The Good Life

*Alex*

I was supposed to be at work today, Friday, but Jack had to go to his office to work on his Christmas collection and I didn’t feel like waking up this morning so I called into work sick. Once again Izzy and I were going to be spending father daughter time together. She was sitting couch next to me with her Sippy cup full of apple juice and we were watching Caillou. Thank God the show was finally ending so I could turn the channel and watch something I wanted to watch. As soon as I saw the credits started I picked up the remote and turned to ESPN so I could watch the highlights to the football game I missed last night.

“No Daddy!” Izzy yelled at me as soon as I changed the channel. “Caillou!!”

“It went off Izzy. So now we can watch Sports Center!” I tried to make it sound like a good thing, but of course she wasn’t buying it.

“Caillou!” She yelled again furrowing her small eyebrows.

“Izzy I don’t think I can take another episode of Caillou.” I groaned.

“Daddy!!!” She began to cry. Of course I picked up the remote to turn back to freaking Caillou. She quickly stopped “crying” and turned her attention back to the TV.

I sighed and picked up my phone so I could text Jack, maybe he could entertain me.

To Jack:
Your daughter is really mean.

He answered me quickly which let me know he was out of his meeting already.

To Alex:
Haha what’d you do to her?

To Jack:
What makes you think I did something?

To Alex:
Because she never does anything mean to me unless I do something to her first.

To Jack:
She won’t let me watch TV!!

To Alex:
I’m guessing that you tried to turn the TV away from whatever she was watching and she yelled at you to turn it back?

To Jack:
No!

To Alex:
…

To Jack:
Okay yes but I want to watch Sports Center since I missed the Raven’s game last night. And she’s made me watch at least three hundred episodes of Caillou today.

To Alex:
Hahaha it has not been three hundred episodes. And that’s her favorite show right now.

To Jack:
I know the theme song now :( I’m dying. What are you doing?

To Alex:
I just finished my meeting a few minutes ago so I’m going to go to lunch and then come back to work for a little bit longer.

To Jack:
How long is your lunch break?

To Alex:
However long I want but the longer lunch I take the later I have to stay.

To Jack:
How about you take an hour break and Izzy and I will come have lunch with you.

To Alex:
That sounds great!

To Jack:
What do you want to eat?

To Alex:
Surprise me…

“Izzy you want to go see Papa?” I asked.

“Yes!” She happily. I was expecting her to say no and throw a fit the second I tried to force her to move away from the TV.

“Come on.” I grabbed her hand and went to get her shoes.

We stopped by Wendy’s to get food on the way to Jack’s office. I’ve never been to Jack’s office before so I had no idea what floor he was on or what number or anything. When Izzy and I walked into the building there was a help desk in the center of the room so we went up to the lady there to ask for help.

“Hi can you tell me which floor Jack’s office is on?” I asked.

“Barakat?” She asked and I nodded. “Mr. Barakat’s office is on the twelfth floor.”

“Thanks.” I smiled politely. “Come on Izzy.” I couldn’t hold her hand because I was holding our bags and drinks in my hands so I had to keep looking behind me to make sure she was following; sometimes she liked to wonder off.

When the elevator stopped on the twelfth floor we stepped out. The floor looked like a normal office building with a few cubicles. There was a secretary desk outside of a huge office that had Jack’s name on the door. May was sitting at the desk staring at the computer screen typing something.

“Excuse me ma’am can I speak with Mr. Barakat?” I said trying to mess with her.

“I’m sorry sir, Mr. Barakat is about to go on his lunch break.” She finally looked up after she finished her sentence and smiled at me. “Alex!” She said in false anger and got up to hug me. “Are you here to have lunch with Jack?”

“Yeah me and Izzy.” I said.

“Izzy? Where is she?” She asked confused.

“Right Her-“ I started to say, but I looked over to see Izzy wasn’t standing next to me. “She was just right here!”

“Jack’s going to kill you.” May joked. I sat our food down and began to look around.

“Izzy!” I yelled out hoping she would come back to the sound of my voice. Some of the people sitting at their desk looked up at me, but I ignored them.

“Izzy!” I tried again. I wasn’t completely freaking out because I knew she was somewhere on this floor.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked as came out of his office.

“Nothing! What’s going on with you?” I didn’t want Jack to know I didn’t know where Izzy was cause he would murder me like May said.

“Where’s Izzy?” He ignored me.

“We’re playing hide and seek.” I lied.

“Alex, where’s Izzy?” His toned changed to annoyed.

“She’s somewhere around here.” I said.

“You lost our daughter?” He raised an eyebrow at me as he started to walk around the place and look for her. He also asked some of his workers did they see where she went, but their backs were facing us so they didn’t see anything.

I looked into all the separate offices that were just like Jack’s but smaller, until I finally found Izzy in someone’s office staring at a fish tank in there. Whoever owned that office wasn’t in there at the time.

“Isabella!” I finally took a deep breath. I called to Jack to tell him I found her and he quickly came into the office.

“Fishys” Izzy giggled as she pointed to the tank.

“Yeah they’re pretty.” Jack said as he picked her up and kissed her on the cheek. He glared at me and walked to his office. I stopped by to pick up our food on May’s desk then I went to his office as well.

“I’m sorry” I apologized. I took the seat that was across from his seat behind his desk.

“It’s fine.” He sighed and kissed Izzy’s cheek again.

“Nuggets!” Izzy whined.

“I’m getting it.” I laughed. I dispersed the food out. Jack had to cut up Izzy’s nuggets, we were afraid to let her eat them the regular way because her teeth were so small.

“So how’s your day been?” I asked Jack.

“Pretty good! We might be opening some new stores in Illinois and Ohio because the sales have been increasing so quickly.” He gleamed.

“Oh that’s exciting! I’ll never understand how you do this.” I said and he laughed.

“Well really it’s like my marketing directors and stuff. I’m just here to approve things.” He told me.

“That’s still impressive.”

“Thank you! Oh and we’re going to have dinner with Vicki and Emilio tonight.”

“Ugh that’s going to be weird.” I whined.

“I know, but they’re going to be moving in a few weeks so we’re going to spend as much time as we can with them.” He said.

“But Christmas is in a few weeks. Why don’t they wait til afterwards?” I questioned.

“Vicki wants them to- Izzy don’t play with that.” She had picked up his stapler and pulled it open. He took it away from her and handed her the toy that came with her kids’ meal before she could protest.

“Um Vicki wants them to move as quickly as possible so they can start their new life.” He finished.

“That’s so sad! I can’t imagine having to move to a whole new city. . . Well I guess I can since I moved here from Baltimore, but now I can’t imagine going anywhere else. Especially for the reason they’re going.” I complained. “It’s always married couples.” I joked.

“It is not always married couples.” He laughed. “We used to argue a lot and we aren’t married.

“Those arguments don’t count.” I said and he rolled his eyes at me.

“Speaking of marriage.” He started and it was my turn to roll my eyes.

“What about marriage, Jack?” I asked.

“I just want to know how you feel about it now. I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.” He raised his hands in defense.

“I actually talked to Rian about this when we were going to get our suits fitted. I know you might, but I don’t really want a big wedding. Like I would be happy with us just going to a courthouse and getting married. You know? Something simple.” I looked up to see his facial expression so I could be prepared for whatever he was going to say, but I couldn’t read him.

“Hmm . . . okay that’s fine.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Wait! What?” I asked shocked.

“I said it’s fine.” He laughed.

“You’re okay with that?” I asked still in a state of shock. I was expecting him to argue with me on this.

“Yeah I don’t care as long as I get to spend the rest of my life with you.” He said nonchalantly. I was still caught off guard by his answer so I just stared at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” He giggled.

“I never thought in a million years that you would agree to that.” I said honestly.

“I’m not a monster, Alex. If that’s what you’re comfortable with then I’m not going to force you to do something else.” He said. Where was this attitude when we were arguing about having kids?
“So when do you think you want to do this?” I asked.

“Next weekend.” He said and I could tell he was joking.

“Okay.” I agreed anyways. It was going to be a few days after my birthday.

His eyes went wide and he stumbled over his words before he finally got them out. “What? I wasn’t being serious!”

“I know, but I was serious. We can go next weekend.” I smiled at the shocked expression on his face.

“Really?” He whispered.

“Yeah babe.” The next thing I know Jack was up from his chair and jumped into my lap. He stared kissing all over my face and neck. “Izzy is right here.” I pointed to her, but she was playing with her toy not paying us any attention.

“I’m sorry! I just cannot believe we’re actually doing this so soon!” He exclaimed.

“Well believe it!”

“I love you so much!” He kissed me again.

“I love you too.”

Notes

How was everyone's Spring Break? I went to San Diego, but Pierce the Veil wasn't there :( I did get to see the high school Vic and Mike went to so that was pretty cool!