Like Father, Like Son ✔

Chapter 7 - A Child's Intuition

CHAPTER 7

NICK

Nick stood in his sister Erin's house with a bouncing five and a half year-old girl in his arms and a guide dog sitting patiently on his right.

Grace was such a cute kid, always ready for the next big adventure. She was born early and still today remained quite small, just barely making it into what was considered average for the height and weight of a child her age, but what she lacked in size she made up for in energy.

"Where are we going today, Uncle Nicky?" she asked in her bubbly little voice.

"It's a surprise," Nick replied dramatically.

"What kind of surprise? Is it ice cream?" Grace asked in excitement.

"It might be," Nick said with a laidback, unbothered shrug.

Erin looked up at her grinning little brother and watched him interact with her daughter from her crouched position in front of Adam, who had remnants of his breakfast still smeared all over his face.

"You're not feeding them junk food all day just to have them come home tonight and be wired, I'm warning you Nicholas," she said sternly, pointing a finger at his chest that he couldn't see.

"Oh come on, have faith in me," Nick huffed dramatically. "Would I do that to you? Would I really do that to you?" he asked.

"Yes," Erin snorted.

"Yes," Grace echoed.

"Okay, I'd totally do that to you... but not today, swear on my life," Nick said, but Erin wasn't going to be holding her breath. She fully anticipated having two very hyper children after her catering event was over late tonight.

Really though, all joking aside, Erin wasn't worried.

Some might not trust a blind man to take off with two toddlers to run around the streets of Chicago, but she'd known him her whole life and practically helped raise him. He was responsible and very self-sufficient, and whoever said anything bad about her brother could just go fuck themselves.

After making sure the kids were all set, Nick gave his sister a one-armed hug and told her he was going to behave himself, then proceeded to steer the kids out of the door and onto the front porch.

"But we're not listening to mom, right? We're gonna get junk food?" Grace asked the moment they were on the sidewalk.

"Of course we're gonna get junk food," Nick said with a smirk.

"Good, I was worried," Grace sighed with relief.

"Me too, I really want ice cream," Adam piped in.

"Make sure you're holding your brother's hand, right Grace?" Nick warned. As he had to walk around holding onto Duke's harness, he only had one free hand. He'd resorted to holding Adam's hand and trusting Grace enough to hold onto Adam's other one and not straying too far away from him.

"I am!" Grace said quickly.

"She is, don't worry Uncle Nicky, I won't let go of her hand," Adam grinned.

They walked for a while; the park wasn't too far away, but they did have two intersections to cross before getting there. At the first, Nick stopped at a red light.

"Red light," he said to Adam and Grace, making sure they were both at a full stop too.

"How do you know that?" Grace asked him curiously, glancing up at the red hand preventing them from moving forward and frowning.