Blue Plaid

Flow

In which Tyson learns to go with the flow.

//

I'd never begged for anything in my life. Even as a child, if my mother said no to more sweets after dinner, I assumed she had a good reason. But here I was, five seconds away from dropping to my knees in front of Dani as I asked her one more time to do me a huge favor.

"Please, Dan," I pleaded, jutting out my bottom lip in hopes that it would make me look irresistibly cute. It always worked on Stella, but mostly because she found the face hilarious and the fact that I made her laugh put her in a good enough mood to do what I wanted. "I'll owe you big."

Dani rolled her eyes. As much as she appreciated the comment, I knew she didn't want our friendship to be a series of transactions. "I'm not gonna say yes so I can get something from you. I just think this is a really bad idea."

"You're not giving yourself enough credit," I insisted. "You'll be fine. Please? We'd really appreciate it."

She scrunched her entire face, shaking her head slightly. "I don't know..."

Sighing dramatically, I shook my head as though I was disappointed. "I really didn't want to have to do this..."

Her brow furrowed in confusion, but before she could speak, I was crouched down, looking to the side, and extending my arms to indicate that Cooper, who was currently standing in the hallway next to Stella, should make his way over. He toddled towards me, his short legs making him unable to move very fast, but he had the biggest grin ever on his face when I enveloped him in my arms and stood so we were on Dani's level once more.

"That's so unfair," she groaned. "You can't use a cute kid as a persuasion tactic."

"We're desperate," I shrugged, bouncing Cooper at my hip. He giggled, his big blue eyes staring at Dani and wearing her down.

"For the record, I was against using Cooper's cuteness," Stella piped up as she stepped into Dani's field of vision. "But Tyson's right, we are desperate."

"You can't be that desperate," Dani sighed, tangling her fingers into her hair and raking it back backwards. "Surely you can find someone else to babysit."

"The thing is..." Stella spoke, "This is gonna be our first time leaving him with someone else and we want it to be someone we know and trust."

"You trust me?" Dani's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You probably shouldn't."

"Cooper loves you," Stella assured her and I nodded in confirmation.

Rolling her eyes, she blew out a breath. "Cooper's a toddler. He loves everyone."

"That's not true," I cut in. "He tried to bite the cashier at the store the other day."

Stella snorted, just like she had the first time I told her about the incident. I shot her a glare and she pressed her lips together to hold in her laughter.

"The point," Dani glared at me, "Is that you can find someone else."

"But we want you," I pouted, jutting out my bottom lip and looking at Cooper. He soon mimicked my expression, his blue eyes wide as he stared at Dani. "Don't we Coop? Please?"

"Peeeas?" Cooper sputtered. I wasn't sure he actually knew what was happening, but he'd only just started speaking two weeks ago and we cherished every word that came out of his mouth. Much to our relief, his first word was not a curse, but instead 'foo', for the edible items we were trying to sneak past his lips. Since then, he'd become quite good at copying shortened versions of the words we were saying.