Your Time

Chapter 5

{June 2019}

Carrie laughed, seeing Harrison once again at it with the neighbor. Last year, a house was built next to theirs, closing the half mile gap.

He and the neighbor had a feud over the grass. And it was now continuing into this summer. She watched as Harrison pointed, stomped over to where the property line was, and crossed his arms.

The guys feuded over the way the neighbor cut his grass. Their wonderful neighbor mowed his grass in circles, so there were patches still untouched when he finished. Then as he mowed, he would not stop and pick up the sticks. As his mower ran over the sticks, there was a loud grinding noise that sometimes kept up the kids. Along with mowing in circles and running over sticks, he loved mowing at 9 at night.

She saw him shake his head, beginning to walk towards the house, before turning around and barking something else. He pointed at something else that looked like tire tracks and waved his hand as the neighbor said something back.

Harrison ran his fingers through his hair, gesturing to the tire tracks. Their lovely neighbor also had a habit of mowing very far on their grass. It drove Harrison crazy to see circles over the nice straight lines. It just looked bad. Harrison had gone to great lengths to stop him from mowing on their yard by putting a few small flags along their property line. But the guy just mowed over them.

She opened the window. "Harrison! We need to start getting ready!"

He turned toward the house. "I'll be up."

Harrison said something else to the neighbor before walking back up to the house. "How'd it go?"

"He still doesn't know how to f**king mow," he answered flatly.

"I know Harry. Now we have some setting up to do."

Today was Billie's second birthday party. Her birthday was in May, but the rest of the family was so busy they had to push it back into June.

She helped him carry a table and chairs outside. "How much further?" He complained.

"We're almost there muscles."

He let out a sigh of relief as they were finally able to set the table down. "You need to start working out again hotshot," Carrie teased, slapping his chest as she passed by.

•••

Later that afternoon, Billie was sitting on Harrison's lap, opening yet another present. "She's going to love it," his mom Dorothy said to Carrie.

Billie pulled a small pink punch bug out of the box. "It's a pwunch buggy!"

Her smile was enough to brighten Carrie's day. It stretched across her face as she held the car out for her mommy to take a picture.

Harrison leaned to the side of pick up some wrapping paper as she held her car out. Not knowing he was leaned to the side, Billie swung the car back, hitting her daddy right in the face.

He immediately held a hand to his nose, feeling the warm blood gushing out. Carrie was on her way over, picking Billie up as he ran to the bathroom. Handing Billie to Todd, she followed him into the bathroom, grabbing a wad of tissues and pressing the bridge of his nose.

With him sitting in front of her, with yet another bloody nose, Carrie laughed. "Well Billie joined the club today."

"I see that."

"It's getting to be a pretty big club."

Harrison rolled his eyes. "Too big."

After he was cleaned up, Carrie held Billie as she opened the rest of her presents before giving her to Harrison to sing happy birthday. He sat with Billie on his lap, constantly swatting her hand away from the candles. "Don't burn yourself."

As they sang happy birthday, Adam came up to his little sister and said, "smash cake in dad's face."

Billie just looked at her brother. "Whay?"

"It's funny Billie. Just do it."

Billie indeed listened to her brother. Not five seconds after the family finished singing happy birthday, she spun right around with a handful of cake and smashed it in his face.

"Billie!"

She giggled, grabbing more cake and smearing it on his face with lots of encouragement from the family. "Why's everybody have to gang up on daddy?" He asked Billie.

Billie answered her daddy's question by holding out a piece of cake to him. He opened his mouth, thinking she was going to feed him, but instead pressed a glob of chocolate against his cheek.

"Alright that's enough Billie," Carrie said, taking her so Harrison could go clean up again. "You got daddy pretty good."

She giggled. Harrison looked over his shoulder as he walked away. Carrie saw the cake smeared into his hair and even on his shirt. "Yeah you got daddy real good little girl."

•••

After everyone cleared out and Harrison and Carrie had everything cleaned up and put away, the five of them played frisbee in the front yard with Gary. "Go Gary go!" Emma shouted as the small French bulldog tore across the lawn after the frisbee.

He jumped, getting up really high for a small dog, and came down with the frisbee in his mouth. "Yay Gary!"

Gary came trotting back to Harrison with the frisbee. He took it and threw it again. Halfway to the frisbee, Gary stopped and watched a truck go by with a few teenagers in the bed.

As Gary once again came back, Adam asked his dad, "isn't that illegal?"

"Isn't what illegal?"

"The people in the back of that truck that just went by dad."

Harrison recalled the truck that had just passed by. "Isn't what they were doing illegal?"

He smiled, patting Adam's shoulder. "Nothing's illegal unless you get caught."

"Really daddy?" Emma asked, joining in the conversation.

He nodded. "It's perfectly fine unless you get caught."

"Mom?"

Carrie put a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Yes that was illegal. And don't listen to anything your daddy has to say."

"Excuse me?"

She slapped his shoulder. "Is that illegal mommy?"

While laughing she answered, "now that is perfectly legal."