Ever After New York

Unsafe Secrets.

I wake to the sound of the stove timer going off, before the smell of pancakes fills my lungs. When my vision comes into focus, I see Hero standing in front of the stove, flipping pancakes while Toby was... sitting on top of the island.

I quickly get up, feeling overwhelmingly dizzy but that doesn't stop me from getting to that child.

"Hero!" I shout at him. "Why is Toby sitting on top of the island?"

"Relax baby, he's fine." He says with a laugh, not bothering to turn around.

I roll my eyes at his carelessness before removing Toby from the island. He whines in protest, but I couldn't remove the image of him falling off of the island from my mind. "I'm sorry Toby, I just want you to be safe that's all."

He simply looks at me, before going back to chewing on his toy car.

I make my way over to Hero, and peer around him to get a better view of the pancakes. "They smell good."

"Banana nut." He tells me. "I wanted to try something different after the whole chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes fiasco."

A smile spreads onto my lips at the memory before I bring Toby into the living room. Once he's seated on the soft rug and situated with his toy, I turn my phone on to check if there were any updates from Jane.

Surely enough there was a text sitting at the top of my notifications. Driving back now. Should be there in about a half hour.

"Mummy's on her way, Toby." I tell him.

He looks up at me but doesn't respond. Instead he drops his car and walks towards me. "Up!" He says, reaching up to me.

I carefully reach over to pick him up and sit him next to me.

"Stay?"

"No, you can't stay. I'm sorry sweetie." I say softly. "But I'm sure you'll come visit again soon."

Hero brings a large stack of pancakes into the living room with three extra plates. He sets them down on the coffee table before taking a seat in front of it. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, Jane and Aaron are on their way now." I inform him.

"Aw, that's too bad. Toby's the only one who pays attention to me around here."

I stick up my middle finger at Hero in response, making sure to shield it with my other hand so Toby doesn't see.

I cut pieces of a pancake up for Toby and let him feed it to himself after he insists that he tries. He did a pretty good job on his own, except for when he dropped a glob of mashed banana onto the carpet. I'm sure it will come out though.

As soon as we finish eating, there's a knock on the door. Hero quickly gets up to answer it and I watch as Jane and Aaron enter the apartment, both with exhausted looks in their eyes.

"Hi guys!" I call to them.

"Hi Jo, hi pumpkin!" Jane squeals when she sees her son.

Toby giggles in response as he runs towards her.

"How was he?" Aaron asks.

"He was great. No trouble at all." Hero replies. "He's welcome here anytime."

"How's your dad?" I ask, making my way over to them.

"He's fine. Thankfully there wasn't any damage to the heart, but they're going to keep him there another night just to make sure." Jane sighs. "I'm going to go back later while Aaron stays with Toby."

"Well I'm happy to hear he's okay." I admit.

Hero goes into the room to get Toby's bag while Jane talks about her night with her dad. She continues to squeeze in an apology in here and there, and I continue to tell her it wasn't a problem.