My Buddy Archie [1]

08..

"Archie, would it kill you to smile at the camera?" Wayne sighed, looking at me for help. I only chucked before standing behind Archie, sticking my fingers in the corners of his mouth and pulled them upward. "There you go, Archie!"

He went on snapping pictures even as Archie struggled in my grasp and Bailey just laughed at him. They agreed on both of them being little soldiers, dressed in all camouflage, matching boots and black lines of Rachel's lipstick under their eyes. Rachel opted to stay home with their baby-a girl, whose name was Imogen and made me 50 bucks richer.

Once Archie fought me off, we headed outside to start this trick or treating shit. It was both of their first time, so obviously they were jumping around with excitement. There was an abundance of children running around with their parents, knocking on doors and begging for candy.

"It's like a zombie apocalypse," Wayne joked.

"It really is."

We let Bailey and Archie run off ahead of us. There was really nothing to worry about as long as we could see them. As we passed other parents, we exchanged the same 'these crazy kids' look. I never felt so much like a 'textbook parent' in my life, and it didn't feel half bad. My little guy was happy and that's all that mattered to me.

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On the 5th, Mum, Greg and his family finally made it to my house to have a look around. They just popped up, so I was less than prepared to have guests, which meant after an hour of being with them Archie and I left to go get dinner stuff from the market.

"What kind of sauce did Greg say to get?" Archie wasn't even paying attention to me as he stared at all the different barbecue sauces. I sighed, "Let's just get this one," I picked a random one and put it in the cart, "And if he wanted something else he can get it himself."

"Can we get prezzles?" His voice went up in pitch towards the end of his question, something Trisha taught him. It was pretty cute though; he even tilted his head as he asked.

I grinned, "Yeah, buddy, we can get pretzels. What else do we need?"

"Tissues?"

I nodded, "Paper towels, yes, thank you." A few other things were picked up on the way and soon we were checked out and on our way back home. Archie helped me carry groceries into the kitchen, only to get distracted by Theo, who'd brought his toys with him. "Alright, thanks Archie..." I chuckled.

A heavy hand clapped me on the back of the shoulder, "Hey!" Bucky's voice shouted.

"What's up? Uh, how did you get in my house?"

"Your brother let me in a minute ago. It sounded like a party was going on here, so of course I had to come."

I smirked and shook my head, "Of course."

"That's okay, right? You don't mind?" He grabbed a couple grocery bags and hoisted them up on the counter.

"Yeah, mate. It's fine."

"Do you mind that I invited Sunny over? She's getting in early."

My hands froze from their grocery sorting.

It was silly, I know it was, but I can't deny that I've developed a miniature crush on Sunny-Connie. Bucky forced me to talk to her a couple times on the phone when he had to run out for a moment and we always had a nice little conversation. I still didn't know much about her, or what she looked like, but, despite myself, I had a little crush. Little.

"Yeah," I coughed. "Sure."

"Okay, cool." He patted me on the shoulder again before joining Greg in the living room where something sports related was playing on the TV.