Time To Live

Chapter 16: Zoo

She had been exceedingly uncomfortable with the idea of a 'family' outing to the zoo, but Angie had more or less forced her to tell Chris 'yes'. It was go to the zoo with her ex and their child, or listen to her sister-in-law bitch that she was being unreasonably cruel to that ex and to "give him a chance, would ya?" – Jenna chose the former to avoid the latter.

Staring at the baby giraffe wander around behind its mother, Chris lifted Christian out of his stroller and into his long arms and pointed toward the tall creatures. "Look, that's daddy's aunts and uncles."

She snorted at this. "Ha! Ha!"

Chris grinned. "You can't say that I don't have the neck of one of them, come on!"

Christian raised his chubby little arm and pointed to the baby giraffe. Bouncing in his father's arms, he shrieked, "Bub!"

Jenna's eyes widened with delight. "He said baby!"

To this, her ex wrinkled his brow and scrunched up his features. "That was not 'baby'. He tried but he –"

"He's a baby himself," Jenna quickly scoffed at this. "His pronunciation isn't perfect but give him credit!"

"BUBA!" Christian exclaimed, clapping his hands and pointing as the little giraffe wandered closer. "BUBA!"

Jenna grabbed her son out of his father's arms and cheered. "Yes, 'baby'! Good job, Christian! You're so smart. Where did you get your smarts from?"

The little boy's brown eyes went wide as he turned to glance at the animals in their massive pen, then at his mother who was making proud googly-eyes at him, and then at his father. He did this several times before his gaze landed on his father and he made grabby hands. "Dada!" he pleaded.

Jenna's mouth gaped wide as Chris reached out and took their son from her arms, a shit-eating grin spreading across his disgustingly handsome features as he held Christian in his arms. She groaned. "You did that on purpose!"

Chris had the audacity to laugh. "How could I make him say 'dada' on purpose? I didn't even know that he knew that word."

Christian let his little head fall onto his father's shoulder then and wrapped a tiny hand around his tattooed throat. "Dada," he yawned. 

Equal parts shocked, hurt, and annoyed, Jenna shoved roughly at the stroller and began to march away from the two boys. Chris followed slowly behind her, giving her the space she obviously needed to cool down, but keeping an eye on her whereabouts. Realizing that his little guy was going to fall asleep very soon, he pressed a kiss to Christian's little forehead and grinned. "Good job, my man. Just like mommy said, you're so smart!"

He took his time and then found Jenna seated on a bench in front of a colorful sign with an arrow that read: "African Wild Dogs". When he sat down gently beside her, careful not to wake the baby, he sighed but tried very hard not to frown. "Whatever I did this time, I'm sorry."