Ken Davison sits at the island in the family kitchen drinking coffee out of his favorite mug. Ken smiles as he looks at all the little love notes written on the chalkboard that lines the Southern wall of their kitchen. The most recent had been scribbled by Kyra before she left for the gym this morning. “The best part of me is you.” Sure, it sounded like something off of a Hallmark card, but it worked.

Across from him is the capricious Adina Johnson, wearing one of Ken’s old Carnage Wrestling t-shirts as a nightgown while chowing down on some Cap’n Crunch. With how quickly the child was devouring it, it would only be a matter of time before she learned the time honored tradition of cutting the roof of her mouth.

“Hey, Daddy, do you know about IVD?”

“No, baby girl. Your mom and I are clean.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, dear. Nothing at all,” Ken says as he realizes not just what he said, but who he said it to. “So, what are you talking about? I don’t speak alphabet.”

“IVD, International Volunteer Day.”

“Honey, we don’t volunteer. We have money. We donate.”

“Great example you’re setting for the kid.” Chloe Hawkhurst chimes in as she passes through the kitchen, not even stopping long enough to get a response.

“Well, I kinda, sorta wanted to help. I wanna donate time.”

“I have things I have to do today. Why don’t you give me a few days and I can come up with something. A lot of the local churches do things like feed needy families for the holidays. We could do that later.”

“Nuh uh. Then it’s not IVD. It’s just helpin’.”

Ken picks up his phone and starts looking for information.

“Honey, it’s on December 5th. We’ll be flying into Chicago. Besides, I don’t know anyone in there.”

“Oh… that sucks,” Adina blurts out without thinking.

“Hey! Language!” Ken admonishes her, but not that seriously. With the language she hears on a daily basis, he’s lucky she didn’t tell him to play a game of hide and go fuckhimself.

“Fine. We’ll feed the people later.”

“And, maybe I’m being a bit selfish, but I have to focus. I’ve got my World Title match on Sunday then I have a Chaos match on Monday.”

“Oh, dems the ones you don’t want me to watch. Like that match where you stabbed mama’s old boyfriend with a screwdriver.”

“Where did you see that?” Ken asks, caught completely off guard.

“YouTube. Duh.”

“Of course.”

“Why’dya do that?”

“He didn’t treat your mother with the respect she deserves.”

“He was weird. Chloe says his ride is a van that say ‘free candy’ on it.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“So, do I gotsta stay in the locker room durin’ your match cuz it’s one a them Chaos matches?”

“Yeah. I’m probably going to get gang beat by a bunch of AstroCreeps anyway.”

“What we gotsta do today?”

“I was thinking that we could…”

“OW!” Adina yells, fulfilling Ken’s prophecy.

“Anyway, let’s head down to the church and find out about that volunteering.”

Adina yeets her plastic bowl and spoon. Surprisingly, after bouncing off the strainer, they both manage to land in the empty sink.

“Okay!”

Adina scampers off to get dressed, leaving Ken to try and figure out how to handle Cervantes.