A/N: Just another litte chapter for you guys. Sorry it took so long to get this one out it took me a while to figure out where it fell on the timeline. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Please review!


March 14, 2006. 7:16 PM; EST

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"Are you excited as I am?" Tess asked, as she pulled her phone to her ear. "Less than twenty four hours!"

"No 'Hello?'" He laughed.

"Nah," she shifted the phone so she could talk and drive. "Salutations are overrated."

"Since when?" He quizzed her playfully. "And hell yeah I'm excited. I put these purple sheets in the guest room, Jamie's gonna love them."

"You didn't have to do that," Tess said, picturing Greg coming out of the store with girly bedsheets. "You know we're fine with whatever you have."

"They were half off," he argued. "And I knew she'd love them."

"Hold on a sec," Tess said before glancing at the screen of her cell phone, there was an incoming call from Jamie's father. "Hey Greg I've got to get the other line, it's Mitchell."

"Oh, him,"Greg complained. "Better not keep him waiting."

"I'll call you back," she promised. She flashed over to her other line, "Hello?"

"Tessa?" The older man asked. "What time are you going to pick your daughter up? It's already after seven, I thought you said you'd be here?"

"I said I'd be there at seven thirty," Tess stated flatly. "She's a six year old girl and your daughter, you can't handle her for three and a half hours after school one day a week?"

"I was just checking in," he said loudly. He was quiet for a few moments, "you're going out of town tomorrow morning?"

"Yes," Tess answered. "I'm going out to Vegas for a few days."

"Who's going to be watching my daughter while you're on the other side of the country?" His tone was forceful and rude. "I have a right to know."

"She's coming with me," Tess ran a hand through her hair and rubbed her temple gently as she waited at a red light. "It's an annual trip, we go every year."

"Exactly what business does my six year-old daughter have in Las Vegas?"

"We're visiting her uncle," Tess explained, trying not to grow angry with the man. He hadn't been involved in Jamie's life in years and was still learning a lot more about the way they did things. If she wanted Jamie's father in her life she needed to let go of petty annoyances.

"I don't think so."

"Excuse me?"

"My daughter's not going anywhere," he stated. "Especially not to go stay with some guy while her mother sleeps around like a floozie."

"I'll do whatever I want with my daughter," she said, ignoring the rest of what he'd said. "And she has a right to spend a week with her uncle every now and then if she wants to. Look if you want to spend time with your daughter I think that's great but three and a half months of afternoon visits and expensive gifts aren't going to give you the right to dictate major issues in her life."

"Just let us keep her this weekend," Mitchell requested as though he didn't hear what Tess had been saying. "Her brother and sister are going to be here... it'll be good for them to get to know each other. She hardly knows Sara-Beth at all because she's always doing school stuff and Parker's been at practice every time she's been here."

"That's a shame," Tess said, trying to sympathize. "I want her to get to know her siblings, that's kind of why I agreed to this in the first place. But not this weekend, no way. This is important."

"No. I'll be by your apartment at six tomorrow morning to pick her up, have her stuff packed. She'll be waiting at the gate for you when you get here," he said hanging up the phone.

"Mitchell?" She asked but heard a dead line. She slammed the phone down in the passenger's seat and sighed. "Who does he think he is?"

There was nobody in the car with her to answer. She grabbed her phone again and dialed Greg's number quickly. A soon as she heard is voice she went into a rant, "He wants Jamie this week. He actually told me that I couldn't take her with me to Vegas. He called me a floozie! Can you believe that? He actually told me he didn't want Jamie there!"

"He said what!?" Tess could hear the seething in his voice. "You said no right? I mean you told him to stuff it right?"

"Greg," she said slowly. "I..."

"You can't be serious!" He took a deep breath and continued, "You're really going to let him get away with this?"

"He's her father Greg," she said slowly. "He has a right."

"He has no right," he corrected her.

Mitchell had been a sore spot between Greg and Tess since before Jamie had ever been born. A part of Tess had always hoped that he would grow to appreciate Mitchell for what he was but in truth she didn't think he ever would. Greg wasn't the kind of person that made friends with people who'd hurt her very easily. It was something she had only hoped would never become an issue.