7 months ago:
Betty and Bobby began as goldfish. Raven may not have seemed like the type to spoil anyone or anything, but let Betty and Bobby be proof otherwise.
Betty and Bobby were now monsters.
Raven frowned at Betty, the spotted mammoth gaping her mouth and dragging it across the glass. The beasts had a feeding schedule, and they got mad in the minutes leading up to their meals. When they weren't rampaging around the tank, they were mostly gentle giants, but honestly. It was like she'd starved them for a week or something.
Actually, she'd gotten a list of foods and a schedule from a vet, which made her feel absolutely ridiculous, but the nutrition seemed to be working. She nudged open the lid and then reached for a jar of food labeled 'Sunday,' measuring out a scoop with each hand. After tempting them in opposite directions by moving the scoops where they could see them, she stepped up onto a stool and dumped the contents of the scoops into either side of the tank.
It was through trial and error that she discovered she had to separate them.
Monsters.
Just as she lowered the lid and secured it, her doorbell rang. Oh good. The people responsible for her angry golden demons. With a lot of excited squeals, running into furniture, and a quick talk with their social worker, Raven's cold, quiet house spilled over with light and love. Or something cheesy like that.
Teether scrambled over to the tank, watching with wide eyes as the fish duked it out over a scrap of shrimp. The kid looked extra tiny in front of the gargantuan tank, despite having grown a lot since she took them in four years ago. So to speak. She hadn't adopted them. Yet.
Quick to join her youngest brother, Melvin pointed excitedly at Bobby, her favorite of the two and the one she named. "How big is he now?"
It was difficult to measure a fish, but Raven had made her best attempt yesterday in anticipation of the question. "About fifteen inches, and still growing."
Timmy crossed his arms. "Betty?" His favorite, and the one he named.
"Sixteen."
"Hah!" he crowed, leaving Melvin to roll her eyes. The action made Raven frown. Apparently she was rubbing off on the kids, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. One of the biggest reasons she'd been holding off on adoption. She wasn't sure she was good for them, however much she cared for them.
After a lengthy discussion surrounding the fish-turned-leviathans, Raven led the trio down the busy streets of downtown with a laughably large pair of sunglasses and sweatshirt hood pulled securely over her hair. She wanted to keep the kids out of the public eye, and so ended up looking like a vampire trying to escape sunlight most of the time they spent together.
They made a train of linked hands, starting with Raven and five year old Teether, with twelve going on fifty-two year old Melvin at the other end. She led them to a small location with plenty of privacy that Gar, of all people, suggested to her. Someone reached the door just before them, and he held it open for them. Raven dipped her head in a polite nod, also a movement to further hide her face. "Thank you."
"No problem, mama."
She stopped cold, each of the kids piling up behind her as they bumped into her and each other, and stared through the dark screen of her glasses. "Gar?" she hissed. Seriously, what were the odds?
He flicked up the bill of his ball cap and winked at her over the rim of his own ultra-dark sunglasses. "The one and only."
"How did you know it was me?"
He grinned, the usually jovial expression tainted with something she almost wanted to identify as shyness. "Uh, mostly your perfume, paired with your height and the way you're trying to sink into your hoodie."
Speaking of avoiding attention. "Hm, let's just get inside."
Ignoring the curious stares of the kids, she led them to the hostess stand, Gar following at an awkward distance that teetered between part of their party and not. Melvin noticed. "Is this strange man eating with us?"
"Absolutely not," she assured her, trying to see in the dim lighting without taking her glasses off. A hand, way larger than any of the kids', took her elbow and steered her away from a bench before she could walk into it. She scowled up at Gar, pulling her arm away when his eyebrow climbed over the top of his glasses.
"Don't worry," he started quietly before dragging his attention to Melvin. He bent down to match her height. "It looks like Raven wants to spend some time alone with you guys, so I'll leave you be." Pushing his glasses down his nose, he hit Melvin with perhaps the most charming grin in his arsenal. "I don't blame her, you three seem like a lot of fun."
Oh no.
Raven spotted it the moment before it happened. The wide eyes, the surprised parting of lips. Curse Garfield Freaking Logan and his beautiful smiles.
Melvin didn't - probably couldn't - move until Gar had risen back to his full height. Then she turned her starstruck blue eyes onto Raven and gave a pleading flutter of her eyelashes. "Aw, Raven, can't he eat with us?"
Her mouth fell open, trying to find the proper sentence to squash the girl's new celebrity crush in its infancy. Before she could say anything, someone cleared their throat behind her. "Table for five?"
"Yes!" Melvin blurted, while Raven stood there, stuck between the several rejections she'd been unable to voice.
She ran her tongue over her teeth, darting a glare at Gar only to find that he actually looked apologetic. Pleased, but overall apologetic. "I really didn't mean for that to happen," he whispered.
Raven rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Come on."
Timmy rejected the table the hostess first led them to, declaring a preference for booths, so instead of everyone having ample space and their own chairs, Raven found herself wedged between the wall and Garfield Freaking Logan. The siblings sat across from them, Teether across from Raven, Melvin across from Gar, and Timmy scribbling chaotically on his menu with a crayon between them.
In the end, the booth probably was a better option. Tall dividers afforded them privacy from other diners, and their location in the back corner of the restaurant meant there wasn't a table to the side of them either. Raven and Gar took off their glasses and head covers, him way less reluctantly than her.
"So," Gar began, and Raven tensed. She didn't want to face his probing. To her surprise, his attention sat solely on the trio across from them. It didn't ease her concern, though, and she kept a wary eye on him. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, but she'd grown very protective of the kids. "You guys look a little young to be Raven's bodyguards."
Startled, Raven snorted a tiny laugh and was rewarded by a brilliant smile. In retrospect, she wasn't sure why she was worried. Gar was kind, and gentle, and a dork.
Melvin giggled, too, and even Timmy afforded himself an amused grin. Teether wasn't paying much attention, preferring to chew on his crayons. Raven reached over the table and removed them from his mouth, demonstrating that he was meant to draw with them.
"Raven's our mom," Melvin corrected.
Forthwith, Gar choked on his own spit.
The girl raised an eyebrow. "Not our biological mom, dummy. She helps take care of us."
He nodded, running a hand down his chest. "Right, uh…" He tipped his head to the side, then glanced at Raven. "We skipped introductions."
Pointing at them each in turn, Raven gave their names. "Melvin, Timmy, and Teether. My, um, wards. More or less."
Gar's friendly grin had returned. "I'm Garfield. You can call me Gar."
"Are you Raven's boyfriend?"
Apparently Melvin was out to give Raven an aneurysm today.
"Uh, no." The stutter to his answer prompted Raven to glance over, and her eyes went wide to find a blush cresting his cheeks. Almost as alarming as the blush on hers. "We worked together on a movie."
Melvin hummed, propping her chin in her hand. "Do you want to be Raven's boyfriend?"
"Melvin," Raven chided, more than done with this line of questioning. They were supposed to be swapping stories of childhood antics with Gar, not giving her heart palpitations.
But Gar just laughed, running a hand through his hair. "She wouldn't take me," he answered, ignoring the squint she stared at him through. What was that supposed to mean? "I can tell she really likes you, though. Share your secrets? How did you meet?"
Just like that, the conversation turned. On one hand, the greater hand, Raven was grateful for the topic to be dropped. On the other hand, she couldn't stop thinking about the way he avoided actually answering Melvin's question. She wouldn't take him, but did he want her to?
By the time they left, Gar and the kids were best friends. He walked them to her car, opening the driver's door and leaning against it. "I had fun today, Raven. Did you?"
She eyed the kids in the back, Melvin helping the other two into their booster seats. "We did. They quite like you," she admitted reluctantly.
He gave a crooked, almost amused grin. "I know they had fun. I asked if you did."
Turning towards him again, she paused for a moment to look him over. For their goodbyes, he'd hooked his glasses on the neck of his shirt, leaving his affectionate gaze out in the open. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out why he wanted to be friends so badly. She wasn't particularly pleasant company.
"I suppose," she drawled out slowly, "that your presence wasn't exactly unwelcome."
"I'll take it." Then he leaned way into her personal space and waved to the kids. "Bye, my good dudes, we'll do this again."
Raven pushed him back. "Will we?"
He smiled, flicking his glasses open with dramatic flair and perching them on his nose. "Try and stay away, mama."