Hiding Place || Tori Kelly

Too Early

25 Weeks
(Dec. 8)

11 AM

the last day of the trip

Tori straddled her husband's waist, running her hands along his chest over his scar. "Dang, could you be any rougher," André winced, dropping his hands from over his head to cover his chest. Tori sat her hand's palm up over his belly button, careful not get the oil on her legs.

"Shut up. No one told you to do this, but now that you have, we have to take care of it." Tori forced his hands out of the way and finished smoothing the coconut oil over her mans new tattoo. It was Irie's handprint over one of his stab wound. "It looks good, though," Tori smirked, getting off of his lap and heading to the full-length mirror across the room. "Put your shirt on and go get your daughter. Our flight leaves at 1," Tori said. André did as he was told, leaving Tori alone in the room. She stared at her exposed bump, inspecting it for stretch marks or poking out limbs, as she used the rest of the coconut oil on her own skin.

"Mommy!" Irie whined, coming into the room and slumping to the floor in front of the queen sized bed. Tori furrowed her eyebrows and looked back at her child with confusion festering in her mind.

"What is wrong with you, mama?" Tori asked, slipping on her white t-shirt and pulling up her black biker shorts. Irie laid completely on the floor with tears flowing down her face. Panic started to ensue in Tori a bit. "Irie, what's wrong?" She asked again, dropping onto her knees, ignoring the fire that flared up in her pelvis from such a quick movement. Tears continued to fall as Tori sat her 7-year-old up and moved her hair from her face. "Baby, talk to me," Tori begged, holding Irie's face, so the child could catch her breath.

"I don't want to go home," she broke down. Tori's face immediately went blank. She wanted nothing more than to kill Irie, but with Jesus intervening, Tori sat back on her heels and pointed away from herself.

"Get out of my face with that," she said. Irie scrambled to her feet and zoomed past André as he came in and she departed. "Got me down here thinking you were hurt," Tori murmured as she used the bed to get up. André saw his wife in pain and rushed to her side, helping her sit down on the bed. "Get our bags, so we can go before I whoop this child. I've never thought I'd have to spank her, but today might change that, André," Tori threatened. As a child, Tori watched Noah get spankings because she was typically good enough not to get into too much trouble. And she didn't really want to spank her kids, because time out worked for her, but she was quickly realizing that she may, indeed, be raising a Noah.

"Yeah, let's go home," André said, now nervous about going home. The renovations took less time than expected, so they could go straight home, but now that Tori was in a bad mood, André was worried she wouldn't see the home improvement as an improvement.

11:15 AM

"Hello?" Tori answered, as she and Irie sat in the back of the Uber waiting for André to put the last bag in the trunk.

"Hey, Tori, it's me. I just got to the house with Tyler to pick up your packages and there is like three workers trucks out here. What's going on over here?" Michelle asked. Tori did her best to focus, but couldn't with Irie yelling for no reason and Abiah squirming around. There was only so much Tori could do about her child in utero, but a lot she could about the one beside her.

"Ella, stop," Tori said, popping her child's leg. Iriella immediately sat back and calmed down. "Okay, now what? Worker trucks? I don't know. Go in and see," Tori said, not remembering that she'd signed off on any home stuff. André hoped in to let the Uber driver leave as Michelle entered the house.

"I don't see anything different just yet," she said, before heading downstairs. "Oh, that is definitely different," Michelle whispered walking down to the extended hall and into the second princess suit that was set up like nursery.