“Dad what are you wearing?”
Sam turns in the hallway when he hears Paige's voice calling out to him. This is his first real date in six months and he wants to make a good impression so he's planning on leaving early. He isn't going to be late.
So he’s leaving an hour and a half ahead of when they agreed on. It should take Sam about half an hour to get to the bar so he’ll have plenty of time to calm down while he’s waiting.
“Clothes,” Sam answers. If the stress he’s feeling from wanting the date to go well makes him a bit snippy none of the kids mention it.
“Are those even clean?” Gavin asks. He picks Adelaide up off his lap and places her on the couch where he had been sitting and helping her to read a book, walking closer to where Sam is standing with his arms crossed. “You didn’t just give them a sniff test and decide they’re good enough, did you?”
“Oh god he totally did,” Holly sounds horrified from her spot braiding Paige’s hair on the floor in front of the tv, hands frozen mid twist. “He wore those pants two days ago, I recognize the stain on the knee where he fell in the dirt.”
“We’ll finish my hair later, Holly, Dad needs our help more,” Paige says while standing up.
Sam scowls at all of them. He thinks that he looks fine - it took him half an hour to decide on this outfit. “No, I don’t,” he says.
“Is that what he’s wearing on his date?” Ben asks from the kitchen doorway. He has flour all over his clothes and shrieks of giddy laughter can be heard from deeper inside the room. He must be baking something with the younger children. Probably to try and impress Cassandra into letting him work at her bakery after school.
“No it isn’t he’s coming back upstairs with us so we can give him something else to wear,” Paige answers. She accompanies the words with a hard shove to get Sam moving in the direction she wants - Sam has no choice but comply with the demand because more hands join her insistently.
Sam twists to look at the group of teenagers forcing him to go up the stairs. “You’re all grounded when I get back. All of you! I look fine!”
“Fine for going to the county fair,” Holly scoffs, “Not for a first date in town.”
Ben laughs, the traitor. “Dad just let them help you out.”
For a quick few seconds Sam thinks back to the times when most of the kids bullying him towards his bedroom were terrified of him and would avoid being in the same room with him if given the choice. A warm tightness in his chest fills him because they don’t do that anymore. Some of the other kids do, the ones that haven’t been living there for that long, but they’ll come around. Just like these ones wanting to help him did.
Without realizing how far they’ve gotten Sam finds himself being pushed down to sit on the edge of his bed. Normally the kids don’t come in here unless it’s an emergency. It’s the one room on the entire property where he can go to get some privacy when he needs it. Because of this the room can sometimes get just a little bit messier than he lets the rest of the house become.
There’s more than a few pieces of clothes thrown on the floor, all of them various distances away from the hamper by the door. A collection of empty beer bottles stand by the mini fridge he keeps the alcohol locked inside, his room being the only place he’s willing to risk keeping it in case the kids get bad ideas. There’s a dirty plate from a sandwich he’d eaten the night previous sitting on top of the mini fridge, it had been late at night and he couldn’t sleep so Sam made a snack and turned on an episode of Scrubs on Netflix.
The kids all give the room a look from their places standing in front of him. Then almost as one they give him scolding looks when they realize that his room looks how he doesn’t let them keep theirs. That if he walked into any of their rooms and found the mess they’ve found in his they wouldn’t be leaving the house for anything other than school for the next few days at least.
“Really, Dad?” Gavin sounds like he’s amused but is trying to hide it.
Holly sighs theatrically. “We’re going to have a long talk about responsibility when you get back, mister. If you can’t be trusted with the responsibility of keeping your room clean you aren’t going to be trusted with having one of your own.”
Sam would get mad at her but it’s something they’ve all heard him say a thousand times before. It’s one of the rules of the house in fact - if you’re given your own room you had better keep it clean or you’ll find yourself sharing with someone else. Ben, Jack, and Gavin all trade each other as roommates because of this rule so often that it’s like a game of musical chairs.
“If you’re done then I’m leaving,” Sam states, moving to stand.
Paige pokes a thin finger into his chest to keep him sitting. “Park it, mister. We’ve got some serious work to do before you’re ready for this date.”
“You shaved, right?” Gavin asks, moving closer to check in case Sam lies.
Sam turns to glare at the boy. “Yes I shaved don’t forget who it was that taught you to do it every morning.”
Without missing a beat Gavin answers “Aunt Cass has nothing to do with this.” It makes Sam roll his eyes at the teenager.
“Okay first he needs a new shirt,” Holly states importantly while heading over to his closet. He keeps his gun in a lockbox inside a safe bolted to the bottom of the closet but Sam doesn’t think any of the kids knows about it. He’s only ever had reason to pull it out a couple of times before and they had all been hiding inside their rooms each time.
(The most recent time had been when Paige and Leah’s birth family had come to try and steal the two girls away a few months after they’d arrived. The girl’s birth father left with two bullets in his left leg and the mother left with her right arm broken in four places. That was nearly five years ago, though.)
Holly opens the doors to Sam’s closet and immediately starts poking through what’s on offer. His old dress uniform is pushed far into the back along with other shirts and pants that he finds itchy and only keeps because he might someday have a use for them.
While Holly goes through his closet Gavin starts digging into Sam’s dresser where he keeps all of his clothes that are actually comfortable. Most everything in there is clean with only a few exceptions.
“I’m thinking a green shirt,” Holly calls over to Gavin, “It’ll bring out his eyes.”
Gavin nods. “Yeah, and black pants with it. Nothing too fancy though we don’t want this guy to get his hopes up. Dad’s gonna manage to dress himself eventually for him.”
“Grounded,” Sam grumbles with a wince as Paige starts combing out his hair from her spot kneeling behind him on the bed, Adelaide handing her things when prompted.
“Which one d’you think?” Holly asks. She turns and holds up two different shirts. One is a soft green button up that Sam thinks is actually a size too big for him, the other is a deep emerald green turtleneck that he’s decently certain used to be his grandfathers. Why does Sam still have it?
“I want the dark one!” Adelaide shouts gleefully.
Paige hums thoughtfully behind him, still combing through the gel that Sam had used to spike up the strip of hair on top of his head. “The lighter one might be a bit fancier than we’re going for.”
Gavin nods and stands, bringing the only pair of black jeans that Sam owns with him and placing them on the bed. “The turtleneck one. With these pants-”
“And those sneakers he never wears!” Holly finishes off for Gavin excitedly, hooking the hanger with the button up back into the closet. “Dad, put this on while I dig them out!” she exclaims while tossing the chosen shirt at his head.
“Do I get a choice in this?” Sam mutters as he starts pulling off the shirt he’s wearing.
Paige scoots off the bed, pecking a kiss onto his cheek as she passes. “Nope! I’ll be back in a minute to finish your hair!”
“C’mon Adelaide, lets go see what Ben’s making,” Gavin says. He picks up his sister and heads out of the room, the young girl waving goodbye to Sam over her brother’s shoulder.
Once the door closes Sam changes into the clothes picked out for him. Looking at them now that he’s alone he’s more willing to admit that the kids are right - they look much nicer than what he’d picked out on his own. It’s a good thing that Cass isn’t here to see the kids bullying him into doing what they want. She’d never let him hear the end of it.
He’s going to have to tell the kids to not tell her. He’ll bribe them with ice cream, that usually works.
After a few moments there’s a knock on the door and that’s all the warning that he has before Paige comes back in armed with an armload of things he’s seen her playing with when the girls get together to play with each others hair. Distant thumping lets Sam know that Holly is well into her search for the exact pair of sneakers she wants him to wear in amongst the piles of them in the closet.
“Okay now sit still this needs to be perfect,” Paige orders, climbing back onto the bed and kneeling behind where he’s sat himself.
For the next twenty minutes Sam sits and suffers in silence as Paige pulls at his hair to get it to sit just how she wants it. “A mohawk, dad, really?” she laughs at one point. “You’re hopeless I hope this guy has more fashion sense than you do. Needing your kids to pick out your clothes in order to dress nicely? Really?”
Finally she releases him with a pleased squeal of delight. “You look perfect!” she announces happily.
Sam stands and, checking his watch, realizes that it’s already been forty-five minutes. He has to get moving or he’s going to be late. “Wish me luck!” Sam says, his nerves making his stomach feel like it’s lost its bottom.
“Good luck!” Paige calls after him as he races down the stairs to where Cassandra’s walking in through the front door. She smells like the fresh bread and cupcakes that her bakery is famous for in the city.
Holly hands over his sneakers with a stern look that makes Cass’ grin widen. “Don’t you dare even think about putting on those godawful boots.”
“Yeah, Sammy,” Cass laughs. “when’s the last time you even washed them?”
“About two months ago because you threw up on them after going on that pub crawl, Cassy,” Sam answers back easily. He’d gotten her back a thousand times, though, with the videos he had taken of her drunken ramblings. If she ever gets married they’re going into a video for the lucky person of every embarrassing moment of Cass’ life that Sam can remember and prove happened.
Holly’s nose crinkles in disgust. “That’s gross.”
“You’re gross,” Sam counters. Because he is a mature adult. “Don’t wait up,” he says, “I’ll have my phone, call if Ben sets the house on fire again,”
“It was once!” Ben yells, annoyed, from the kitchen. “One time!” Giggling laughter accompanies the statement.
“Keep your fingers crossed for me,” Sam quietly says to Cass, giving her a quick hug on his way out the door.
“Make good choices!” Holly yells after him, grinning at the glare he sends her when he climbs into the drivers seat. He checks his watch again.
He should get there just in time. Maybe with a couple minutes to spare if traffic isn’t too bad.
