"Cody!" mama said again.

I walked over and sat down on the other side of him.

He looked up and his face was tear stained and all we saw was the blood on his hands.

"Baby, where did this blood come from?"

She started to stand up and pull him up with her but he cried a little harder.

I don't think I've ever seen Cody cry…at least not since he was little.

"I think it's coming from his knees," I say, noticing the fresh blood forming around his knees and shins.

"Honey, go get daddy and bring out our first aid kit."

I nod and stand up. "Okay."

I run inside and Ashleigh's lying on the couch with her feet propped up, watching TV.

"Ash, where's daddy?" I ask, a little out of breath.

"Hi…I think he's upstairs."

"Okay…you know where the first aid kit is?"

She nods.

"Go get it please. I'll be back."

"What's wrong?" she asks as I run upstairs.

"Daddy!!" I start yelling as I run down the hall.

"In here," he says.

I go into my parent's bedroom. My dad's sitting on the bed, typing on his laptop.

"What is it?"

"Cody's hurt…mama wants you to come down."

"What?" he asks, putting down the laptop aside and following me.

"He skinned up his knees pretty bad."

When we get downstairs, Ashleigh is waiting with the first aid kit.

"Here," she says. She looks so confused.

"Thanks," I say taking it from her and the three of us go outside.

Mama is now sitting on the step right above where Cody is sitting and she's got her arms wrapped around him. She found some towels somewhere and wrapped them around his knees.

"What happened?" daddy asked as he walked around the other side of Cody.

He slowly removed one of the towels and cringed when he saw the mess.

"You were skooterboarding weren't you?" he asks, looking into Cody's watery eyes.

He nods.

"Justin, save the lecture for later," mama says. "Can you carry him inside? He can't stand."

She lets go of him and daddy scoops him up in his arms. We all venture inside.

"Put him on the counter by the sink so I can clean out the wounds."

Daddy sets him down where mama instructed.

"Here," I say, setting the first aid kit down next to mama.

"Thanks."

She opens it up and gets out the necessary things she'll need to bandage up his knee.

"Ash, why don't you go to bed, honey…it's late," mama says.

"But I want to make sure Cody's okay," she says softly.

"I'm fine," he says.

"Come on, I'll tuck you in," daddy says, picking her up. She wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

He walks over to mama and she leans up and gives Ashleigh a kiss. Then he walks over to me a so I can give her a kiss.

"Night kiddo."

"Night sissy."

"Love you honey," mama says.

"Love you more…"

Daddy leaves the room.

"Do you need me to do anything, mama?" I ask, looking at the wounds with her.

"Not yet. Baby, this is going to sting a little, okay?"

Cody bites his lip and nods. He grabs onto the countertop. I reach for his hand and squeeze it for reassurance. He takes the hint and squeezes my hand as mama runs the warm water and runs the water over his knees.

"Owww," he says. He squeezes my hand tighter.

Mama takes a bottle of Ivory and dabs a little on a small towel she has. She starts blotting his scrapes.

"This one's pretty deep," she says.

"Mom it hurts," he whines.

"I know…I just want to make sure it's clean. Adriana can you cut a couple of strips of gauze for me? And then a few strips of that tape in there."

"Okay."

Mama turns the water off and starts to dry the wounds as much as she can. I hand her the gauze. She takes a couple of the big Band-Aids and puts the gauze on top of that. Then I hand her the strips of tape and she wraps it around his legs.

Then she goes to a cabinet and gets some aspirin out. Cody tries to straighten out his legs, but he stops as his face tightens up in pain.

"My skooter's still outside," he says.

"It will be fine," I say.

"Here, take these," mama says handing him the pills and a glass of water.

Daddy comes back down. "All bandaged up?"

"Yeah, will you take him up to his room?"

Cody looks pleadingly at mama.

"I'll be up in a minute," she says.

After daddy and Cody leave, mama gets a glass of water and gulps it down.

"Mama, your hands are shaking," I say as I grab one of her hands.

"I'm okay. The initial shock of it is just hitting me," she gives me a weak smile. "Thanks for your help."

"No problem."

She starts to wash the sink out. "I'll get it mama, go on upstairs."

"Okay."

She leans over and kisses my cheek.

When Britney gets upstairs she finds Cody sitting on the edge of his bed looking down at the floor. Justin stops her in the hall right before she goes into his room.

"Can I lecture him tomorrow?"

Britney smiled at him and touched his cheek. "Go easy on him…I think he learned his lesson by not wearing knee pads."

"Okay," he says placing a kiss on her forehead. "I'll go back downstairs with Adriana. Holler if you need my help."

She nods. "I will."

She walks into the room and sits down next to Cody.

"You know…it's okay to need your mom sometimes. You want to tell me what happened?"

"I was going too fast and I hit a bump, that's all," he mumbled…never raising his head.

"Where were you? The front yard?"

He nodded.

"Why did you decide to skate out there? Normally you do it on that path in the back."

He shrugged.

Britney put her arm around him and kissed the top of his head.

"You scared me…" she said, her lips still touching his hair.

"Sorry. I was just waiting for you to get home."

"Did you and daddy have a fight?"

He shook his head.

"So why were you skating without a helmet and knee pads?"

"I didn't think about it…I just picked up the skooterboard and went out front."

She pulled away so she could look at him. He turned and looked at her…and sniffed. She wiped away the stray tears on his cheeks.

"You're so handsome," she said smiling.

The sides of his mouth twitched up but he fought a smile.

"And you're so talented. How are your play rehearsals going?"

He quickly looked down but then looked up at her again. "They're good. I thought you forgot about the play."

She shook her head. "I never forget what any of you are doing. We might be paying more attention to what Adriana's doing right now but that doesn't mean I forget what's going on with you or Ashleigh. We even have an evening set aside to see it."

"Really?"

She nodded. "Of course. Tell me about your part."

He started to talk about his role in the play. Britney smiled to herself. It was the first time in quite awhile that she actually sat down and talked to her son. She missed him.

"So, he's really funny," he said laughing.

"You get to play the sidekick?"

He nods.

She laughs. "I can't wait to see this. So who else is in it…anyone I'd know?"

She leaned back on her elbows…he followed suit.

"My friend Mark is in it. There's this new girl…her name is Kate, she's the lead. She's really good."

"Is she your age?"

He nods. "Yeah. She's in my class. She's quiet in class but she's totally different on stage."

"Don't you think you're the same way?" Britney asks, wiping a strand of hair away from his eyes.

"I guess…I don't know."

She looked at the clock. "Wow, we've been in here over an hour talking. See if you can stand up now."

He sat up and then started pushing pressure on his legs. Eventually he stood up.

"How does it feel?"

He looked down at the bandages.

"I think you need to change the bandages again…but it feels okay. It hurts still."

"Come on, let's go in the bathroom and I'll rebandage it and you can get ready for bed."

He held onto her arm as they walked together.

After she put new bandages she left him in the bathroom and headed down the hall to her room. Justin was busy typing on the laptop again. He looked up when he heard her enter.

"Hey…everything okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah," she sighed. "I missed talking to him."

He set the laptop on the nightstand. "Awwww…come here, tell me," he said holding out his arms.

Britney quickly walked toward the bed and sat down next to him, letting him hold her. A tear escaped from her eye.

"I just asked him about the play…Justin, he opened up so much about it."

"Good." She could hear the smile in his voice.

"He thought we had forgotten about it," she said softly.

"What?" he asked, pulling her away a little so he could see her face.

She nodded. "Yes…he was surprised when I asked about it. That hurt."

"Of course we remembered. How are his knees?"

"I changed the bandages again…they're going to keep bleeding just a little bit for awhile. He's getting ready for bed, I told him I'd go back in there and see if he needed anything. You want to come with me?"

"Okay," he said as they both got up.

Britney knocked on the door.

"Come in," Cody said.

She opened the door and saw that he was getting into bed…sliding his legs under the sheets.

"You need anything?" she asked coming in.

"No, I'm okay," he said.

Britney sat down next to him and Justin stood behind her.

"I'm sorry dad," Cody said, looking up at Justin.

Justin wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. We just don't want to see you hurt."

"You need a haircut," Britney said running her fingers through Cody's wavy hair.

Justin laughed. "That's a nice change of topic."

"Well, I was just staring at it. We need to see your beautiful face."

She took his face in her hands and gave him a peck on the lips.

"I love you," she said rubbing his nose with hers quickly and standing up.

"Good night buddy," Justin said, leaning down and kissing the top of his head.

"If you need anything during the night, get one of us, okay? Like if you think your bandages need to be changed again, don't try to bandage it yourself."

"Okay."

They walked out the room and closed the door.

"I love you too," he murmured.

"I have to tuck in Ashleigh," Britney said stopping at her door.

"Brit, I'm sure she's asleep."

"I know but I want to give her a kiss goodnight."

"I made Adriana go to bed…she needs the rest."

Britney nodded. "Good. I'll be in in a minute."

"Okay."

She quietly opened the door to Ashleigh's room and walked over to her bed. She knelt down beside her and brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. She kissed her cheek.

"Mama loves you," she whispered. "Good night my angel."

She kissed her one more time before she stood up and walked out. She passed by Adriana's room on the way back to her own so she knocked on the door and then opened it. The room was dark but Adriana was awake.

"Hi mama…how's Cody?"

Mama walked over to my bed and sat down beside me. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I'm too wired."

"I hate that. Cody's doing fine. He's going to be sore for awhile but he'll heal. We talked for over an hour."

I smiled. "That's great."

Mama nodded. "Yeah. He just needed a little TLC, I think. Well, I just wanted to say good night. Thanks for your help tonight."

"No problem," I say, taking her hand.

She leans down and gives me a kiss.

Britney walked back into the bedroom where Justin was once again on the laptop.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she started to change for bed.

He glanced up and then looked back at the screen.

"I'm writing a song. It's one of those things…I have to write it down while I'm thinking about it."

She slid into bed next to him.

"What is it about?"

He looked over at her and smiled. "I'll show it to you when it's finished."

She slid further under the covers and closed her eyes. "Fine," she sighed.

After a few seconds, she screamed when she felt him cover her with his body.

"Shhh," he said, covering his mouth with his own. "I can't concentrate anymore," he said as he kissed her neck.

"Sorry, do you want me to leave?"

He lightly bit her skin, which made her giggle.

"Don't you dare."