"How was college?" AJ asked once hearing Punk come home, watching him walk into the living room where she was, keeping an eye on Liesel who was lying on a mat, awake and looking around with interest.
"It was good." Punk nodded, "I managed to finish my project." Punk said, "So now I can move onto something different. Thankfully." He collapsed on the couch beside AJ.
He enjoyed college very much. His age didn't actually make a difference. There was people all ages in his class. He enjoyed learning new things. Something he was never afforded at school. And with a new baby, although he missed her, it was good to get out the house for a few hours and do some drawing.
"Are you starting something new?" AJ asked him, turning to look up at him as he nodded.
"Yeah, but I don't know what yet. This is a big piece of my course. Everyone has already started. This girl in my class is drawing the Chicago skyline… you should see it, Ape." Punk shook his head with amazement, just thinking back to seeing the started drawing.
"You could come up with something better." She argued, resting into him. She was completely one hundred percent not telling him about her run in with Jack earlier. Especially since Jack had yet again put his hands on her. Punk would just go completely ballistic, and she didn't want him wasting his time on him anymore, "I'm starting back at the studio tomorrow." AJ smiled, looking up at him.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Punk asked her with concern, "I mean… you've just finished your medication. And you only had Liesel three weeks ago." He said, worried for AJ's health.
"I'll be fine." AJ smiled, "The days you can't watch her, I can just take her with me. Take her mat and lay her down while I teach. As long as she's fed and changed, she's always good as gold." AJ stated true facts, smiling over to Liesel as Punk looked down too, swelling with pride as his daughter looked up at the ceiling, her little fists curling as her legs wriggled in her tiny baby grow. She was growing so fast, he didn't care if she was just three weeks old, she was growing too fast for his liking.
"Well if you think you're ready." Punk said as AJ nodded.
"I am." AJ sighed with desire to dance again, "I've missed it so much." She rolled her head back, "I hope I haven't lost it."
"Don't be daft." Punk said, "You never lose that sort of talent."
"I hope so." She said, resting into him as he wrapped his arm around her, relaxing on the couch whilst fixing his eyes onto the tv. She looked up at him with a smile, an idea brewing that they'd talked about before, "I think I know what you could draw next."
It had been a few weeks since Dean had been visiting Toni and Elise for a few hours each night. Some nights were easy, some nights were hard. Each day, he was reminded about how much he didn't know about his daughter. Like when when he had no clue about her nut allergy and decided to give her a chocolate bar containing nuts. He was completely clueless, but he knew he had to stick in there. It wasn't like it was a new job where he could easily have quit and went somewhere else. It was his daughter. His little girl. He had to get to know her. He wanted nothing more than to be with her.
His relationship with Elise was progressing well. Some nights he would stay over through no fault of his own, other nights he would just go home after a cuddle on the sofa. But the most important part of all of this, was him getting to see his daughter. He and Elise could focus on their relationship in the future, for now, he wanted his daughter to be his main focus, and Elise was perfectly ok with that.
Tonight was a very scary night in Dean's opinion. Elise had gone out to work a night shift for a change that she had been asked, and since she was completely confident with him looking after Toni, he was left on dad duty, by himself. Which was the most terrifying thing he'd done yet.
"What'd you want for dinner, Toni?" Dean asked, sitting on the couch where Toni sat with her legs crossed, head buried into her DS, well… at least that's what he thought it was called. She was a quiet girl. He thought she'd be loud and obnoxious like Elise was. But she was quiet and timid. But was allowing him into her life slowly but surely.
"Not nuts." She giggled at his unknown fatherly mistake a few days ago.
"Ah ha." He said sarcastically, "You got jokes." He nodded as she grinned.
"Don't know." Toni shrugged, "Pizza?" She looked up.
"Why you always gotta eat pizza? Don't you like other things?" He asked her frustratedly as she looked up at him with a scowl, just like her mother.
"I do. But I want pizza." She said.
"Well can we at least get a topping on it?" He asked, he was fed up of living on cheese pizza for the past few weeks.
"But I don't like yucky stuff on it." She shook her head.
"Then we'll get half what I want, half what you want. Sound good?" He asked.
"Ok… but you can't have any of my half." She smiled as he nodded.
"Ok. I'll stick to my side." He put his hands up, "While I order it and wait on it coming, maybe you should go for your bath." He suggested.
"But I need help." She looked up at him, switching her game off and folding her arms.
"You can't go yourself?" He asked as she shook her head, watching her father run his hands through his hair with a sigh. She could sense he never really knew what to say or do around her, but she made jokes from it. In a way she was very much like him. Always making jokes in awkward situations.
She didn't know if she completely trusted him. But she called him dad and let him bath her. They were half way there. She enjoyed having a father around. And she seen her mom was a lot happier. He may have been a little useless and didn't know what he was doing ninety percent of the time, but she could see he was trying, and she was a near five year old.
Dean got her in the bath eventually and sat on the toilet seat, watching her closely as she splashed and enjoyed the water. At times he couldn't even believe she was his. She was beautiful, and so up beat and energetic. She took a lot after Elise, but he did see a lot in him now that he knew she was his.
"Mommy says you're staying tonight." She said, "And you have to get up in the morning and take me to ballet." She said, looking across at him as he nodded.
"Yeah… yeah, what time is it you go again?" He asked.
"9." She said as Dean rolled his eyes at the early time. To him, that was still during the night.
"Don't you like football or hockey, or… something that doesn't involve pink and early rises?" He asked.
"I like hockey. But mommy says I shouldn't talk about it because I like the LA Kings and uncle Phil would beat me." She giggled.
"Why don't you like the hawks?" Dean asked, taking quite an offence to her decision in hockey teams to support.
"Dunno." She shrugged, "Everyone likes them."
"You just like being different, don't you?" He smiled as she nodded.
"Yeah." She nodded, "Who do you like?" She asked, throwing her rubber ducks around in the bath as he continued to sit on the toilet seat across from her.
"I like the hawks." Dean said, "Your grandpa Jack would have your head on a plate if he found out you didn't support them."
"Mom said we don't talk about grandpa." Toni said bluntly whilst looking at her father.
"Right." Dean nodded, realising that was stupid to say, "Yeah, we don't."
"Grandpa makes mommy upset. Grandpa came here one night and hit mommy." She said so oblivious to the significance.
"What?" Dean shook his head.
"He hit her and she was crying. She told me to call uncle Phil if he ever came round again." Toni said.
"When was this?" Dean asked with clenched fists by his side.
"Dunno. Can't remember." Toni shrugged as Dean nodded, not wanting to make a deal about it, but completely seething inside. How dare Jack come and put his hands on his Elise, his own daughter, and how dare he do it in front of Toni, his daughter. He'd be having words with Elise when she came home.
After getting Toni out the bath and getting her in clean pyjamas, pizza came just in time where they sat up at the dinner table to tuck into.
The box was in place with their halves facing them, and Dean was so glad he could have some pepperoni on his pizza for the first time in a while.
"Have you ever even tried it with pepperoni on it?" He asked her as she swung her legs back and forth whilst sitting across from him, enjoying her very plain and boring pizza.
"No." Toni shook her head.
"Then try it. You can't tell me that you hate it when you haven't tried it." He said, handing her over the slice as she took it. He watched her closely as she took a bite, her face lighting up as she oddly enjoyed the new food she'd yet to try, "Like it?" He smiled.
"That's nice." Toni smiled with enthusiasm, "Can I have that half?" She asked as Dean's smile dropped, scowling as he turned around the pizza box, so it seemed he was yet again stuck with boring cheese pizza. But… his daughter was happy, so he guess he was.
"You know you don't have to do this." Punk chuckled slightly as he stood across from AJ who stood in a bath robe.
"I want to." She smiled, "See how good you are at realism." She grinned, walking by him and standing at the edge of the bed, "Where do you want me?" She asked as he scratched his head with thought, clutching a blank notepad.
"Eh… I mean-"
"You're acting like you've never seen a naked girl before, never mind me naked." She raised her eyebrows, "Where do you want me?" She put her hands on her hips.
"On the bed." He pointed as he took a seat at the centre of the bottom of the bed on a chair he'd brought up from the kitchen. At first he thought she was joking about this, but she was deadly serious. He always found it hard to draw things from real life, so he supposed it was a challenge for him. He just hoped he wouldn't get too distracted.
He watched as she dropped the bath robe, turning away to make sure he didn't burst out of his jeans, not sure if this was such a good idea after all.
"Oh, Phil… stop being such a baby." She hissed, sitting against the headboard, completely naked, hair naturally messy and full around her face as she watched him look at her, seeing a lump in his throat that he swallowed, "What is wrong with you?" She laughed.
"Shut up, alright." He hissed back like a child, "How about I sit there with no clothes on and you come draw me." He tested as she chuckled.
"I can only draw stickmen." She said, "I don't have all night you know." She said as he grabbed a pencil.
"Fold your legs over in front of you." He said as she placed one leg on top of the other whilst they lay out in front of her.
"Paint me like one of your French girls, Jack." She joked as he laughed, watching her place her hand on her head with exaggeration.
"C'mon, you're making me uncomfortable as it is." He said as she laughed.
"Ok, I'm sorry." She apologised but with a grin.
"Place your right arm over your stomach, and the other arm up." He said, "And then place your finger by your mouth. Like…. Yeah." He nodded as she carried out the actions.
"Yes, sir." She smiled, "How long are you gonna be with this?"
"I don't know." Punk said whilst holding the blank pad out in front of him, "If you want a good outcome, a few hours."
"I bet you it will only take you fifteen minutes. You just want to look at me naked." She said as he laughed, beginning to sketch away, looking up every few seconds past the notepad, smiling as he seen AJ smirk everytime he looked up.
"Why you gotta look so serious?" She asked him whilst staying as still as she could be. She wasn't uncomfortable at all. Of course he was. He was a man and she was naked. But she enjoyed this. And she knew he could really draw. She couldn't wait to see the drawing when it was done.
"I don't even know if I'm alright with some pervy teacher looking at this." He admitted, continuing to draw and study his girlfriends body as she laughed.
"Well that's all that pervy teacher is gonna have. You get this every night." She smiled.
"Are you trying to get me hard? Because I can't concentrate." He said frustratedly as she chuckled, "Stop smiling, you're meant to be emotionless."
"I'm not trying to get you hard." She spat, "I wouldn't do that to you that isn't fair." She smiled.
"Stop smiling, April." He said.
"Sorry." She straightened her face to get her smile away, watching him closely as he looked to and from her and the paper. Too her, it looked like he was just drawing random squiggles, but she knew he'd create a masterpiece on that piece of paper. Well… she hoped he would.
Around two hours later. After all the sketching, the jokes, the final details and the surroundings around her portrait, he was finally finished. He wasn't sure if he was ok with handing such a private picture in as a final project to his course, but how did these people know it was his girlfriend? And like AJ said, they got a sketched drawing, he got the real deal every night.
"Can I see it?" AJ asked whilst hopping off the bed and putting her bath robe back on, walking over to him and sitting on his lap, looking down at the drawing as he mouth gaped, "Oh my God… that really looks like me." She took the paper and examined it. He had every down to a T. Her hair, her eyes, her… body.
"If you don't like it you can say-"
"Phil, it's amazing. It's so… real." She said, "You have to hand this in." She insisted as he smiled.
"You'd be ok with that?" He asked. It was obviously a very intimate picture that he couldn't hand in without her permission.
"Of course I would." She said, "But I want a copy for myself to." She said as he nodded, "Thank you." She grinned, burying her head into his neck whilst she sat across his lap, pressing a kiss on his neck as he smiled.
She pulled away, watching as his eyes followed hers, looking down as her neck suddenly caught his eye, spotting an unusual red marking around it that he hadn't noticed.
"What is this?" He asked, grazing his hand over the red, almost hand gripping mark that was around her neck.
Hey guys! Just letting you know I'm gonna take a short break from writing. I'm not receiving much, if not, any reviews on this story and I guess it's sort of kicking away my inspiration. I'm grateful to those who do review, but it's just sorta leaving me down a little. I'm not receiving a quarter of the reviews I used to get, and I'm wondering if it's the story people just don't like. I'm not sure… but I'm just going to take a break anyway. Thanks for those who are supporting. I'll try update again soon.