Chapter 19
Jonas
I’ve never in my life wanted to crawl out of my skin the way I do today.
My son is mere feet from me.
I’ve had a full inquisition from Emma’s brother.
I’ve learned how to grill an elk burger and how to tell when it’s done.
I’ve watched other people be the parent figures that I’m supposed to be for what feels like seven centuries, even though it’s probably no more than twenty or thirty minutes.
And Emma’s either avoiding me or has at least one of her best friends at her side every single second.
But it’s time to dig into the food, and I’m calculating every angle I need to work in order to sit next to Emma and Bash.
First stop? The cooler. “Emma, want me to grab you something?” I ask.
“Oh, no, I’ll?—”
“Surprise her,” Sabrina interrupts her with what sounds like an order.
Yes, an order .
That tone isn’t an accident.
I flip open the cooler and find Toothy Bee kombucha sitting on top.
Zen. Kombucha. Local.
I grab a can of raspberry and flip it around.
Brewed in Snaggletooth Creek, Colorado .
“You make this?” I ask Zen.
They arch a brow at me, then give a single nod.
I smile. “My cousin Keisha and her wife love it.”
“I know. I’ve seen their socials.”
“You know Jonas’s cousin?” Grey asks them.
“Not yet, but when we’re ready to expand, I will.”
“If you want—” I start but stop at their eye roll the size of a mountain.
“I’ll stay out of it unless you ask me for an introduction,” I amend.
“Please do,” Zen says. “I prefer pop stars love me for me and our kombucha, not for my connections.”
“Understood.” In theory. In actuality, I don’t know if they’re the type to bite off their nose to spite their face—if this is a subtle you don’t belong here, so I don’t even want your connections —or if they’re the type to take pride in doing it all themselves.
Not a mystery for today though.
Emma’s fixing Bash a plate. Watermelon, burger without a bun, carrot sticks, and baked beans.
“Little guy need anything too?” I ask her.
“Already got his juice,” one of the triplets says behind me.
Emma flashes me a fake smile. “Thank you.”
“Can I get your plate?” I ask.
“I’ve got it,” Laney says.
They’re brutal.
No, Jonas, we do not need you in Emma’s or Bash’s life. We’ve been taking care of them just fine for years, and we’ll continue to do so. You’re superfluous .
I reluctantly like it. Mostly because I don’t think they’re doing this for my benefit.
I think they do this for each other all the time.
One of the triplets tossed beers to his brothers and Theo already. Theo grabbed a corn cob, disappeared inside, and came back out with a pile of corn on a plate, the cob gone, and handed it to his dad. Zen’s passing plates behind them to Sabrina and Grey, who are waiting in line too.
I’ll be last to get lunch.
So I grab a raspberry kombucha for me and a lemon kombucha for Emma, taking my time digging around so that I can trail her to her seat.
She takes one of the Adirondack chairs and balances Bash’s plate on her knees.
Both of the dogs lift their heads and sniff.
“Don’t even think about it, or I’ll let Fred out,” she tells them.
Jitter whimpers and puts his massive head down between his paws.
Duke snorts, then also turns away.
“Who’s Fred?” I ask as I take the seat beside her and put her drink in the cupholder built into her chair.
“Fed a bad titty,” Bash says.
“He’s not a bad kitty. He’s an adventurous kitty who thinks he’s as big as a mountain lion and doesn’t know boundaries.”
Bash eyes her. “Dat a big wood.”
“I know. Adventurous is a very big word.”
“Aduwus.”
“ Adventurous . Good job.”
“Booties.”
“Boundaries?”
Bash grins and shoves a spoonful of beans into his own mouth with a Bash-sized orange plastic spoon, smearing bean juice at the edge of his lips. “Booties.”
He’s so cute it’s making my heart cramp.
My stomach too.
One of the triplets—pretty sure haircut says Decker—deposits an end table next to Emma’s seat.
He eyes me but doesn’t say a word.
To me, anyway.
“Look at this, little bro. Table built for you. Wanna let your mama eat?”
Bash looks up at him. “Decka go ’way. I eat wif Mama.”
“You can eat with Mama with your plate on the table,” Emma says. “And be nice to Decker. He fixed the slide for you.”
Bash eyes me.
I hold my hands up. “Can’t help you, bud. I do what my mommy says too.”
Decker coughs like he knows my mother doesn’t yet know that I’m off in the Colorado mountains meeting my son.
Everyone would know if my mother knew.
And by everyone , I mean my father. Keisha and her wife. Other relatives.
Not the general public.
But the people who matter and who’d want to be here to meet Bash too.
“My mama eat,” Bash says to me.
“We should all eat,” I agree.
Is that what I’m supposed to say to a kid?
Legit don’t know.
Other than Begonia’s sister’s kids, or at appearances where it’s easy to ask what’s on their shirts or what their favorite color is or if they had fun doing whatever we were doing at charity or promo events, I don’t have a lot of experience with kids.
This is one of those times I’d ask my mom for guidance, except I’m not talking to her right now.
She’s fantastic ninety percent of the time and an overprotective bear who forgets those boundaries Emma was talking about the other ten percent of the time.
Ask Begonia.
Or don’t.
She’d laugh too hard right now, and she sincerely hates laughing when she’s pregnant. Makes her have to dash to the bathroom.
“Do you take good care of your mama?” I ask Bash.
Shit. Is that an appropriate question?
I don’t know .
But he looks at Emma and grins with a mischievousness that suggests this kid is learning more from his Uncle Theo than Emma might like. “My mama well at dick-dicks.”
“Mama only yells at the chickens when they get out of their pen and try to run into the woods.” Emma puts Bash’s plate back on the side table as Decker pulls a juice carton from his back pocket and sets it next to the plate.
Bash leaps on the juice like it’s oxygen, then dives into his plate, apparently forgetting he wanted to eat off of Emma’s lap.
Laney hands Emma a plate, and they both look at me.
“Hungry?” Emma asks.
“I’m…not,” I admit.
Emma looks at Bash, then down at her own plate, which holds a hamburger bun without the hamburger, a banana that I didn’t see on the food line, plus plain noodles that I didn’t notice on the food line.
That looks like what Begonia’s sister fed her kids when they were recovering from a stomach bug.
Is Emma’s stomach upset today too?
She nods. “Understandable.”
I hate that I make her nervous. “How long have you had chickens?”
“About a year. Bash’s daycare center got eggs for their oldest preschool class, then asked if anyone wanted the chicks. He loved them, and I’d been thinking about it anyway, so Dad and Theo helped me build the coop and now here we are with almost a dozen.”
“Does that count the one inside?”
“Yes.”
“You can look at my tax returns. I do pay my taxes.”
She laughs.
Actually laughs.
And the smallest bit of tension leaves my shoulders.
“Thank you,” she says.
“How long are the triplets going to pretend to be each other?”
“How do you know they’re pretending to be each other?”
“Good guess.”
She slides me a look.
I smile. Can’t help it. “Your brother didn’t run a full background investigation on me?”
“Actually, that was Grey’s grandmother,” Sabrina says as she lowers herself into the chair on my other side. “You’re lucky she’s not here today, or this would be even more uncomfortable for you. Why aren’t you eating?”
“You make me nervous.”
“Good. I accept that answer. Carry on. Pretend I’m not here.”
“Is she always so blatant?” I ask Emma.
Emma smiles past me at her friend. “No. Most strangers have no idea how much she knows about them until it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late, isn’t it?” I murmur.
There goes the wariness again. “Most likely. I’ll save your seat if you want to get food.”
“I will too,” Sabrina says. “I’m here for the entertainment, and I have questions about what Razzle Dazzle was thinking with redoing That Last Summer . Your version was fine. The new version gave me worse morning sickness.”
“My version was outstanding ,” I correct.
“Passable.”
Emma offers me her banana. “Here. Your stomach problems are about to get worse. This’ll settle better.”
“Mama? My babana?” Bash asks.
He’s so fucking perfect. And absolutely irresistible. “Here you go, champ.” I pass him the banana. “All yours.”
I am.
I’m all his.
No matter what happens today, I’m all his.