Aftertaste [COMPLETED]

Chapter 21:: Chad

BERLIN'S P.O.V.

**

"OH, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME." I leaned my head into my hand and groaned as I realised where we were.

"Okay I realise you're hurting, but is this really the right way to go about things?"

Rory put the car in park and turned his body so that he was facing me. "Berlin, this is my grade were talking about. Now you might not care, but I do, so we're gonna go in here and you better pray we find a baby."

I laughed and Rory grew visibly irritated. "What?" "Sorry it's kinda hard to take you seriously when...well?" I pointed up at the giant sigh which spelled out in bold purple letters "Babies 'R' Us."

"Oh I'm serious." He got out of the car and slammed the door shut, but not before tossing me a menacing glare.

**

"Okay, so we need to pick out a brand. How bout Baby Alive? That sound convincing? Or Mommy and Me. I really don't like the sound of that one though. Like, it's promoting single-parenthood. Not a good look-" "Rory, Rory. Okay, first of all, you're rambling, secondly, you're going about this all wrong.

"Hmm? How do you figure?"

"K well for starters, the baby you're holding is a girl, and...well she's um you know...black. A black woman near us shopping with her young daughter stopped to give us a frown. I turned back to Rory as an attempt to ignore her piercing look.

Rory shrugged his shoulders "well you are half black. It could pass."

"That's, that's not the point I'm trying to make here. That looks nothing like the baby we had originally. I mean, all of these babies are way too big." I opened my arms wide and let them drop in a gesture of hopelessness.

I could see Rory was feeling it too. With a look of discouragement, he put the baby back on the shelf." Well what are we gonna do then?"

"We could ask someone who works here if they know where we could find one." He let out a sigh of defeat. "Yeah, okay I guess. Not like we have much of a choice."

We left the doll section and began to navigate our way through the store to the costumer service desk near the front.

We couldn't've been walking for more than ten seconds before we bumped into someone I had no intentions of seeing any time soon.

"Um, Berlin? Is that James?" I stopped in my tracks to see James surveying the Lego section in the isle in front of us.

My breath hitched in my throat and I tugged on the shirtsleeve of Rory's baseball tee and tried to steer him in the opposite direction.

"Hey."

I wanted to pretend that I didn't hear his greeting, but Rory having the attention span of an eight year old, had to turn around.

"Hey James." I silently cursed the both of them. "Fancy bumping into you two here." Rory laughed "Yeah. It is isn't it?" I could feel James staring at me. He paused. "Hi Berlin." I kept my eyes averted and said an icy "Hi."

"So what are you doing here?"

Do you really have to make conversation with him??

"Oh, I'm trying to find something for my nephew. He turns six this Saturday." "Oh, cool."

"Yeah, what about you guys? "This time it was Rory's gaze which burned through my temple. "We're trying to find a replacement Gerry."

"Oh?" James lifted a curious brow. "There was.... an accident." "Well that's unfortunate. Losing a child is a hard thing to get through so I hear."