I usually make up names when I include their families in the stories because this is fiction and I want to keep it away from reality as much as I can. Just keep that in mind.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

*Flashback- July 2006*

"Should I ring the doorbell now?" Adam asked for the third time in the past few minutes when he looked over to his right side at a nervous looking Lita who didn't answer and kept looking straight ahead to said door, something she had been doing for the past five minutes. Even though he had a key to the house, he felt like ringing the doorbell would be better option for right now.

They had been together for a little over a year now and he had a plan to go to Toronto to visit his mother for a couple of days so he decided to invite her along so she could meet his mom. After all, he met her mother a couple of times already. She was really worried about whether or not his mom would like her and he thought it was cute, but he wouldn't tell her that because she would most likely get angry with him.

"Li," he said touching her arm slightly, that gesture causing her to jump a bit with him pulling his hand away. "Woah, calm down."

She turned a little so they were facing one another. "What do you want?" She seemed annoyed at the moment.

"What did I do?"

"What? Why are you asking me that?" She asked still pretty much annoyed.

He shrugged. "Well, you seem irritated and I just want to know if it was something I did."

She sighed as she shook her head. "No. I can't help but thinking what if your mom doesn't like me?"

"She will."

"And how do you know that?"

He sent her a reassuring smile. "Because I love you and I'm happy with you. She'll see that and she'll automatically love you too."

Lita rolled her eyes at him. "You're stupid. That's not how it works."

"Yes it is," he insisted. "She wants me to be happy and I'm happy with you therefore she too will be happy."

"Shut up." She rolled her eyes once again as she turned her attention back to the door, but to only turn to face him once again when the next words left his mouth.

He sighed. "I'll still love you even if she doesn't like you." He regretted those words once they left his mouth and the glare on Lita's face appeared. "I didn-" He was interrupted by meeting of her fist and his arm. "Ow," he said rubbing at the sore spot.

"That makes me feel so much better," she sarcastically replied. "Actually, punching you kind of did," the glare still present on her face.

"You know, if you hit me in front of her, then she most definitely will not like you." He tried to lighten the mood, but it clearly didn't work.

"I hate you."

He rolled his eyes. "I hate you too."

"Bite me."

He smirked. "Gladly but I don't think we should put a show on for the neighbors. And what if my mom walks out here? Not a good first impression huh?"

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, before opening her eyes and speaking. "Pervert."

"Hey, you're the one who suggested it."

"You're annoying."

"I try."

"Well, you don't have to try much."

"I think I'll ring the doorbell now."

Lita rolled her eyes, staring at the door once again. "Whatever."

"Li," he said getting serious for the moment before he could do as he said, placing one of her hands into his own, squeezing it. "Look, she will love you. I just know it. She likes what she's heard about you." Nothing he said was convincing her and she still didn't believe him. "Look, if you want to leave and feel uncomfortable staying here, we can stay at a hotel."

She shook her head, taking her hand out of his, glancing at him for a brief moment. "No. I just... It'll be fine. Just need to get it over with. And I'm not going to ask you to stay at a hotel when you're here to visit your mom. Yea, it might be a bit awkward, but I'll get over it."

"Well, just keep that in mind because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"Thanks, but no. Can we just get this over with? The sooner the better."

He sent her a reassuring smile with her returning the gesture. He placed a soft kiss on her lips before he rang the doorbell. They only waited about a couple of moments before a smiling Karen opened the door.

"You're finally here. Hi sweetie," she greeted the two with a smile and pulled her son in for a hug.

"Mom," he began to say when the two pulled apart. "This is Lita." He turned his attention to his girlfriend. "Li, meet mom."

"Hi," the two smiled at one another, with Karen saying more. "It's nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Same here," Lita replied, "Adam is always talking about you. It's pretty cute and great how close he is with you. I mean, I wish if we were ever to have a son he..." She stopped herself before she could say more when she realized what it was she was saying aloud, choosing that moment to looking down at the ground, missing the look of shock from the blonde mans face.

"Let's go inside. We can talk more there." Karen said breaking the awkward silence before leading the two into the house.

"Hey," Adam grabbed Lita's wrist before they could get any further into the house. "You okay?" She simply nodded. "You sure? I mean-"

"Yes," she interrupted him. "Let's go. I'm sure your mom is wondering what happened and why we aren't with her." She walked off following his mother with him doing the same.

*End of Flashback*

Lita sighed as she sat in her car thinking about the first time she met Karen. Sure she was completely nervous and it was sort of awkward at first, but thankfully the rest of the visit had gone by very smoothly. She talked to the older woman on the phone multiple times and visited a couple of more times with Adam. It was nice getting know his mother who even told Lita she felt like the redhead was the daughter she never had. Yea, sure she still feels that way, Lita shook her head, she probably hates me now.

She looked over at the house she was parked outside of. She was dreading this. Instead of Ethan staying with Adam after the weekend, he started on Saturday because she had the night shift which she didn't know when she told Adam she would keep him for that weekend when she stayed with him for the week. Her schedule didn't allow her to meet Adam's mom so far while she was here, but she was off today so she decided she would just get it over with. The sooner she got it over with, the better. She spent the whole day trying to come with the courage to go to his house and face his mom and finally found it that evening. Even though it was only seven at night, she hoped it wasn't too late to pop up. Well, she did call Adam who said it was fine.

This is the part when you open the door and get out. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she opened them again and got out of the car, walking towards Adam's house. She stood outside the door on the porch for a couple of minutes before she raised her hand and rung the door bell.

"Hey," Adam smiled at her when he opened the door to see here standing there.

"Hi," came her simple reply. He could tell she was feeling anxious just like the first time she met his mom over six years ago. He actually saw her car pull up about twenty minutes ago, but he wasn't going to say something to her. This was also the first time she was going to enter his house for the first time... at least voluntarily. He didn't understand why she was avoiding it and probably never would.

"Would you like to come inside?" He asked after a while.

She shook her head. "Not really." He was expecting that answer. "But I guess yes."

He said nothing, simply nodding and stepping aside to allow her to enter the house. He shut the door behind them and led her to the living room where his mom was currently with Ethan. The two were working on some sort of puzzle together.

"Mommy!" Ethan said when he looked up after he heard his parents walk into the room. He put a piece of the puzzle that was in his hand on the table before he got up and ran over to her, hugging her.

"Hey sweetie," she smiled down at him after the hug ended.

His smile suddenly turned into a frown. "Are you taking you with me? I don't wanna leave daddy and grandma."

"You don't have to. You can still stay here."

"Then why are you here?" He asked confused.

"Because I wanted to see you." A fake pout formed on her face. "You didn't want to see me?"

"Yes, I wanted to see you," he smiled at her to which she returned the gesture. "Come on," he grabbed her hand and pulled her further into the living room and near the couch. "Help me and grandma finish this puzzle." He sat down on the couch waiting for his mother to follow suit.

"Hi," Lita greeted Karen who smiled at her.

"Hello. How have you been?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"Good." And then an unpleasant silence followed.

Well this is as awkward as I thought it would be, Lita thought as she finally took a seat next to Ethan.

"Would you like something to drink?" Adam asked his ex, breaking the silence.

Yea, some vodka to make this bearable. "No thank you," she shook her head.

It was pretty quiet for a while with both Lita and Karen helping Ethan with the puzzle. "All done!" The little boy announced excitedly.

"Good job sweetie."

"Thank you mommy."

"Ethan, there's still time until your bedtime," Adam began to say from his seat on the couch near the one where the other three were sitting on, "Do you want to go play outside? We could play basketball." He knew his mom wanted to talk to Lita, which is why he wanted to give them some time alone.

"Is mommy going to play with us too?"

"No," Lita answered before Adam could. "Mommy needs to talk to grandma. I'll come out later. Is that okay?" Ethan simply nodded.

"Let's go buddy," with that said, the father-son duo got up from their respective spots and left the room to go out and play in the back, allowing for the two women to have some time for a conversation.

It was pretty much silent for the next couple of minutes after Adam and Ethan left. Lita was avoiding any eye contact at all with Karen. She didn't know what to say but fortunately, or maybe unfortunately for her, Karen spoke up first. "Why did you keep Ethan away from his father? Why didn't you tell Adam about Ethan when you were pregnant? From what I heard, you didn't tell Adam about his son until her showed up to your house and saw Ethan himself."

"I tried calling him when I found out I was pregnant," Lita replied after a while, finally looking up at Karen. "I called him for a couple of months but he kept ignoring my calls. I even sent him a letter which he chose to ignore as well. He kept avoiding any of my contact tries. And then I gave up."

"Okay, I understand that. But why didn't you let Christian tell him?"

Dejavu. Same questions Adam kept asking me. "I didn't want him to find out from someone else. I wanted to tell him myself. This wasn't Christians news to share with him."

"It doesn't matter whose news it was to share. You should have done whatever you could have in order to tell Adam about Ethan even if you didn't want someone else to do it. That was your only option if he was ignoring you. He had every right to be a part of his sons way before you actually let him." Lita was about to say something, but Karen continued. "Were you ever going to tell him if he didn't come back and see Ethan himself?"

She wasn't surprised that Karen was seemingly blaming all of this on her and not even trying to understand that Adam was partially to blame too. Sure when he ignored her calls he didn't know what she wanted, but maybe he should have answered her call just once to see what she wanted. Maybe when Christian told him to answer her calls because she wanted to tell him something, he should have listened instead of getting angry at Christian for giving her his new number.

"Honestly, I don't know. I didn't even know where he was so I don't know how I would have even told him."

"Did Ethan ever ask you about his dad?"

Lita nodded. "Yes. Like a couple of weeks before Adam showed up."

"If Ethan had told you he wanted to meet Adam, what would you have done?" No answer. "Would you have told him you don't know where he is or would you have asked Christian for help so Ethan could meet his father?"

"I would do anything for Ethan, so I guess I would have let Christian tell Adam if it came down to that."

"But you wouldn't do anything for Adam?"

Lita shook her head. "Had you asked me that question years ago then I would have said 'yes', but not so much anymore. I don't owe him anything."

"So you feel no remorse keeping a father and son away from one another?"

Lita fought the urge to groan. This was getting really annoying. "I did what I could and he's the one who kept ignoring me. He's the one who left without even saying bye or explaining anything. I'm not the only one to blame. It shouldn't even matter now. The two are getting to know one another now. I'm not keeping anyone away from anyone now."

Karen was about to reply, but Ethan and Adam entered the living room once again. "Mommy," Ethan began to say when he approached his mother, "daddy said it's time to go to sleep now. Will you tell me a bedtime story tonight?"

Um, yes! Anything to end this horrid conversation. She didn't want to say what she was about to, but still... "Are you sure you don't want daddy or grandma to read you one?"

"I want you to."

She nodded. "Okay. Brush your teeth and I'll be up in a minute." He nodded and smiled. He gave his grandmother a hug and kiss and went upstairs to do as Lita said.

"We can continue this after you're done with Ethan," Karen said to which Lita simply nodded. She really didn't want to continue this with the older woman at all.

The redhead got up from the couch and was about to go up the stairs and into Ethan's room before she realized she didn't know where his room was. But Adam told her before she could ask. She went to his room to see he had already brushed his teeth and was waiting for her. She tucked him in and read him his bedtime story. He had been sleeping for a couple of minutes now, but she decided to stay a little bit longer in the room after he fell asleep, maybe it was to avoid any type of conversation with Karen, hoping that the older woman would go to bed soon herself. Or maybe it was because she missed her son and she just wanted to see him even if all he was doing was sleeping. Somehow just watching him, even if he was just sleeping, made her feel better about everything. He always made her feel like everything was right in the world. Or at least with her.

She was just about to turn off the lamp on his night table and leave the room when a certain item caught her eyes. It was a picture frame with a picture of her and Adam in it from her birthday a couple of months before he left. How things were much different back then. She was actually happy to be with him and now she always dreaded when she had to see him. But she always dealt with it for her son. For their son.

"He found that picture," she turned around to see Adam standing in the doorway of the room, "and asked if he could have it and I let him. He kept it on the night table so I decided to frame it for him." She simply nodded, putting the picture back down in its place.

It was quiet for a moment until Lita spoke up. "Well," she said turning to look at a sleeping Ethan, "he's sleeping so I'm just going to leave now."

He nodded. "Okay."

She leaned in and place a kiss on top of her sons head. "Good night sweetie. I love you." She got up and walked outside of the room towards Adam who closed the door, leaving it open slightly.

"Thanks for coming. She wanted to see you."

She simply nodded. "Yea, no problem. Bye." She was about to walk past him but stopped when she heard him say something.

"I'll walk you to the door."

She shook her head. "You don't have to. I'll lock the door myself."

"I want to lock both of them. You can't lock both of the locks."

"Right." They started to walk down the stairs, but Lita stopped midway, turning around so she could ask him something. He wasn't paying much attention at that moment so he collided into her and she would have been sent down the stairs had he not grabbed her by the waist when he realized what just happened and what would have happened if he didn't think fast.

"Sorry about that," Adam started to apologize, still keeping a hold around her waist. She had her hand on her chest like she was trying to contain her fast beating heart, looking down at the ground.

Lita looked up at him after she felt her heart going back it's normal pace. Bad idea, she thought as she felt herself getting caught in the spell of his eyes. They were sharing one step and were way too close to comfort. Psht. Please. You wish he was closer. You wish he would get closer and kiss you. Shut up. You sure as hell wouldn't object to that. You would just kiss him back. Shut up. Aw, now you're thinking if he would do that. Just do it yourself because you know you want to. "Shut up." She winced when she realized those words left her mind and came out of her mouth. Now he was looking at her confused and was probably thinking she was crazy. She carefully back down one step with him backing up one and unwrapping his arm around from her, with a step now separating the two. "I... um... Thanks."

It became uncomfortably silence with the duo looking anywhere but at one another with the redhead breaking the silence, looking back up at him. "Where is you mom? I should probably say bye to her too."Hopefully she forgets to continue that hell of a conversation.

"Oh, she's in the living room," the blonde replied, looking back up at her as well.

"Okay. I'm just going to go say bye and then leave." She turned around and headed towards the living room without waiting for a response.

Adam was still standing in the middle of the stairs thinking about what just happened. Unknown to her, he was tempted to pull her closer to himself and hug her and kiss her and just tell her everything, but he didn't think that was the time for that. Especially with Ethan and his mom present. This wasn't something he wanted to tell their four year old and he didn't want his mom to witness anything even though she already knew the truth. He didn't know when the time would come to tell her the truth as to why he left, but he hoped it would be soon. Maybe if she knew then she wouldn't be so angry with him and things could work to go back to things were before he left. He wasn't naive, he knew it would take a long time for things to become even remotely close to before, if that was even going to happen in the first place, after he told her. He knew he was in love with her, he always would be. He just knew that she still loved him as well deep down inside. They were in their thirties for goodness sake. Why was this so hard? Why did it seem like they were teenagers? Why were they acting like it?

"Hi," Lita said when she entered the living room and walked towards Karen who was sitting on the couch looking through the photo album Lita had given her earlier. She continued after the other woman looked up from the album and smiled at the redhead. "I was just about to leave so I thought I would say bye to you."

"It was nice seeing you again," Karen said getting up from the couch so she was face-to-face with Lita. "Thank you for the pictures. Thank you for letting me be a part of my grandsons life. I want to apologize for the way I acted earlier-"

Lita shook her head and interrupted Karen before she could continue any further. "It's okay. I understand why you were upset with me. I did keep Ethan away from Adam as well as you for his whole life. I just... I wanted to tell Adam myself. I didn't want him to find out some other way. As bad as it sounds, I wasn't really thinking about anyone else. The only person I ever thought about when I found out I was pregnant and after Ethan was born was Adam. I didn't even tell my mom about the pregnancy until I was four months pregnant and I had seen her twice after I found out."

Karen nodded. "I understand, but I still would have liked to known about him before." Well, get over it,Lita thought. She thought Adam's mom had every right to be upset with her but she really needed to get over it. "Do you have to leave now? I got to know Ethan these past couple of days, but I would like to know more from you."

"Like what?" Lita asked.

Karen shrugged. "Anything really. Any interesting stories about him. What he was like even though much probably hasn't changed since he's still a little kid."

"I guess I could stay a bit longer," Lita said when she sat down on the couch with Karen doing the same and Adam joining them a couple of minutes later. She stayed another hour telling Karen whatever questions she had about Ethan as well as stories about him. The visit had started off as very uncomfortable and thankfully, ended up much better than she expected.

Lita was half way home when she looked through her rear view mirror and saw an unusual amount of smoke coming out from the back of her car. She pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car. She didn't know much about cars, but she did know a lot smoke coming out of either end of a car was never a good thing.

She decided to call up a tow truck that would take her car to the nearest garage and have her car looked at. Once that was done, she knew she had to call someone else so they could take her home. She could have walked because it wasn't that far of a walk, only a little over ten minutes, but she really didn't want to. She was just tired. Mentally, physically, and emotionally tired.

She unlocked her phone once again and dialed a familiar number. "Hey," she replied when she heard the voice on the other end greet her. "Um, I have a small problem. A car problem actually. If it isn't too much of a hassle, could you pick me up and take me home? I'm actually near the 7-11 on Ingleside." She waited for the person to reply to her. She smiled when he said yes. "Thanks so much." She hung up and waited for the tow truck to get her car as well as the person to pick her up.

"Thanks," Lita said when her friend picked her up and drove her home.

"Of course," he replied when he stopped in front of the apartment building she lived in.

"I just didn't want to call Dawn because she can be very annoying sometimes." Dawn knew how Lita was going to meet Adam's mom for the first time in years and Lita knew Dawn would bug her with questions. "And I didn't want to call Adam. I just... Whatever. I remember you telling me that Sophia was staying with your brother's family for a couple of days so I was hoping it wouldn't be a big deal if I called you."

"It's not," John reassured her.

She smiled at him. "Well, thank you once again. Bye." She was about to leave the car when he greeted her bye as well, but she stopped when she got out of the car and then sat back down in it immediately.

"You okay?" John asked with concern present on his face as well as in his voice.

She simply shook her head. She was about to say something, but she didn't, instead raising a hand to cover her mouth because she felt like she would end up vomiting if she opened up her mouth.

"How about I walk you in and make sure you get in safely?" He suggested to which she nodded in agreement. He parked the car nearby, got out of the car, and helped her out, walking her inside the building and to her apartment. He took the keys from her and opened the door. She felt the sudden urge to vomit once she entered the house so she rushed to the bathroom and did just that.

John closed and locked the door behind him as he followed her inside. She was already done by the time he entered the bathroom. "What's wrong?" He asked while she rinsed her mouth and washed her face.

"I don't know," she shook her head leaving the bathroom. "I'm just really tired. I think it's stress with everything going on. Not a big deal."

"How about you sit down on the couch," he began to say when they were in the living room, "and I get you some water or something to drink?" She shook her head and was about to protest until he beat her to it. "No. Sit down, don't argue with me." She sighed but easily gave in, sitting down with him going to get her water. He handed her a glass to which she accepted and drank some.

"Thank you." She sat the glass on the table in front of them.

"Are you feeling better? I mean, I know water isn't going to help much right away but still."

"No, still feel like shit. I think I probably forgot to take my medicine or something today because my head is killing me."

"You're on pills?"

"Yes. My doctor wrote me a prescription. Supposed to help with my headaches and it does which is why I shouldn't have forgotten to take one. I should have taken it before..." She trailed off. She was supposed to take it around the time she was at Adam's house but she was pretty stressed out about how her conversation with his mother would go that she forgot.

"I'm not going to leave you. I'll stay until you fall asleep or something. You know, in case you need anything."

"You don't have to. I can take care of myself."

He shrugged. "I don't care. I want to, so I'm going to. End of discussion."

"I could kick you out."

"I just said 'end of discussion'. Don't argue with me." She stuck her tongue out at him to which he rolled his eyes. "Very mature hot stuff."

"Stop calling me that Johnny."

"No can do."

"Since you're going to stay here for a little while longer, you wanna watch a movie or something? I don't want to sleep."

"Sure. No chick flicks."

She scrunched her nose in disgust. "Johnny, do I look like the type who watches chick flicks? Sure, I've seen some but that's because Dawn practically begs for me to watch them with her."

"So what then?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Let's see what's on Netflix."

The two spent the next fifteen minutes arguing over what movie they should watch. They couldn't even agree on what genre they wanted to watch. Lita wanted to watch horror while John wanted to watch comedy. They finally agreed on White Chicks when they passed that in the comedy section when the redhead revealed she never watched it before. John was surprised at her revelation saying it was something worthy of watching so she agreed to it.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the reviews.

Just a little teaser: Next chapter is going to be fun. ;)