Like Father, Like Son ✔

Chapter 5 - Favorite Record

CHAPTER 5

CAT

Taking a deep breath, Cat left her bedroom after spending a minute or two to gather her wits and making sure she still looked somewhat decent. After the whole dinner fiasco, she wouldn't have been too surprised if her hair had gotten undone and her make-up all smudged.

She made her way across the hall into the bathroom to check on Luke, but he was nowhere to be found. She did find the mess of soapy water he left behind however, so it took her a few moments to clean that up before leaving the room, pausing only to turn off the light he'd left on.

She stopped and peaked in his bedroom quickly to see if he'd gone back to play, but he wasn't there either. So she went back to the main living area of the two-bedroom apartment, pausing at the end of the hallway when she heard Nick's laughter mixing with her son's excited giggles, and another sound she couldn't quite place. It sounded... metallic?

Confused, Cat followed the noise back to the living room and stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the wide doorframe, staring with a wide grin.

Nick and Luke were both on the floor. Nick was sitting cross-legged with Luke's yellow Tonka truck in his hands, and Luke was crawling toward his big red bucket filled with dozens upon dozens of small Hot Wheels cars.

"Look, this one is a red firetruck!" Luke instructed with an excited grin, putting the toy in the palm of Nick's hand. Luke took back his yellow Tonka truck so that he could fill the open-box bed with the littler cars, which explained the sound of a lot of small metal objects hitting plastic all at once.

Nick turned the small firetruck around and felt the lines and the bumps with his fingers. The way he moved his large hands was so gentle, so careful, like he was actually trying to remember every detail of that little truck, like he expected Luke to give him a test later or something.

"Feels like a red firetruck," he confirmed with a stern nod.

"And I have an ambulance, and a police car, and a garbage truck, and—" Luke was going on and on as he continued to pile tiny vehicles into the much bigger one. He trailed off suddenly however when he spun around and spotted Cat in the doorway. "Mama, can we bring out the big track? Nick said we could!" he beamed.

"Nick said no such thing," Nick said with two hands raised defensively in the air, a sheepish grin on his face as his sightless eyes searched around pointlessly for the spot where Cat was standing. "I said, if your mom wants you to, then you can show me your race track," he smirked.

"Can I show Nick my race track?" Luke asked, grabbing onto Cat's leg and tugging at her skinny jeans. "Please, please, please, can I?" he begged.

Cat was just too amused by this whole situation, and slightly in awe by how well Nick and Luke seemed to be getting along, to say no. "Yes, of course, you can go get it but only for a few minutes, then it's bedtime for you," she said and Luke zoomed away towards his bedroom in a fit of triumphant excitement, dropping a little toy car on the way there so that it clamored harshly against the linoleum floor of the kitchen.

Grinning, Cat went to sit on the floor next to Nick, pressing her back against the coffee table.

"He's crazy about cars... I personally don't know much about them, I've never even owned one myself," she told him, bringing her knees up to her chest and watching the way Nick was still rolling the firetruck around on the carpet, looking like an oversized kid with that goofy grin on his face.