Chapter 18
West
Our dads’ group used to be a bunch of lonely, confused single dads. Now two-thirds of them had defected by falling prey to some admittedly pretty ladies and going the ball-and-chain route.
In the past, we met just about every Saturday evening. The more suckers we had fall victim to love, the less we were able to coordinate schedules and carve out a few hours of guy time.
The last Saturday of June was our only get-together of the month, and we were down a guy even then. Max was still on his honeymoon, so that left Ben, Knox, Chance, Luke, and me.
Ben had offered to host, as Emerson had taken the kids swimming and then to a concert on the square.
The five of us had broken in the new basketball goal Ben had bought with a high-stakes game of H-O-R-S-E.
Now we sat on camp chairs in the shade of Ben’s house, devouring classic burgers from the grill, corn on the cob, skillet potatoes with bacon and onions, beer from Rusty Anchor, and fresh lemonade.
Luke had brought strawberries from his farm, the last of the year’s crop, and had picked up shortcakes and whipped cream at Country Market for dessert.
“Doesn’t get much better than this,” I said, holding up my half-eaten cob and gesturing to my meal. “You make a mean burger, Ben.”
“As long as we’re not secretly eating llama meat,” Chance said with a grin.
“The ladies are right there in sight,” Ben said, nodding toward the corral where his horses and llamas grazed together.
I’d spotted the horses earlier, but at the moment, only the white llama was visible. I assumed the others were blocked from our view by the barn.
“If Esmerelda isn’t begging, I don’t know what she’s doing,” Luke said.
I turned to look. Sure enough, the long-haired llama was at the fence closest to us, staring a hole in my back.
“She’s fine,” Ben insisted. “She just likes attention.”
“Attention or cookies?” Knox asked.
“Well, both. As long as she’s in my sight, I can be sure she hasn’t escaped. Every drama-free night is a win in my book.”
“I wonder how llama tastes,” Luke said, keeping an eye on the animal as he lifted his beer to his mouth.
“Probably tastes like chicken,” Knox said.
“Don’t let the hens hear that,” Ben said, grinning.
“Isn’t that Emerson’s SUV?” Chance asked, nodding toward the intersection of Ben’s long driveway and the county road.
“It is.” Ben frowned as he watched his wife drive in our direction. When she stopped near us, he stood. “Is something wrong?” he asked when Emerson rolled her window down.
At the same time, the back door on the passenger side opened, and Ruby ran toward the house, wearing her swimsuit and flip-flops. “Hi, Daddy!”
“She forgot clothes to change into,” Emerson said. “Hi, guys.” She waved at the rest of us, and we called out greetings.
The backseat window lowered, and Xavier hollered, “Hi, Dad! Hi, everybody!”
We said hello to Ben and Emerson’s only boy, whose attention was diverted to one or both of their other girls in the vehicle.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Emerson said. “We’ll be out of your way as soon as Ruby changes.”
Ben set his plate on a side table, went to the driver’s window, and planted a kiss on his wife as we discussed the concert they were heading to by a local group.
Ruby zipped out of the house and ran straight to her dad, who caught her in a hug. “Esmerelda wants her cookie, Daddy!”
“Esmerelda has become spoiled rotten,” Ben told her. “It’s not even Tuesday.”
“She likes cookies on any day,” Ruby, who was one year behind my twins in school, informed him.
“She’ll have to wait,” Ben said. “You’re going to be late for the concert. Let’s get you buckled in.”
He walked her around the vehicle and helped her in as we dads made jokes about Ben’s llama devotion.
Once Ben’s wife and kids had left, relative quiet settled around us, save for the periodic clucking of a hen or two. Discussion turned to the book Knox and Ava were releasing in a few months, the third in their first trilogy together.
“How’s that partnership going since Bronte’s birth?” Ben asked. “Self-employment doesn’t always allow for maternity leave.”
“Not officially. Ava took a few weeks off, but she’s slowly getting back into the swing of it, working part-time for now. We finished the manuscript a week before Bronte arrived, and I’ve been handling the editing. Quincy takes care of Bronte three days a week now.”
“How’s Quincy handling that?” I asked.
Knox had confessed to us a few months back that he and Quincy had been trying to get pregnant since day one of their marriage nearly a year ago with no luck.
Quincy was the most natural nurturer I’d ever met.
She thrived on caring for kids and did childcare in their home for a handful of rugrats.
It didn’t seem fair she was having trouble conceiving her own babies.
“She loves her niece to pieces,” Knox said. “Caring for Bronte’s the next best thing to having our own.”
“It’ll happen soon, man,” Ben said.
“Keep on soldiering on and trying,” I said.
“You better believe I will,” he said with a grin.
As I stuffed the last of my burger in my mouth, a strange sound reached my ears, like a high-pitched humming noise, too high to be coming from the men. I met Chance’s gaze, confusion on his face too.
Knox laughed.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, looking between Knox and Ben, who didn’t appear concerned either.
“It’s Esmerelda telling me she wants to eat,” Ben said with a sigh.
I swung my head toward the llama. Sure enough, she still stared our way with her big, falsely woeful eyes, though I couldn’t see her mouth moving. The sound was a drawn-out moan that sounded as if she’d been wronged.
“Do you need to go feed her?” Luke asked.
Ben shook his head as he finished chewing, then said, “I fed everyone before you all got here.”
“Did she not get the message?” Chance asked.
“Oh, she was right there as I fed her, chomping her hay as fast as I could get it in her feeder.”
“So she’s lying,” I said.
Knox shot a look of amusement at Ben. “She wants dessert, doesn’t she?”
Ben shook his head and muttered, “Fucking spoiled llama.”
The rest of us laughed, knowing exactly who’d spoiled the animal.
“You got any cookies?” Luke asked.
“I bought a dozen before I knew you were bringing fresh berries,” Ben said. “I don’t know how she knows that.”
“Smart llama,” Knox said.
“Spoiled.” Ben acted annoyed with his animals, but we all knew he loved them almost as much as he loved his new wife and four kids.
“You want me to get a cookie and take it to her?” Luke asked.
Ben laughed. “If we don’t want to listen to her whining for the next hour, she’s going to need a cookie.”
“On it.” Luke set his empty plate aside and headed into the house.
“Guess we know who wears the pants in this family,” Chance said.
“Esmerelda then Emerson,” Knox said.
“Spot on,” Ben admitted. “And I consider myself a damn lucky man.”
Luke came out of the house with a box of cookies from Sugar. He set it on one of the side tables. “Come on, West, let’s go spoil this llama like a grandparent.”
I got up and headed to the fence with him.
“How many grown men does it take to give a llama a cookie?” Knox hollered.
Luke flipped him off as we all laughed.
“Knox, you should write a book about giving a llama a cookie,” Chance said.
“Would that be a parody of the mouse version or a how-to book?” Knox asked.
“If you give a llama a cookie, she’s probably going to want one every damn day,” Ben said.
Still humming, Esmerelda eyed us suspiciously as we approached, until Luke held out the cookie. Her eyes locked on the llama-shaped goodie.
“Isn’t that some kind of cannibalism?” I asked, standing back so I wouldn’t get llama drool on me.
“This one could be your uncle,” Luke said to Esmerelda as he held out the cookie.
The llama didn’t bat an eye, chomping the cookie before we could say another word.
“Wash your hands,” I told Luke as we went back to the group.
Someone’s phone rang as Luke headed inside, and I sat back down.
“That’s me,” Knox said, digging his phone out of his pocket. “Quincy’s FaceTiming.” He frowned. “Hey, Quince, what’s up?”
“She said her first sentence, Knox!” The words burst from Quincy for all of us to hear. “Can you say it again, sweet girl?”
“Hey, Junie,” Knox said to his daughter on the screen.
“Dada!” came the reply.
“What did you tell me before, sweet pea?” Quincy asked the two-year-old.
“Dada, Dada, Dada.”
Luke came back out with the makings for strawberry shortcake as we all listened to Knox’s conversation, keeping quiet, waiting to see if Juniper would say whatever it was she’d said to excite Quincy.
Knox stood and wandered away from the group as we all helped ourselves to shortcake, bright red strawberries, and whipped cream, filling Luke in on Juniper’s milestone that she apparently wouldn’t repeat for her dad.
Knox wandered back, grinning like a man in love. “Sorry about that.”
“Did she do it again so you could hear it?” Chance asked.
“Nah. Apparently she said, ‘Where my dada?’ Once she saw me on the screen, there was no reason to ask again,” he explained, laughing.
As we all settled in with our dessert, Chance said, “Things have sure changed since we first started getting together. Not only is it harder to meet, but once we do, our families can’t seem to do without us, whether it was Sam not being where she was supposed to be a few months ago or Juniper hitting a milestone today. ”
“Or a llama protecting an injured cat,” Luke said of a few weeks ago.
“A kid forgetting her clothes,” Ben added.
We took turns bringing up other interruptions over the past few months, laughing more as the list grew longer.
“You get married, and it just gets worse,” Ben said, grinning. He couldn’t hide how stinking happy he was since getting together with Emerson.