Mother's Solace Ch. 04

"Its just... I want you to be open to dating other people..."

"You can't be serious,...besides you'd get jealous."

"I can control my jealousy, honey."

"If I have to do it then so do you. You deserve happiness too, and you're an amazingly attractive woman I want you to give a conscious effort to finding the right person."

"I..I can't do that..."

"Then why do I have too? You're the only one having second thoughts, Claire.

"I'm not! I'm just looking at the situation from a logical perspective not the view of a ignorant schoolgirl in love!"

"Then you should be fine with my terms, I want you to keep going out, just try to actually get to know someone."

"You've given me all the happiness I could ask for already."

"Stop lying to yourself, don't give me that motherly bu..." Claire looked at me startled. I took deep breaths and calmed myself down.

"Look, Locke, I know what I'm asking isn't easy, so fine if you really want I'll try."

"It isn't what I want, and I believe it isn't what you want either."

"Its not about what we want honey, it's about what would be best for your future."

"You don't know that Claire.."

Sighing she moved her hand from mine.

"How about this then," A genuine beautiful smile appeared for a brief moment. "Let's say everything worked out, we stayed in love, you never ended up falling for someone else or getting tired of me. Mother accepted us, as well as our friends. We ended up having beautiful healthy children, lets go as far as to move somewhere else and get married." The smile disappeared from her face,"But what about when 20-30 years from now Locke? I'm 41, it's likely that I'll die when your only in the midst of your life. Would you be okay with that, could you go on and find someone else after I'm gone?"

"That's not a valid point Claire, tommorow isn't guaranteed to any of us, hell I could get hit by a bus on the way to school tomorrow.

"Don't say that!" she began sobbing, I don't know what I would do if I lost you, I've already lost John..I'd be broken.. if I lost you.. I would lose all meaning and purpose..."

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to prove a point." I wrapped my arm around back.

Claire was shaken up a bit, I somehow managed to do it again, boy, what a fuck up I am, really bringing up an example similar to the death of my father..

A child stopped playing on the jungle gym and ran up to us. "Hey why is she crying, Mista? Are you alright, Lady?"

"I'm sorry.." she sniffled, "I'm fine, thank you for asking," She said giving him a wide smile.

"Okay, well I hope you feel better.." he said before running off back with his friends.

"I'm sorry Claire that was careless of me..."

"It's fine Locke really..."

After a few minutes another idea popped up in my head.

"How about we leave it up to chance then?" I suggested

She looked at me puzzled. "What do you mean?"

I put my hand on her stomach, "If you're pregnant, you'll have the baby, and we'll progress as lovers. And if you're not then fine I'll search for someone else while we're together, you won't have to see my friends, we don't have to tell grandma none of that." I waited in silence for her reaction.

"..Alright..that's..probably as close to a mutual understanding as we're gonna get."

"Just one question."

"What is it?

"Are.. you.. hoping your pregnant at the moment..?"

The sounds of the leaves rustled, as the wind blew.

"I'm sorry..never mind that wasn't fair of me to ask."

"That will be the last question for the game of the day," she joked.

"I am, I know it's wrong, and I'm contradicting myself left and right, but at the moment I'm praying to the heavens that I am, and that if we do have this child, that it's healthy."

Hearing that warmed my heart, I reached out and touched her cheek, so that she'd turn to face me. I brought my lips to hers.

"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, get a room you two. yucky cooties," the same kid from before, said looking at us.

Claire and I just laughed. The rest of the date went fine, we walked around talked about the daily news, and ended up expanding on topics that came up from the 21 game. I brought up the lesbian encounter thing again, to which I got the response, "I've experimented." After the park, we went home to eat dinner then we proceeded to watch Netflix for a bit.

"Ugh, back to school tomorrow, then I have to work a double shift for taking off Friday." I mumbled

"I'll likely have to do overtime to makeup also. This won't exactly be a promising week, that's for sure."

"I won't be able to be around my lovely Claire 24/7" I pouted

"You'll survive, Kiddo," she said tousling my hair.

"Of course, I'll have to if I want to spend time with the love of my life, and get some nookie while I'm at it."

"You'll have to earn it, you naughty boy."

"If by earn you mean beg and put on a puppy dog face then I think I got that down."

"Oh, shush you, let's just watch the movie."

***

The next week was pretty hectic, especially Monday, Ed blasted me out for ditching at the party, and made me promise to make it up to him. Rick understood, and told me not to worry about it. I didn't divulge any information about what was going on with Claire because, hell I didn't know what was happening myself at that point. After school I had to go to work. I worked as a waiter at a restaurant in Manhattan. Julie actually was the reason I got the job in the first place. Her dad knew the boss, and had put a good word in for me, saying I had good work etiquette, even though I had never been employed before and had only helped his daughter out with a school related things.

The boss ended up keeping me part-time, I was a hard worker and rarely ever missed a day. The place was really packed most of the week, just my luck I guess, good thing I hadn't taken any classes on Tuesdays, and Fridays. I don't think I would have made it, although with only a few more weeks left until the summer I would have to study my ass off, finals were coming up. I was pretty tired coming home, me and mom stopped having sex, we agreed that it was likely the best idea to wait and see if she was pregnant. We still acted like lovers though.

On Thursday, while I was on break I decided to chat with Laura on Facebook, she was pretty excited to talk with me; apparently she got the misconception that maybe she did something to scare me off. I assured her it was nothing on her part, and that I had just been busy between work, finals, and some things happening between me and Claire. We chatted a bit about our lives, and daily things that were happening we ended up having a lot more in common than I thought, but mostly she was just really easy to talk to, not to mention I loved her accent, it was adorable. The break flashed by really fast, before I knew it I had to go back to work. I told her that we could chat more later.

That Friday night, after I got back from work me and Mom started talking at dinner.

"The week is finally over.." I sighed

"I know what you mean, the week has been really rough. Whoever filled in for me that Friday clearly had no idea what they were doing. Hilda chewed me out, and I had to reschedule quite a lot of events. The amount of people calling that day were off the charts, and after the financing and filing I was so exhausted."

I just sat there and listened to Mom's complaining about work. For her to be content, she sure did complain a lot.

Catching herself she said, "Oh, sorry Locke, I didn't mean to ramble on about work to you."

"Its fine, the boss kicked my ass for skipping out last Friday I had to wash extra dishes, not only that the restaurants was full, so many customers. Tests coming up don't help at all."

"Yeah, I noticed you studying a lot, that's good." Claire paused and pressed her finger against her lip. "If you get a A on all your tests, I'll do something special for you."

Special huh, she never offered anything like that before, I definitely became curious as to what this 'special' thing was.

"What do you mean by special?"

She winked at me, and gave me a sexy grin, "Something you'll like," she purred.

My cock started growing in my pants. I began wolfing down my food, trying to take my mind off of her implications. She started giggling a bit, jeez, she sure liked teasing me. Swallowing the piece of curry chicken and rice, I decided to change the subject.

"So are you going out tomorrow with Melany and Denise?" I asked.

"Hmmm, most likely I was going to take you to meet them, but you already have, and you need to study tomorrow." She said leaving no room for me to even attempt to ask if I wanted to go out with her.

"Wow, you really don't like me talking to them, huh?"

"Nope."

At least Claire was being honest, I tried to picture what I would do if Rick and Ed hit on her, I definitely wouldn't like it, not one bit guess I get my jealousy from her.

When dinner was finished Mom headed off to bed, I guess she was really pooped, she invited me, but I told her I was gonna stay up a bit. I called Laura since I promised to get back to her tonight. Getting in contact with her I talked with her a while. Laura ended up inviting me for a joint study session, I hadn't been expecting that, she lived a little far from me, but she said we could meet up at a library in the city.

"So, are you up for it Locke?"

"Sure that would be great, better to study together than alone."

"Great so it's a date, wait uh..I mean not an actual date... you know...just.. a study session..." Laura said fumbling over her words.

"Yeah...it should be fun... want to meet around 2:00PM?"

"That works, anyways it's getting kinda late now", she said looking at the time."

I looked at the clock holy crap it was already 11, we had been chatting on the phone for 2 hours.

"Yeah, I'll talk to you later Lori."

"Lo...Lori?!"

"Well you called me Lockey, so it's only fair."

"Well.. you don't mind if I call you Lockey then?" She asked nervously

"If you want, I don't mind." I smiled to myself.

"Alright.. well night-night Lockey.."

"Good Night."

I had this strange feeling in my chest, I was actually a bit anxious to see her again. I couldn't possibly fathom why, it's not possible that I liked her... was it..? No that couldn't be it I don't even know her but for some reason I got this queasy feeling in my chest, it was familiar...

Ch4. End

Sorry that it took me so long to put up ch4, along with work, I sorta got distracted, but don't worry the next part will be up soon!