In which Simon Riley meets a distressed single mom at the park and is immediately LOCKED IN.
Here's Part Two and Part Three and Part Four and Part Five and Part Six :)
Simon likes going for walks.
It's an easy way to eat up time when he's on leave -- every minute he's walking is another minute he doesn't have to sit staring at the walls in his cold, dull apartment. And this way, he gets to see all sorts of things, trees and flowers, beautiful buildings and people that he passes by so quickly that he can almost convince himself they're beautiful too.
He doesn't think highly enough of himself to believe that he can truly have any of these things. That's why his apartment is bare bones, sparsely furnished with only the necessities, nothing even close to a frill in sight. But on his walks, he can catch little glimpses. He's been telling himself for so long that this is enough that most of the time, he believes it.
Then he met you. And now, suddenly none of it matters -- what he believes he deserves, what he thinks he can get by with, none of it. Because for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, he's filled with such an exquisite, excruciating rush of want that it drowns out everything else, floods all the ugly little nooks and crannies in his mind and his heart until all that's left is you.
It happened at the park. Not the big one he walks by sometimes in the nicer part of town, with its brand new shiny jungle gym and the constant crowd of children and parents and nannies and noise -- no, it was at the small little rundown one closer to home. The one that's almost always vacant, which is probably one of the reasons why he noticed you there.
Another, much more notable reason would be the way you were nearly screeching, your voice filled with panic and fear as you stood by one of the tall slides.
Simon heard you from a distance, and when he was close enough to see you, it was easy enough to figure out why. You were standing there, your belly big and swollen with child, looking up at a little boy with your complexion and hair color as he stood by the railing of the steps leading up to the slide.
"Get down right this instant," he heard you hiss when he snuck even closer. "Charlie, i swear to God, this isn't funny, get down."
The boy, with a playful, terrorizing little smile Simon could make out from a distance, shook his head, replying, "You come get me."
And there was the problem. You couldn't get up the narrow little staircase of that part of the playground with your pregnant belly, and the boy wouldn't come down on his own. Simon surveyed the park once more, but he already knew there was no one else there. You were alone, no husband to step in and take care of things.
At this point, he was strolling along the sidewalk beside the park, trying to decide if he wanted to help or not. On one hand, you seemed a little desperate, but on the other, he didn't want to frighten you even more. He knows how imposing he can be, and at least in these kinds of situations, he's mindful of it.
Then he hears it: a frustrated, choked little sob from you. That made up his mind.
"All right?" he asked carefully, slowly approaching you.
You jumped at the sound of his voice, your hand instinctively going to cradle your bump, then glanced back up at the boy.
"We're fine," you told Simon. "We're just waiting on my husband to come back, then we'll call it a day."
It was a weak lie -- he'd already clocked that you weren't wearing a wedding ring, nor did you have a tan line there, but even if he didn't go on that, you were just not a good liar. He might have laughed at your attempt to brush him off, but then little boy put his hands on the railing and leaned over it to greet him, and your nervous gasp brought him back to the situation at hand.
"Charlie, stop," you barked, an authoritative mom voice if he'd ever heard one. But Charlie, it seemed, was a headstrong little thing, and he simply laughed and began jumping, apparently not noticing or caring that his reckless behavior was causing you so much stress.
"Could get him down for you, if you like."
He didn't know why he said that. Why he even thought to offer. But you looked up at him, really looked at him with those wide, teary eyes, and he knew he'd do that and so much more, if only you'd let him.
"I can't ... it's ok, you don't have to do that," you replied, still hesitant to accept the help from the big, bulking stranger.
"'Course I don't have to," he answered simply. "Just trying to help."
You glance between him and the boy once more, and you even give Charlie one more chance to listen and come down on his own, but he just shrieked with laughter, pleased to be the center of attention, so you just sighed and gave Simon a nod.
He easily climbs up the tall metal structure, squeezing his wide body up the narrow steps to where the boy stood. Then he stopped.
He's not a people person by any stretch of the imagination, so of course he's not a kid person either. He's never interacted with them much, so as stilted and closed-off as he is with most adults, he's even more clueless with children.
He didn't know if he should pick him up and carry him down to you, maybe push him to the slide to get down that way. He also considered that maybe he shouldn't even touch him at all, but that left talking to the kid, which didn't sound great either.
Luckily for Simon, Charlie was chatty enough for both of them.
"Never seen you here before," he told Simon. "You're too big for the slides."
"Not here for the slide," he said, his gaze drifting back to you where you stood below, watching anxiously. "Why don't you get back down there before you give your poor mum a heart attack?"
"I'm not supposed to listen to strangers."
"That so?" Simon asked. "Supposed to listen to your mum though, yeah?"
That easy bit of logic seemed to trip Charlie up, and Simon smirked, then nodded to the slide.
"Go on, then."
The child let out a dramatic sigh, then climbed the rest of the way up the steps and went down the slide. Simon watched you rush to the bottom of it, swiftly grabbing his hand when it came within reach.
"Thank you so much," you told him when he climbed his way back to the ground, your earlier trepidation gone, seemingly with relief. "He usually listens better than that, and I couldn't ..."
"No need," he said gruffly, cutting off your explanation. "Just glad I could help."
You gave him a smile, and just for a moment, he let himself think of things he never allowed himself to imagine. A life in which he not only had a family, but this family -- a family where you, the boy, and the baby in your belly all belonged to him.
That's when the wanting started. And now, nearly two weeks later, Simon finds himself walking past the park, again and again, hoping to find you there. Hoping to ease the gnawing little ache that began knocking around his chest that day, to see what he now believes could be the most beautiful thing this ugly world has to offer.
LOVE THIS IDEA SM
