Where is everyone??? I've only gotten 2 reviews! (Is my story that bad???
*sniff, sniff*) (Okay, so maybe everyone is just enjoying their
Thanksgiving and Columbus Day weekend a little too much!)
Taking Maddie to the park again was fun, although the little girl seemed a bit wary of the cracks in the sidewalk by then. Warrick was trying to convince her that getting an "under duck" on the swing was going to be a ton of fun. Sara watched them from the bench with a smile on her face.
"Sara!" a familiar voice called.
Sara whirled around and saw her friend Diana waving at her. At her side was her five-year-old daughter. "Di! What are you doing here?" Sara asked incredulously, knowing that her friend's family had moved out of Las Vegas and into Henderson.
"Anna missed coming to this park, so we took a weekend family trip out to Vegas and here we are!" Diana exclaimed with a hug as her daughter ran off. After looking around for a while with a nostalgic smile on her face, Diana asked, "So what are you doing here? Just out for a 'get back to nature' walk?"
Sara grinned, mainly because it sounded like something her parents would have said. "Naw, I'm not that type of girl. Maddie's playing in the park right now."
Diana scanned the park and her face visibly blanched. "Sar," she asked almost hysterically, "Some man is taking your daughter!"
Sara jumped up, her veins coursing with adrenaline. She was ready to run when she realised that Diana was talking about Warrick and how he was taking Maddie to the slides. She sat back down, even though her friend looked at her like she was nuts. "Don't worry, Di," she said, trying to calm the woman down before she decided to call the police. "That's Warrick."
Diana's face literally lit up like a lightbulb. "Guess you found Mr. Right, huh?"
"What? Oh. No." Sara stared at her friend with an incredulous look on her face as she tried to draw her thoughts into coherent speech.
Diana opened her mouth to interrogate her friend some more, but was cut off by Maddie yelling, "Mommy! Look Daddy show me!"
Sara focussed her attention on the little girl, who started climbing the slide's ladder unsteadily. Diana just sat there shell-shocked, silently mouthing the word daddy.
Hysterical giggling brought Sara's friend out of her stupor. "Great job, Maddie!" Sara was praising her. A tall dark skinned man came over holding Maddie's little hand in his own. "Did you see how fast she went?" he asked with pride, "I told her that she was going as fast as a rocket!"
"And I was too!" Maddie pronounced happily. "Daddy said I could."
Diana managed to shake herself before they came any closer. "Di," Sara said, "This is Warrick, one of my friends from work. He's great with kids, and Maddie's no exception."
"Yeah, Daddy's the greatest!" Maddie beamed with pride.
"She means Uncle Warrick," Sara said quickly as an explanation, lest her other friend start getting things into her head from the numerous repetitions of "daddy". "But she keeps calling him 'Daddy' and we haven't been able to break the habit yet."
"Maybe you should just let her be," Diana suggested, "Let her decide who to call Daddy." She desperately hoped that Sara would get the hint.
"Uh, no, bad idea. My parents would keep on badgering me until-" Sara's ringing cell phone cut her off. "Sorry, got to take this. Probably my boss."
"Grissom?" Warrick asked as he followed her off to the side incase he had to get any details.
"So," Diana asked Maddie, "Why do you keep calling your Uncle Warrick 'Daddy'?"
"Because," Maddie answered simply, as she climbed on to the bench and started swinging her little legs in the air.
"Because, what?" Diana asked again.
"Just because." Maddie answered again with a shrug, trying to convey her thoughts, "He's my . . . Daddy."
"So you want him to be your Daddy?" Diana asked again. Maddie nodded her head vigorously.
"I don't have a real Daddy," Maddie said, a little more subdued now. "But Daddy could be my Daddy."
Diana's questions were cut short when Sara said, "Maddie, honey, we've got to go back home now. Grandma and Grandpa can't seem to make their lunches without burning something." Turning to her friend, she also invited them over for lunch, but warned her that the place was going to be crowded. Diana readily agreed and called her own child as she watched Warrick swing Maddie up onto his shoulders while having an animated conversation with Sara. The whole aura they radiated was one of a happy family, whether they realised it or not.
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Maddie chatted on incoherently through the entire five-minute car ride. Sara and Warrick just glanced at each other and smiled as the little voice started singing, out of tune, some made up song about a turtle buying oranges while singing that ABC song or something like that.
The second they were in the door, Mrs. Sidle and Mrs. Andrews accosted them. "Guess what my dears," Sara's mother exclaimed, "I made reservations at Galactica tonight for dinner!" She was followed in short order by Mrs. Andrews, who said, "Yes, I hear that restaurant is all the rage with you young people."
Warrick and Sara exchanged confused looks before Warrick remembered that it was the old "Galaxy's Best Restaurant" that had a management change and upgrades. "It's that place that's now a weird cross between fine dining and dance club," Warrick told Sara who immediately got a look of understanding on her face.
"Mom, you think there'll be enough room over there for Diana to come too?" Sara asked.
"Of course dear, we have a lot of room over there," her mother told her. What she didn't say was that this was part of her master plan.
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"Mom! Will you stop telling me what to wear?" Sara demanded after her mother pulled out yet another skirt from the depths of her closet.
"I was only trying to be of help," her mother sighed, "But if you think that I'm not good enough to make my beautiful little girl the center of attention tonight, just tell me."
Her guilt trip worked, as Sara said, "Okay, you can help. But I'm not wearing a skirt! There is no way you can make me wear a skirt."
"Okay, so skirts are out," Mrs. Sidle said. Sara breathed a premature sigh of relief. "But I would have to say, this little red dress is very much in," her mother continued, holding up the dress that Catherine had given to her on Christmas as a sort of joke about her non-feminine style. It was made of some silky fabric with spaghetti straps, and was formfitting until it ended mid calf and flared just a tiny bit, giving it a bit of a swish. Sara groaned, knowing that this was going to be an uphill battle with her mother.
**************************************************
Sara didn't have a clue why her parents and the Andrews wanted to go to the restaurant fifteen minutes earlier than the rest of them, but she just wrote it off to being old. Diana had to take a rain check on dinner when Anna suddenly got a stomachache. Greg was babysitting Maddie. She still wasn't too sure how her mother persuaded her to get all dressed up though.
Nick had picked Warrick up about an hour earlier to lend him a dress shirt, since he hadn't packed any in his temporary move to Sara's place. Warrick was then going to pick her up after he and Nick finished squabbling over which shirt he could borrow.
Warrick glanced at his watch again, hoping that Sara was in a good mood and wouldn't fillet him for being five minutes late to pick her up. He rang the doorbell and steeled himself for verbal attack because he was late. He wasn't prepared when she opened the door, however. Instead, he was simply blown away at how glamorous she looked in the red dress and sandals with three-inch heels. // Stop staring! // his mind screamed, but he couldn't heed its command and just stood there like a statue.
Sara blushed at the unwonted attention she was receiving. "You know, my parents are probably going to call the police if we're not at Galactica in the next little while," she said gently, trying to break him out of his reverie.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, we should get going," Warrick replied as best he could. Sara turned her back on him to lock the door, and he was given a very inviting view of her backside. // Damn, she's fine! // his mind raved. //Shut up! // the other side of his head cried, //she's your friend. Friends don't think of each other that way! // //True, // the other side agreed, // but you don't think of her as a friend anyway. You know that she's more to you than a friend.//
"Warrick, Warrick!" Sara called as she tried waving a hand in front of his face. When his eyes focussed again on her face, she continued, "You blanked out on me again. You sure you're feeling okay?" He just nodded. "Okay, then, let's go!" Sara exclaimed, "But I'm driving."
******************************************************* "Hi, reservation for 'Sidle' for six people at seven? My parents may already be here, I'm not too sure," Sara said to the hostess at the front of the restaurant.
"Sidle . . . Sidle . . ." the hostess muttered as she scanned the reservation sheet, "Ah! Here we go, but this is a reservation for two, not six." She looked up expectantly at them. Sara and Warrick just looked at each other in confusion.
"Well, her mother made the reservation this afternoon, said we were going out for dinner," Warrick said, trying to clear the situation up somewhat.
"Well isn't that what you two are doing here?" the hostess asked blankly.
"Yeah, but they were supposed to be with us," Sara replied, wrinkling her forehead in concentration, trying to think where the four older people might have gone.
The hostess was growing slightly irritated by their confusion, so she said, "Look, you're the last people whose names are on the list. This is probably your reservation. If your parents come, we'll just add some tables to yours, and if not, well then, enjoy the evening." They decided to just agree with the woman before they were thrown out.
They were led to a quiet corner of the restaurant, where the only light was what was cast of by flickering candles and oil lamps. Warrick, remembering to be a gentleman, pulled out Sara's chair for her. Her smile of appreciation went straight to his heart.
"So," Sara began. She seemed to run out of steam since she remained quiet after the single syllable she uttered.
"So," Warrick repeated, "Guess your parents and the Andrews are either lost, extremely forgetful, or they set us up."
"Set us up on what?" Sara asked as she fiddled with her napkin. Warrick opened his mouth to answer, when she waved for him to stop. "Oh my god," she gasped, "They set us up on a date!" She buried her face in her hands, in embarrassment. "Oh, god, this is humiliating!"
"Going on a date with me is humiliating?" Warrick asked with equal parts humour and horror.
"No, no, no," Sara replied instantly, "Not going on a date with you, that's okay. It's going on a blind date set up by my own mother, and not figuring it out sooner." Her head once again disappeared into her hands and she groaned for another few minutes while Warrick tried to fight back a chuckle.
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Please review! (Please? Do I have to get on my knees? {pouts})
Taking Maddie to the park again was fun, although the little girl seemed a bit wary of the cracks in the sidewalk by then. Warrick was trying to convince her that getting an "under duck" on the swing was going to be a ton of fun. Sara watched them from the bench with a smile on her face.
"Sara!" a familiar voice called.
Sara whirled around and saw her friend Diana waving at her. At her side was her five-year-old daughter. "Di! What are you doing here?" Sara asked incredulously, knowing that her friend's family had moved out of Las Vegas and into Henderson.
"Anna missed coming to this park, so we took a weekend family trip out to Vegas and here we are!" Diana exclaimed with a hug as her daughter ran off. After looking around for a while with a nostalgic smile on her face, Diana asked, "So what are you doing here? Just out for a 'get back to nature' walk?"
Sara grinned, mainly because it sounded like something her parents would have said. "Naw, I'm not that type of girl. Maddie's playing in the park right now."
Diana scanned the park and her face visibly blanched. "Sar," she asked almost hysterically, "Some man is taking your daughter!"
Sara jumped up, her veins coursing with adrenaline. She was ready to run when she realised that Diana was talking about Warrick and how he was taking Maddie to the slides. She sat back down, even though her friend looked at her like she was nuts. "Don't worry, Di," she said, trying to calm the woman down before she decided to call the police. "That's Warrick."
Diana's face literally lit up like a lightbulb. "Guess you found Mr. Right, huh?"
"What? Oh. No." Sara stared at her friend with an incredulous look on her face as she tried to draw her thoughts into coherent speech.
Diana opened her mouth to interrogate her friend some more, but was cut off by Maddie yelling, "Mommy! Look Daddy show me!"
Sara focussed her attention on the little girl, who started climbing the slide's ladder unsteadily. Diana just sat there shell-shocked, silently mouthing the word daddy.
Hysterical giggling brought Sara's friend out of her stupor. "Great job, Maddie!" Sara was praising her. A tall dark skinned man came over holding Maddie's little hand in his own. "Did you see how fast she went?" he asked with pride, "I told her that she was going as fast as a rocket!"
"And I was too!" Maddie pronounced happily. "Daddy said I could."
Diana managed to shake herself before they came any closer. "Di," Sara said, "This is Warrick, one of my friends from work. He's great with kids, and Maddie's no exception."
"Yeah, Daddy's the greatest!" Maddie beamed with pride.
"She means Uncle Warrick," Sara said quickly as an explanation, lest her other friend start getting things into her head from the numerous repetitions of "daddy". "But she keeps calling him 'Daddy' and we haven't been able to break the habit yet."
"Maybe you should just let her be," Diana suggested, "Let her decide who to call Daddy." She desperately hoped that Sara would get the hint.
"Uh, no, bad idea. My parents would keep on badgering me until-" Sara's ringing cell phone cut her off. "Sorry, got to take this. Probably my boss."
"Grissom?" Warrick asked as he followed her off to the side incase he had to get any details.
"So," Diana asked Maddie, "Why do you keep calling your Uncle Warrick 'Daddy'?"
"Because," Maddie answered simply, as she climbed on to the bench and started swinging her little legs in the air.
"Because, what?" Diana asked again.
"Just because." Maddie answered again with a shrug, trying to convey her thoughts, "He's my . . . Daddy."
"So you want him to be your Daddy?" Diana asked again. Maddie nodded her head vigorously.
"I don't have a real Daddy," Maddie said, a little more subdued now. "But Daddy could be my Daddy."
Diana's questions were cut short when Sara said, "Maddie, honey, we've got to go back home now. Grandma and Grandpa can't seem to make their lunches without burning something." Turning to her friend, she also invited them over for lunch, but warned her that the place was going to be crowded. Diana readily agreed and called her own child as she watched Warrick swing Maddie up onto his shoulders while having an animated conversation with Sara. The whole aura they radiated was one of a happy family, whether they realised it or not.
********************************************************
Maddie chatted on incoherently through the entire five-minute car ride. Sara and Warrick just glanced at each other and smiled as the little voice started singing, out of tune, some made up song about a turtle buying oranges while singing that ABC song or something like that.
The second they were in the door, Mrs. Sidle and Mrs. Andrews accosted them. "Guess what my dears," Sara's mother exclaimed, "I made reservations at Galactica tonight for dinner!" She was followed in short order by Mrs. Andrews, who said, "Yes, I hear that restaurant is all the rage with you young people."
Warrick and Sara exchanged confused looks before Warrick remembered that it was the old "Galaxy's Best Restaurant" that had a management change and upgrades. "It's that place that's now a weird cross between fine dining and dance club," Warrick told Sara who immediately got a look of understanding on her face.
"Mom, you think there'll be enough room over there for Diana to come too?" Sara asked.
"Of course dear, we have a lot of room over there," her mother told her. What she didn't say was that this was part of her master plan.
******************************************************
"Mom! Will you stop telling me what to wear?" Sara demanded after her mother pulled out yet another skirt from the depths of her closet.
"I was only trying to be of help," her mother sighed, "But if you think that I'm not good enough to make my beautiful little girl the center of attention tonight, just tell me."
Her guilt trip worked, as Sara said, "Okay, you can help. But I'm not wearing a skirt! There is no way you can make me wear a skirt."
"Okay, so skirts are out," Mrs. Sidle said. Sara breathed a premature sigh of relief. "But I would have to say, this little red dress is very much in," her mother continued, holding up the dress that Catherine had given to her on Christmas as a sort of joke about her non-feminine style. It was made of some silky fabric with spaghetti straps, and was formfitting until it ended mid calf and flared just a tiny bit, giving it a bit of a swish. Sara groaned, knowing that this was going to be an uphill battle with her mother.
**************************************************
Sara didn't have a clue why her parents and the Andrews wanted to go to the restaurant fifteen minutes earlier than the rest of them, but she just wrote it off to being old. Diana had to take a rain check on dinner when Anna suddenly got a stomachache. Greg was babysitting Maddie. She still wasn't too sure how her mother persuaded her to get all dressed up though.
Nick had picked Warrick up about an hour earlier to lend him a dress shirt, since he hadn't packed any in his temporary move to Sara's place. Warrick was then going to pick her up after he and Nick finished squabbling over which shirt he could borrow.
Warrick glanced at his watch again, hoping that Sara was in a good mood and wouldn't fillet him for being five minutes late to pick her up. He rang the doorbell and steeled himself for verbal attack because he was late. He wasn't prepared when she opened the door, however. Instead, he was simply blown away at how glamorous she looked in the red dress and sandals with three-inch heels. // Stop staring! // his mind screamed, but he couldn't heed its command and just stood there like a statue.
Sara blushed at the unwonted attention she was receiving. "You know, my parents are probably going to call the police if we're not at Galactica in the next little while," she said gently, trying to break him out of his reverie.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, we should get going," Warrick replied as best he could. Sara turned her back on him to lock the door, and he was given a very inviting view of her backside. // Damn, she's fine! // his mind raved. //Shut up! // the other side of his head cried, //she's your friend. Friends don't think of each other that way! // //True, // the other side agreed, // but you don't think of her as a friend anyway. You know that she's more to you than a friend.//
"Warrick, Warrick!" Sara called as she tried waving a hand in front of his face. When his eyes focussed again on her face, she continued, "You blanked out on me again. You sure you're feeling okay?" He just nodded. "Okay, then, let's go!" Sara exclaimed, "But I'm driving."
******************************************************* "Hi, reservation for 'Sidle' for six people at seven? My parents may already be here, I'm not too sure," Sara said to the hostess at the front of the restaurant.
"Sidle . . . Sidle . . ." the hostess muttered as she scanned the reservation sheet, "Ah! Here we go, but this is a reservation for two, not six." She looked up expectantly at them. Sara and Warrick just looked at each other in confusion.
"Well, her mother made the reservation this afternoon, said we were going out for dinner," Warrick said, trying to clear the situation up somewhat.
"Well isn't that what you two are doing here?" the hostess asked blankly.
"Yeah, but they were supposed to be with us," Sara replied, wrinkling her forehead in concentration, trying to think where the four older people might have gone.
The hostess was growing slightly irritated by their confusion, so she said, "Look, you're the last people whose names are on the list. This is probably your reservation. If your parents come, we'll just add some tables to yours, and if not, well then, enjoy the evening." They decided to just agree with the woman before they were thrown out.
They were led to a quiet corner of the restaurant, where the only light was what was cast of by flickering candles and oil lamps. Warrick, remembering to be a gentleman, pulled out Sara's chair for her. Her smile of appreciation went straight to his heart.
"So," Sara began. She seemed to run out of steam since she remained quiet after the single syllable she uttered.
"So," Warrick repeated, "Guess your parents and the Andrews are either lost, extremely forgetful, or they set us up."
"Set us up on what?" Sara asked as she fiddled with her napkin. Warrick opened his mouth to answer, when she waved for him to stop. "Oh my god," she gasped, "They set us up on a date!" She buried her face in her hands, in embarrassment. "Oh, god, this is humiliating!"
"Going on a date with me is humiliating?" Warrick asked with equal parts humour and horror.
"No, no, no," Sara replied instantly, "Not going on a date with you, that's okay. It's going on a blind date set up by my own mother, and not figuring it out sooner." Her head once again disappeared into her hands and she groaned for another few minutes while Warrick tried to fight back a chuckle.
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Please review! (Please? Do I have to get on my knees? {pouts})