Repay The Favour (On Hold)

3

   For the first two days of the new living arrangement, the young girl and the band's front man had formed a better relationship with each other.
   The older, for starters, had become more relaxed with the situation, not as terrified as he was the previous days. Having her there made things a little less lonely for him and his days were no longer wasted into one great big blur of nothingness. He had someone to share his days with, investing his time completely in the young girl.
   As for Tobi, she was slowly adjusting. For the most part, she was still missing her mother, unable to understand why she couldn't be with her, in the place she knew so well, however, her simple mind was often easily distracted with the house hold pets, hours after hours of playing with them in the middle of the living room floor.
  

Andy's P.O.V
After being woken up at 6am -- something new I had been forced to adjust to -- I got myself dressed and ready for the day before hurrying myself down the stairs, going to retrieve the same set of clothes that Tobi had been wearing ever since I picked her up. As yet, we haven't left the house for the soul reason that I wanted her to become fully comfortable here, before introducing her to everything else in the world. That meant that we haven't gone to any sort of store and so my way of resolving the issue of not having any other clothes for her, was to put them in the laundry after she'd gone to sleep so they were ready for the next morning. Trust me, the system was working.

I took them up to her and helped her get ready meanwhile, my mind was clouded with the idea of taking her to the store and any possible scenario that might possibly happen while there. Someone might see me and would ask who she is, they might post pictures of her or tell the world about her. Or, someone might take her away from me, or she might wonder off! Her dad or someone who knows her dad could be around! Heather said to specifically keep her away from him! I thought, my paranoia taking over as I began to panic.

She's got no other clothes and we need more groceries. I'll have to take her out to the store soon enough! I told myself, knowing it was more then true.

After much thought and debate, I finally persuaded myself to do it.

"Tobi, how do you feel about going on an adventure today?" I asked her, a smile on my face.

She nodded her head before rambling on about something I had no clue about, as though she was off in her own world. I let it happen for a while as I helped her to get ready and made her breakfast before we headed out.

Once we arrived in the parking lot, I set out some ground rules.

"Okay Tobi-Elliott, you really need to stick by me okay? No wondering off, I need you with me the whole time okay?" I told her, my voice a little stern to let her know I was being serious.

She nodded her head and took my hand as we left the car and walked inside. I realised my whole body was tense, high alert for anything and everything. In my mind, I had a military operation plan as to how this was going to go. Get her clothes, get the groceries, pay and leave.

It did not turn out that way though.

We picked out a few outfits and put them in the kart, collecting more underwear and pyjamas. She picked herself out a coat and a new pair of shoes while I found a few tiny sized hoodies.

Getting food wasn't a relatively easy job, she would try to tell me the kinds of food she would eat while with her mum but often, they wouldn't translate into any kind of food I knew of.

After at least two hours, we payed and headed back to the car. On the brighter side though, no one had recognised me and no one had taken her from me.

"Tobi, honey- I was thinking- because you've been so good, would you like to go on one more adventure before we go home?" I asked, acknowledging how well behaved she was at the store, following my rules like asked and sitting quietly in the kart while we shopped.

She nodded her head with an excitable grin spread over her lips, her tiny teeth showing through as she smiled wide.

I smiled back to her and drove to a nearby park, one that I knew had a playground. When we arrived, I took her hand in mine and took her over to the kids area.

"This is a park Tobi, there's lots of very fun things to do here and you can play as much as you want to!" I told her, watching her eyes sparkle with an excitable sense of happiness that was so infectious that my lips curled involuntarily to match her own grin.

"Come on!" I smiled, her hand in mine as I jogged with her running beside me over toward the swings. Picking her up, I moved her to one of the todler swing sets and slid her body inside. I began gently pushing the swing back and forth, listening to her giggles and screams of delight.

Taking out my phone, I took a few pictures knowing that Heather would love to see them, taking a short video of her giggles as she swung back and forth.

After swinging some, she pointed toward the rusting merry-go-round and asked to be taken to it.

"Hold on tight!" I told her, putting her tiny hands on the rail while I stood behind her, one hand either side of her, holding the rail as I scooted the spinning plate slowly round and round, pushing off of the ground with my foot.

After that, she chose to run the area of the play ground, giggling like crazy with sharp squeals escaping her lungs as she ran, laughung as I slowly chased after her. She ran toward the end of the slide yelling out "DEN!" with a squeal of amusement as she sat on the end of it.

We began to play a short game of 'tig', running after each other and calling 'den' as a time out on anything we chose. Though, when her energized runs became much slower and her time out claims became much more frequent, I soon figured out that she had grown tired.

"Are you getting sleepy Tobi?" I asked, picking her small body up into my arms and placing her on my hip.

Nodding some, she dragged a lazy hand across her eyes before they closed softly. She had drifted into a brief nap with her head nuzzeled into my chest, hidden with her thick, black hair.

I carried her back to the car, sliding her tired body into the backseat before driving home.

\\//don't worry, I'll be including the band more in the next chapter. Also, Tobi will be growing up a lot more throughout the book -- for now, I'm just trying to build on her character and the relationship with Andy.