Chapter 17

(Cooper)

A reintroduction to the Playroom

“I love Christmas parties,” Zachy declared as they got out of the car. He was in reindeer overalls, but he’d been too afraid to pin one of his stuffies to the pocket for fear that the other little would take it away again.

It had hurt Cooper’s heart to leave it behind, but it would have hurt more to miss tonight and the Velvet Illusions Christmas party. It had meant going in three hours early and wrapping up the presentation at the start of their corporate gathering, but he and Todd had pushed to go first so their people, many of whom had different plans for the evening, wouldn’t miss out on too much of it.

Fortunately, it hadn’t taken much to get their bosses to agree, especially with all the overtime they’d put in recently. The bonus that had shown up on his paystub had almost made up for it too, only he’d rather have had the time with Gage and Zachy. Fortunately, they all had two whole weeks together after tonight, and Cooper had every intention of spending every minute of it with them.

Even though Gage had Zachy by the hand, Cooper took hold of his free one, glad that he did when he saw all the people milling around in the front room, waiting to sign in and receive their holiday baskets.

Zachy hugged it to his chest when it was handed to him, a bright stuffy beneath the wrapping paper, then he turned, handed it to Gage, and asked if he’d please put them all in the car.

“I can take them,” Cooper offered, hesitant to be left alone for fear he’d fuck up if Gage wasn’t there with him and Zachy.

“No, I’ve got them. You guys go see which activity you’d like to do first and I’ll catch up to you.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Cooper muttered, unable to keep his reluctance from showing.

“You’ve got this,” Gage assured him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “And Zachy is gonna make it extra easy by keeping hold of your hand the entire time, aren’t you sweet boy?”

“Uh-huh,” Zachy asked, rapidly nodding his head.

He’d pressed close to Cooper’s side too, his eyes a little wide. This was clearly one of the signs he was supposed to pick up on, but now that he had, he wasn’t certain what to do as Gage turned away. He didn’t want to be in the way of the others trying to get through, so he guided Zachy through the doors to the dungeon, where everything in the room had been rearranged and decorated to create a winter wonderland.

Despite how many people had still been coming through the door, the place was teeming with activity as pets and littles romped together. Zachy was skimming the room, no doubt looking for the friends he’d made, but he never tugged or made a motion to pull away. Instead, he started backing up towards the wall, still looking and unable to spot them.

“Why don’t we walk along the edge and see if we can’t find Ryu and Kayla?” Cooper asked, hoping he remembered their names right.

Zachy peered up at him with bright eyes and nodded, still clinging tight to his hand, so Cooper led, heading right, where there were fewer people, making it easier to spot someone. They were halfway around the room when a voice squealed Zachy’s name and Cooper turned to see a girl in a colorful skirt and top with an elf on it, rushing across the room, weaving in between people with no caretaker in sight. She and Zachy crashed together, jumping up and down and clinging to one another, which meant Cooper’s arm was jerked every which way because Zachy hadn’t let go of it. He’d praise him for that as soon as they were finished squealing and hugging the stuffing out of one another. Cooper decided the best thing he could do was keep them right where they stood until he could sort out if this was Kayla, because if it was, that meant Mama Mimzy would be hot on her heels.

Wait a minute.

Realization slapped Cooper in the face seconds later, when Mimzy stepped between people and spotted them, a stern look on her face.

“Kayla Marie, do we run around hollering and darting between people?” She asked when she’d reached her girl.

“No, ma’am.”

“Then what do we need to do?” Mimzy asked.

“Go back and walk the right way,” Kayla said solemnly.

Mimzy smiled at Zachy as she took her by the hand. “We’ll be right back.”

“We’ll be right here,” Cooper said as Zachy stepped back into his embrace, clearly pleased with that declaration.

“You did such a good job of keeping hold of my hand even when you were excited,” Cooper praised and reached into the pouch that was slung from his shoulder, retrieving two of the chocolate covered grapes he’d packed. He fed them to Zachy one at a time and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re such a good boy.”

Zachy squeezed his arm to his chest and clung to it, while Cooper was treated to a positive lesson on how to correct little behavior, as he watched Mimzy and Kayla emerge, hand in hand this time, her girl skipping along at her side, but never tugging. They’d even found Hank, Ryu and Gage.

“Well, it looks like our boy has a little smudge of chocolate on his lips, does that mean he earned himself a treat already?” Gage asked as he leaned in and kissed it away.

“He sure did. He followed your instructions to the letter, even when he was hugging and jumping up and down.”

“Then I owe him a treat too, don’t I,” Gage said, retrieving one of the strawberry bon-bons he carried.

He and Zachy had made them and everything, a fact Cooper had envied until Zachy had promised to make peanut butter ones with him. He couldn’t wait for the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the kitchen with him, listening to music and doing a bit of dancing.

There were Christmas movies playing on a screen in the corner of the room and a station set up to decorate cookies. There was someone in a Grinch costume reading stories, and a woman in a Jack Skellington outfit who was helping the littles paint Christmas ornaments.

“Ohh, I wanna go paint,” Kayla declared, but she waited, holding her Mommy’s hand still, while she waited to see if her friends were going to go with her.

“I wanna paint, too,” Zachy declared, while Ryu sucked his pacifier and nodded.

“Looks like we’re painting,” Mimzy declared, leading the way to the empty chairs at the table.

Cooper had never done an activity with Zachy like this. Was he supposed to help him, remain behind him like a Mommy was with her boy, or stand back farther, conversing the way some of the other caretakers were? When he glanced at Gage, looking to catch his eye, he got the distinct impression that the man was deliberately refusing to look his way. Okay, yeah, he was waiting to see what Cooper would do. To see if he’d need to step in, or if Cooper knew what the right choice was.

He didn’t though.

He pulled the chair out from Zachy and got him settled, then his boy turned and gazed up at him, hesitation in his eyes, and Cooper instantly felt the answer in his soul.

“Let’s roll up your sleeves,” Cooper offered, smiling when Zachy immediately nodded and offered him first one, then the other. Then he took the wet wipes from the backpack he carried and set them on the table where Zachy could reach. “Would you like me to watch?”

“Pweeze?”

“Of course,” Cooper said, resting his hands on the back of Zachy’s chair while he selected the piece he wanted to paint.

He chose a gingerbread house. There had been no doubt in Cooper’s mind that he would the moment he’d spotted it among the choices. While Zachy gathered brushes and selected the paints he wanted to use, one of the attendants squirted each one in an empty space on the tray she held, then placed it on the newspaper covered space in front of Zachy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gage standing off to the side with Mimzy and Hank, but he could feel the man’s eyes on him, and knew he’d be keeping watch over everything.

He'd watched Zachy craft dioramas, now he got to watch him paint with painstaking precision, tongue poking between his lips, fingers moving with slow, careful movements as he applied his colors.

“Daddy,” Zachy said, nibbling his lower lip as he looked up at him. “Can you ask if there’s any glitter?”

Nodding, Cooper stepped a few feet away to ask one of the attendants, who nodded and soon returned to Zachy to find out what colors he’d like to use.

“Orange and pink and red, pweese,” Zachy replied, doing such a good job of remembering his manners.

She returned with tiny bottles of each color, a brilliant idea when handing big shakers to littles could potentially result in a giant, sparkly mess.

Zachy set them near his pallet, sprinkling careful amounts in between adding a coat of paint to every section. Only when he had the base right did he go in with a tiny brush, applying details

Occasionally, Cooper would stroke his hair or slip a hand beneath the hood on the back of the long-sleeved t-shirt he wore with his overalls, making sure he wasn’t getting too hot. He was careful not to jostle him though.

When he’d finished, the attendant hung it up for him so it could dry, with his name on the back so none of them had to worry about whose was whose.

“So, what are you guys going to get into next?” Mimzy asked when the trio and Cooper had returned to where they’d been waiting.

The nod of acknowledgement Gage gave him felt amazing, even if he was the only one to know what it was for. No one else needed to. He’d let Zachy lead, and he’d shown Cooper exactly what he’d needed from him. Like a team.

He watched the littles glance around, checking out everything there was to see, until Zachy pointed towards the corner with the stories, and their whole group headed that way. Settling in on the floor never looked easy for Hank, yet he got down there and got Ryu situated in his lap so he could hug him while they listened to the story. Cooper wasn’t sure which lap Zachy would choose when he and Gage sat side by side, only he perched in Coopers, thumb in his mouth as he settled in with his head on Cooper’s shoulder. Kayla and Mimzy were on the other side of them, legs stretched in front of them, Kayla in the V between Mimzy’s.

An attendant passed around cookies and milk as the story started, so Cooper tucked a napkin in the front of Zachy’s overalls, knowing how much he hated to get his clothes messed up. They never filled the cups too full, which helped immensely, especially when they got so engrossed in the story that they forgot to pay attention to what they were doing.

Cooper steadied Zachy’s hand several times, ensuring it got to his lips, then dabbing them to make sure he didn’t dribble milk and cookie crumbs. Zachy was so warm and cozy in his arms and really seemed to love the reading of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. He was so relaxed, sucking away on his finger, which reminded Cooper to broach the subject of a binky later, so he could pick some up. Even Cooper was drawn into the tale, as disappointed as the littles when it was over.

They rushed to the storyteller, hugging and thanking her, then back to their caretakers, immediately grabbing their hands. In just the short time they’d been there, he’d noticed Zachy watching Ryu and Kayla, taking any clues he needed from them. He saw Ryu get distracted by a mouse doing a pirouette, and Hank stopping and dropping an arm over his shoulders while they watched. As the night wore on, those lessons they’d been trying to teach them began to seep into his brain. Each of them let their little lead, until a time came when they needed to take over. He saw what Gage had been trying to explain to him about Ryu and Hank, and how they’d promptly said their goodbyes at ten-thirty, after Ryu had yawned and buried his face against Hank’s chest, whining about the movie they’d been watching keeping him awake.

Kayla was next to go, a half hour later, but Zachy had wanted to play Candyland, where the caretakers used the spinners, and their littles were the pieces on the board. The line was finally short enough to get into, and Zachy snuggled between them, sucking his thumb until it was their turn.

“I think he’s getting tired, but I don’t want to pull him away if he isn’t ready to go,” Cooper whispered to Gage as Zachy took his place on the board, “Are you picking up on the same thing or am I way off base?”

“No, you’re not. Zachy’s been waiting to play for so long, he tends to try to push himself to the limits of his endurance, you spotted it before it could get that far,” Gage said. “This needs to be our last activity.”

“Do we just tell him that, or try and gauge if he’s really as tired as we think?” Cooper asked.

“What does your gut say?”

“That he waited around to play this game,” Cooper said.

“Exactly.”

Zachy hopped, skipped and jumped along the colors every time it was his turn to more, a bright smile on his face, but his eyes were dropping whenever he had to wait too long. He won a great big rainbow gummy bear which promptly passed to Gage before taking Cooper’s hand.

“It’s time for a tired little boy to go home now,” Cooper said, keeping his voice firm, but kind and gentle so Zachy would know he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I seepy,” Zachy said around the thumb he was sucking.

“That’s okay, you can sleep on the way home,” Cooper said. “Let’s go collect your ornament and our coats.”

“Okie, Daddy,” Zacky said, smiling around that thumb, those tired eyes lighting up. “It okay, right, I call you Daddy again ‘cause you was Daddy tonight?”

Cooper’s voice caught in his throat, but his arms opened wide as he sank to his knees in front of Zachy and hugged him close.

“It’s better than okay,” Cooper murmured against Zachy’s belly. “It’s positively perfect.”