Chapter 8
Jonah launched Plan A—for Atlas, of course—on Friday. With only two lectures that morning and an open afternoon, it was the perfect opportunity to pretend it was “bring your motherless infant to school” day.
He’d mapped it out the night before with the confidence of a man who had once navigated a van with no GPS across multiple state lines. Once they got to campus, Atlas would ride in the chest harness—facing in, secure, warm, close to Daddy’s heartbeat, which was basically a human white-noise machine.
Meredith had helped him pack his backpack, guaranteeing precision. She’d included extra diapers, enough formula for twins, two burp cloths, and at least four totally sterile pacifiers, all tucked neatly next to his laptop.
First class at nine was Food Safety and Sanitation with Professor Daniels—an easygoing lecture course taught by a kind woman who genuinely believed that proper hand-washing technique could save the world.
There was no lab component, no hands-on work, nothing that required two free arms. Jonah could sit in the back, take notes, and let Atlas sleep through an hour on safe kitchen procedures.
Second class at ten was Broussard and that, he knew, was the variable in this experiment.
With plans to feed and change Atlas in the narrow sliver of time between classes, he hoped the baby would conk by the time Broussard started his lecture.
Please, God, please.
He arrived on campus at eight-forty, transferred Atlas from his car seat to the harness with ease, and walked across the small quad. He got exactly the kind of looks one would expect when a six-foot guy with shoulder-length hair showed up at a community college wearing a baby.
Two girls he knew from lab did a visible double-take, freezing mid-step. His favorite lady from the library had to stop and coo. A couple of guys he’d once tossed a Frisbee with made weird faces like they’d never seen a sixteen-pound human.
He just grinned and stroked Atlas’s head like any proud papa.
Professor Daniels’s classroom was in the smallest lecture hall, like most of the culinary arts classes. He snagged a back-row seat near the door in case he had to make a quick getaway.
But so far, so good.
Daniels launched into a unit on cross-contamination protocols—the thrilling world of cutting boards, refrigeration systems, and why you never, under any circumstances, stored raw chicken above ready-to-eat foods in a walk-in.
Her delivery was clear and methodical and possessed the exact soothing quality that Atlas apparently required, because the school’s littlest angel didn’t move for forty-five straight minutes.
Jonah had both hands free on his laptop, stayed laser focused, and felt boldly confident in Plan A.
If he could do this every Monday and Friday, he’d have the whole day covered and wouldn’t mind getting help for shifts at the restaurant, assuming he got that internship.
At nine-fifty, class ended. Jonah had ten minutes before Broussard.
Should he wake Atlas for food and a change? Or could he make it through the crucial hour of Broussard’s class?
This wasn’t a day to gamble.
He found an empty classroom near Broussard’s lecture hall and slipped inside, waking Atlas when he took him out of the harness. The baby looked disoriented and miserable.
His face scrunched. His lower lip jutted. He took a breath to gear up for a big scream.
“No, no, no. Not yet, buddy. Hold on.”
Opting to skip the change, he pulled out a bottle one-handed while bracing Atlas’s head with the other. The maneuver would have been impossible two months ago and was now muscle memory.
Atlas latched onto the bottle and guzzled like a frat boy at last call. Formula dribbled down his chin, but Jonah blotted with a burp cloth.
Four ounces in three minutes. “That’s a record, small man!”
He hoisted Atlas to his shoulder, patted his back, got an epic burp, and wiped the collateral damage from his shirt.
“Pro move, my guy,” he said as he maneuvered the baby back into his chest carrier. “Now here’s the deal: We’re going into Chef Broussard’s class. He is not a man who tolerates disruption. So you’re going to sleep or, at minimum, be extremely quiet. Can you do that for Daddy?”
Atlas grabbed Jonah’s nose.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Broussard’s classroom was full when he slipped in, late enough that there was one seat in the back row. He had to climb over a few people but got comfortable behind a tall guy with bushy hair, which he hoped would hide the newest student from the professor’s sharp gaze.
Broussard was at the front, laying out tools on the demonstration counter with the deliberate calm of a surgeon prepping an OR.
Atlas was quiet. Eyes open, but quiet, one hand wrapped around the harness strap, surveying his new surroundings with what Jonah hoped was academic curiosity and not strategic planning for a full meltdown.
“Today,” Broussard began, setting a chef’s knife on the counter with that familiar soft clink, “we talk about the most important relationship in your career. The one between your hand and your blade.”
He launched into knife skills with the same intensity he brought to everything—the proper grip, the pinch hold, the role of the guide hand, the physics of a rocking motion versus a push cut.
Jonah listened, able to see and still keep the tiny baby hidden behind Tall Guy.
“Your knife is not a tool,” Broussard said, holding up an eight-inch chef’s knife that winked in the fluorescent light.
“It is an extension of your intent. If your mind is scattered, your cuts will be scattered. If you’re distracted…
” His eyes swept the room, right over Atlas without seeing him.
“You’ll lose a fingertip and I’ll have to fill out paperwork, which I hate more than a dull blade. ”
He slammed a carrot with a noisy thud. Atlas shifted and let out a whimper.
A small one. Barely audible. Jonah put his hand on the baby’s back and rubbed in slow circles, the way that usually settled him.
The chopping sounds were not going to be a hit.
“The brunoise is your proving ground,” Broussard continued. “A quarter-inch dice, uniform, consistent.” Thwompf. “Every piece the same size.” Thwompf. “Every piece tells me whether you have discipline or whether you’re faking it.” Thwompf, thwompf, thwompf.
Atlas whimpered again. Louder this time.
Jonah reached into the backpack with his free hand and found a pacifier. He slipped it into Atlas’s mouth. He sucked twice, then spit it out. It bounced off Jonah’s knee and rolled under Tall Guy’s seat.
Exactly as Meredith had predicted and shamed him for losing the pacifier clip, a device Miss Perfect reminded him was designed not to be lost.
Finding backup number one required two hands and the kind of rummaging that would draw attention. He opted instead for the gentle bounce—a rhythmic knee movement that had a roughly sixty percent success rate.
Jonah shifted and braced for the next noise. The chef’s knife moved in rapid, precise strokes that produced a pile of perfectly uniform carrot cubes, each cut louder than the one before.
“You hear that rhythm?” Chef asked.
“Yes, Chef!” The class responded on cue, the sudden burst of voices startling Atlas. “That’s what control sounds like. Consistent. Even. No hesitation.”
Atlas’s face grew redder, his lip trembled, and he fisted both hands.
Ruh-roh. This was the classic pre-launch window before the full ignition of a cry that could be heard in adjacent counties.
Jonah bounced faster and pressed his lips against the baby’s head. Please, buddy. Twenty more minutes and we’re clear.
Twenty more seconds and Atlas let out the full-throated, glass-rattling, turn-every-head wail of an infant who had decided, with absolute conviction, that this moment was unacceptable.
Broussard’s knife stopped mid-cut.
The room went silent except for Atlas, who took a breath, then made up for the silence with impressive volume and genuine commitment.
Twenty faces, ranging from amused to horrified to deeply sympathetic, turned to Jonah. A guy down the row cracked up. Another one muttered something rude. One girl in the second row looked like she might cry on his behalf.
Broussard set his knife down slowly. He looked at Jonah with an expression that was impossible to fully read—part exasperation, part something Jonah didn’t expect. Understanding, maybe. Or recognition.
“Lawson.”
“Yes, Chef.” Jonah was already standing, one hand on Atlas’s back, the other grabbing the diaper bag. “I’m sorry, Chef. I’ll—”
“Go to my office.” Broussard’s voice was firm but not unkind. “Take your son. Settle him. Come back when you can.”
“Yes, Chef.”
Not able to fathom the reprieve, he was out the door in seconds, dragging the open backpack, leaving the lost pacifier, hearing the chuckles and giggles and one very sharp rap of a chef’s knife.
“Consistency is critical,” Broussard carried on. “Even when everything around you is falling apart.”
In the hallway, the acoustics amplified Atlas’s cries, no doubt interrupting the classes in every room he passed.
Perfect.
“That,” he said into Atlas’s ear, “was the opposite of what we discussed.”
Atlas screamed louder, mocking him until Jonah’s own eyes stung with tears of frustration.
“Me and my big ideas,” he muttered, standing outside the door to the faculty office.
This could have cost him the internship, his degree, and certainly his pride.
Jonah didn’t bother to knock on Broussard’s door—he’d been in the small office before and if the occupant was teaching, the room was empty.
He stopped short when he stepped inside, meeting the most unexpected set of big brown eyes with lashes so long they nearly reached her brows.
“Oh—” He drew back at the sight of the young woman sitting behind the chef’s desk with her feet propped on the open bottom drawer, a takeout coffee in one hand and a paperback in the other.
Mid-to-late twenties, maybe. Dark hair pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, a few loose strands framing a face that was—