Finally (Neighbor from Hell #12) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,89

the small cups of paint that their teacher had placed on their table to look around them to see if she could find any more pink paint.

“Charlie doesn’t like pink,” Dustin said, getting up and walked over to the craft station and grabbed the bottle of green paint, her favorite.

“True,” Abbi murmured in agreement as she held the cup of green paint still so that he could pour more into it as Mrs. Greer finished whatever she was doing at her desk to walk back in front of the class, carrying a large white picture frame in one hand and a white flower pot in the other.

“Is everyone ready to make their Mother’s Day gift?” she asked with a warm smile as Dustin shared a look with his sister because they were more than ready.

They’d been making plans for the past few weeks since their teacher announced that they were going to need ten dollars each so that they could make a Mother’s Day gift this year. As soon as their father picked them up that day, they’d asked and they’d kept on asking until they got home and he gave them each ten dollars to bring to school.

As soon as he had the money, Dustin had placed it in an envelope that he’d helped himself to from his Daddy’s office, sealed it, and put it in his backpack. To make sure that he didn’t lose it, he hid his backpack beneath his pillow and held onto it all night as he slept. The next morning, he’d put the backpack on and refused to take it off until he was finally at school and could hand Mrs. Greer his envelope and since then…

He’d been counting down the days.

Mother’s Day wasn’t for a few more weeks, but he wanted to be ready. He’d already broken his piggy bank and gave his father all his money and asked him to order Charlie’s favorite chocolates from Sarris Candies because he remembered how much she liked them at Valentine’s Day. He was also planning on getting her a teddy bear that Abbi already promised not to take and he was going to make her favorite breakfast and surprise her with it.

This Mother’s Day was going to be perfect.

He’d made sure of it.

“Maybe we should get her another bunny,” Abbi said, making his lips twitch.

“She wants a turtle,” Dustin reminded her, still wondering how she was going to manage to get one without Daddy getting mad.

Then again, since Daddy loved Charlie almost as much as they did, she could probably get away with it. To be honest, he wouldn’t mind another dog, Dustin thought as he watched Mrs. Greer push the cart that was filled with the picture frames and flowerpots that they were supposed to paint.

They were going to need more green, Dustin decided as he squeezed more paint into his cup.

“Which one do you want to do?” Abbi asked.

“The frame,” he said with a firm nod because he had the perfect picture to put in it.

“I’m going to have to get flowers then,” Abbi said, nodding thoughtfully as they watched the cart finally make its way to their table.

When Mrs. Greer reached into the box to grab his picture frame, he couldn’t help but smile only…

It wasn’t a frame.

“So,” Mrs. Greer said, smiling warmly as she placed two white coffee mugs on the table in front of them, “I thought that since you would be celebrating Mother’s Day with your father that it would be nice to make him something really special.”

“What?” Dustin said, feeling his stomach drop as he glanced from the coffee mug that he didn’t want to paint to the other tables and watched as everyone else started painting their Mother’s Day gifts for their mothers.

“I just thought that your dad would probably like this more than a flowerpot or a picture frame,” Mrs. Greer said, drawing his attention back to the mug.

“I don’t want to paint a mug,” he said, shaking his head as he reached over and pushed the mug away while Abbi stood there, looking like she was going to cry.

“Dustin-”

“I want to make a Mother’s Day gift for my mommy,” he said, gesturing to her cart.

There was a sigh, and then, “Dustin, it’s okay. Not everyone has a mother and that’s nothing to be upset about. You have a really great dad that loves you and I think it would be really nice to-”

“I don’t want to make a mug for my daddy! I want to