The Deal

47- Let's See

Neil sighed as he sat down on the chair in the balcony. He pulled his robe tighter around him before raising the phone to his ear. Almost straight away, JJ answered. 

"Hey cara," he mumbled. He felt the lump in his throat. "I miss you." 

JJ heard his voice start to crack. "I miss you more." She felt the baby kick and laughed softly. "I think our baby girl knows you're on the line. She's barely kicked over the last few days." Neil remained silent. "Honey, it's okay. Everything is going to be okay." 

"I'm sorry. You should be here. You should be in our home. Right here next to me so I can make sure that you and our baby girl are safe." 

Lara walked into the kitchen to find it empty. With a frown, she walked into the sitting room to see Neil closing the balcony door. 

"Morning, papa," she said with a smile. 

"Morning," he mumbled. He slowly walked past her and went into his room. When she was going to walk after him, she heard the door close. 

"You can't shut her out," JJ said over the phone. Neil sighed, taking a seat at the desk. His hand reached out to the picture of the both of them at their wedding. 

"She's shut you out. She gets absolutely livid any time I address you as anything apart from your name." 

"Honey..." 

"I know, I know. She's hurting and me shutting her out isn't going to help." Neil ran a hand through his hair. "I've gotta go. I'll stop by later on in the day and if I have to drag her out then I will do. I wanna see you face to face. I want to hold your hand and I want to look into your eyes." 

"Well I look forward to it. And so does the baby because she's going balistic." 

"Alright, I love you, cara." He smiled at the picture in front of him. "Relax, eat something and I'll see you later." 

"I love you too." 

* * *

"What you doing?" Lara asked as she walked into the sitting room. Neil looked up from the TV and smiled softly. 

"Watching some videos of you." 

"Can we finish off what we were watching yesterday? You said you would look for the USB of the other videos." 

Neil straighetend up. "I did find it. I hate to break it to you but it has a lot of your mama in it." 

"She's not my mum," she mumbled. "But we can skip them." 

Lara took a seat beside Neil as he connected his laptop to the TV. "Oh look at the first video. It's the very first video your mama and I made together. I remember it took us almost three weeks to have a date. It was meant to be in two weeks but then your nonna was busy so she couldn't babysit." He watched as Lara rolled her eyes. "This wasn't the first date but I remember it being cold and we had just spent ages in the bookstore- you know how she is- and the car was freezing." 

The video started playing but there was no sound. As Neil fiddled with the laptop, Lara kept her eyes on the TV. "You still look at her like that." 

"Sorry?" Neil looked up. He pressed a button on the laptop, turning on the sound just as JJ laughed in the video. 

"The way you look at her. It's like she's...everything." 

Neil chuckled. "In that very moment I was falling so deeply in love with her. She was a breath of fresh air and other than you, no one else made me smile as much as she did. We basically spent almost everyday of those three weeks leading up to the date. The three of us anyways."