of us, stopping every now and then to chase after a frog or a lizard, and whenever we yelled at him not to go too far. Parrish on the other hand was acting like a little virgin alpha on his first date.

He was walking close, with his hand brushing mine like he wanted to hold it but didn't know how. I let that go on for a while because I thought it was cute, until he started to look discouraged and I decided to take pity on him and grabbed his hand. He glanced at Kody, to make sure he was in sight I supposed, because he stopped walking.

"I'm sorry, for everything," he avoided my eyes, looking down at the ground like a kicked puppy.

"You keep apologizing but you still haven't told me what happened."

The words came out sounding way more aggressive than what I intended. Parrish seemed to think that I was scolding him or something, because he looked scared. He was about to let go of my hand but I held it tight.

"What I mean is, you don't have to apologize, love, just tell me what happened, please." Pushing him into talking wasn't something that I wanted to do, but I had a feeling that if we let that linger it would be a bigger problem in the long run.

He's not even looking at me.

"Parrish?" I leaned down trying to catch his eyes but he kept avoiding me. It was better to give it up. "Okay," I planted a kiss on his forehead, "we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

He finally looked at me, with a small smile on his lips. He was about to say something but a splash in the water talked before him. We turned towards the noise but there was nothing to be seen, just the ripples in the water.

"Where's Kody?"

My eyes scanned the area until they landed on something near the shore, "are those his shoes?"

"Oh, gods, Kody!"

He went in the water.

By the time I realized that, Parrish was with the water up to his chest in the lake, screaming Kody's name like a maniac. I saw the ripples forming around his body, heard something else splash in the water a few feet away from him but I couldn't move. My heart was pounding all the way up to my ears, it was hard to think.

"Kody!" He took a deep breath and dove into the water. It was quiet for a moment. I didn't hear anything, then he came back up, yelled something at me but I still couldn't hear anything. He dove in the water again.

I realized that I was squeezing something in my hands. Kody's shoes, small blue sneakers, with velcro, because he still doesn't know how to tie shoelaces and I didn't want him to trip out here. He took them off. Why did he take them off?

"Ma!" Suddenly the sounds came back and I saw Kody coming out of the water hugging a squirmy fish half his size. "I caught a salmon!" Kody announced proudly, trying to hold the fish up. He was closer to shore than where Parrish was driving for him.

"Kody?" I blinked at him and for the first time noticed the tears blurring my vision. It wasn't just my glasses fogging as I had assumed.

The distance between me and Kody disappeared before Parrish broke the surface again and saw the same thing as me: our cub safe and sound, proudly holding a goddamned salmon.

"Look! Can you make susi now?" The fish's tail slapped him in the face but he was adamant on not letting it go. He managed to drag it to shore.

"Kody, you can't- where did you go?" Parrish was out of breath, slowly making his way out of the water to where I was holding Kody's face in my hands. He looked exhausted but relieved.