Page 81 of To Hate Adam Connor
He turned to his dad and threw his arms around his neck. “I don’t want you to cry, Daddy. I won’t leave you and go to fly again. I promise.”
Adam met my eyes as he held on to his son. “No, you won’t leave me. I’m not letting you go. Not anymore.”
I will not swoon.
I will not swoon.
I will not swoon.
***
“Did you put the note on the door?” Aiden whispered from his hiding place under the wood table.
I was hiding behind the couch. “I did. Don’t worry, he’ll see it.”
“You put the gun where he can see it too?”
“Yup.”
He giggled. “Do you think he’ll be angry?”
“Angry? Psshhh, he’ll have the best time of his life. He’ll thank us, trust me.”
After Adam left, I stayed with Aiden. An hour later when Dan the Man joined us, we convinced him to go out on a scavenger hunt for us. You know, so he could get the necessary things for a fun movie night: pizza, candy, snacks, M&Ms, burgers…the list went on and on. As soon as he was out the door—and I swear I saw a small smile playing on his lips—we hatched a plan to get back at Adam for letting Adeline take him away to New York. I knew he’d had nothing to do with it, but still, we were out for revenge—and a little bit of fun—so it was as good an excuse as any in our book. More importantly, it put the biggest smile on Aiden’s face when I first came up with it.
We called to find out when Adam would be home and left a note on the door.
Are you ready to cry all the tears, Adam Connor?
Catch us if you can!
PS. Just because we felt sorry for you, you can use the gun. It’s loaded.
Right under the note, there was the smallest size Nerf Super Soaker gun you can find. Aiden and I had the bigger ones. In fact, they were so big that Aiden kept having trouble holding his up.
We heard the door open and then Adam’s voice trickled in.
“Aiden?”
I held my finger up to my mouth and warned Aiden to stay quiet. He nodded, but couldn’t hold back the small giggle that escaped his lips. He looked so damn happy. I grinned at him and got ready to blast Adam with freezing cold water.
I tilted my head slightly up, only enough that my eyes and forehead were visible, and saw him walk into the big opening between the kitchen and the living room where we were hiding as quietly as we could.
“Dan? Anybody home?”
Another giggle from Aiden.
I checked again and saw that he hadn’t taken our game seriously: the gun was just hanging in his hand with the note we had attached to the door. So be it. We had warned him.
He walked farther into the room, closer to us.
I got Aiden’s attention and held up one finger—our signal. Then I opened my palm and mouthed Go.
We stood up at the same time, exactly when Adam was standing in between us, and blasted him with water from both sides. As the first stream of cold water hit his shirt, he opened his mouth in shock. I started laughing and pumping the gun to hit him with more water.
Aiden’s giggling was uncontrollable as he hit his dad’s stomach with more water.
Adam’s shocked eyes jumped between his son and me, then he lifted his little gun—no pun intended—and started shooting water at his son as he advanced on him. Aiden squealed when the first hit found its target and ran outside. There was another loaded gun waiting for him near the lounge chairs. That left me alone with his father.
