Chapter 20
Emma
By the time Bash is done eating, I’m feeling far less awkward.
Jonas keeps up a steady stream of questions that slowly put me at ease. The chickens. If there’s good pho anywhere in town. How much Bash can eat. When Laney and Sabrina and I met.
He doesn’t get the full story on any of his questions, and some of my friends are definitely exaggerating.
“ Ugly ?” he says to Theo. “You called them ugly ?”
Not that part. That part is true and not exaggerated at all.
“You didn’t know them when we were eight,” my brother replies.
“Don’t make me put Fred in the bed tonight,” Laney says.
Bash has moved back to the swing set. If he hadn’t, he’d be telling all of us that ugly isn’t nice.
My dad’s keeping an eye on him, along with Decker, who’s undoubtedly absorbing all of this for his next novel.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Jonas hasn’t offered to watch him. Out of respect for my boundaries? Because he doesn’t like him? For some other reason I can’t fathom?
I don’t know.
I do know he keeps glancing over that way though.
Like he wants to be closer to Bash, but doesn’t want to make one of us—me? Bash? My family?—uncomfortable by butting in.
Or maybe he’s never been around kids before and doesn’t know how to make friends with them.
The Jonas I thought I knew in Fiji would’ve bent over backwards to make sure everyone around him was comfortable. Being normal while understanding no one else around him thought he was normal.
Maybe he’s letting all of us get used to him being here as much as he’s getting used to all of us being around.
“I was ugly when I was eight too,” Theo says.
“You stayed ugly until you were thirty,” Sabrina replies to a round of laughter.
“Laney decided we’d be the ugly heiress society ,” I tell Jonas. “Since we all technically stood to inherit local businesses. It sort of fit.”
Laney’s eyes twinkle. “We owned that bullshit.”
“And we had a clubhouse,” Sabrina adds.
“Do you still?” he asks.
“We don’t know you well enough to answer that question yet.”
I shoot Sabrina a look—that was borderline rude—but she merely smiles back.
“Our original clubhouse is gone,” I tell him. “Rightfully so. I’d have a heart attack if I thought Bash was in that treehouse in the condition it was in when we found it.”
“We survived,” Sabrina says. “And Laney wouldn’t have let us go in it if she’d thought it was truly unsafe.”
“Accurate,” Laney agrees.
“Bash doesn’t have a Laney yet. And he won’t be the Laney of his group.”
There’s no arguing with that.
Especially as Decker’s voice drifts over to us. “ Sit to go down the slide, Bash.”
“I a piwate! Piwate no sit!” Bash yells back.
Jonas’s lips curve up and his entire face goes soft as he glances at them.
My stomach, meanwhile, drops to somewhere far, far beneath the mountain we’re sitting on.
“Pirates sit if they want to have ice cream,” Decker says.
Bash stares him down.
Decker stares right back.
I’m about to get up and intervene—Mama always gets to be the bad guy—when Bash plops down onto his butt. “Eye keem!” he yells.
“Pirate sword fight first?” Decker asks.
Bash tumbles off the bottom of the slide, rights himself, and eyes his honorary uncle. “Eye keem.”
“Okay, okay, go ask your mama if you can have ice cream.”
“Mama, eye keem!” Bash yells as his little legs pump at a thousand miles an hour, headed my way.
His hair sticks to his sweaty forehead. His smooth white baby cheeks are tinged with pink. And his diaper is sagging again under his shorts.
It’s nap time more than it’s ice cream time .
“Wash your hands first,” I tell him.
He changes direction and charges to Zen. “Hewp wa han?”
“Why am I always your hand washer helper?” Zen asks.
“Wa han?” Bash repeats, waving his hands in their face.
“Are they exceptionally good at washing hands?” Jonas asks me while Zen relents, tosses Bash over their shoulder, and marches into the house.
“They’ve historically been around the most, and they’re way more fun than I am.”
“Unfortunate side effect of being the default parent,” Sabrina adds. “It’s gonna suck for Grey when I’m the fun one.”
“Theo too,” Laney deadpans.
“Quit mocking Theo while I’m not outside to enjoy it,” Zen calls through the kitchen window while the rest of us laugh.
Theo’s totally unfazed, as usual. He looks at Jonas. “You ever go camping?”
“And not on a movie set,” Grey says.
Jonas shakes his head. “Not recently.”
I wonder what he defines as recently . One could call passing out on a stranger’s porch camping .
But that was two and a half years ago.
Theo doesn’t break his concentration on Jonas. “We should go.”
“Am I invited?” Grey asks.
“Naturally.”
“The triplets?”
“We’re sitting this one out,” Jack says.
“Plausible deniability,” Lucky agrees.
Decker claims Zen’s open seat. “Can I watch from a distance?”
Jonas isn’t breaking eye contact with Theo either. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s go camping.”
“Has to be soon,” Grey says. “I’m not leaving Sabrina’s side once she hits her third trimester.”
“Next week,” Theo agrees.
I open my mouth, and it’s like all three of them hear the motion. They all turn and look at me.
And all three of them are silently telling me to stay out of it.
Like my son isn’t the reason they’re doing this.
“Name a date,” Jonas says. “I’ll clear my calendar.”
The back door opens, and Bash barrels out.
But instead of running straight to me, he runs to Jonas.
I freeze.
Jonas inhales an audible breath. “Hey, bud. What’s up?”
Bash points to Jonas’s shirt. “Dat titty wike Fwed.”
Jonas looks down at his T-shirt. “You think?”
Bash nods. “You have titty?”
“No kitties. But I have a friend with a dog.”
“Wike Ditta?”
Jonas nods. His fingers twitch like he wants to hug Bash, but he keeps still otherwise, arms resting on the armrests. “Like Jitter. Little smaller. He can do tricks, like opening the refrigerator.”
Bash frowns.
Pretty sure that one didn’t compute.
But what immediately computes for me is the look overtaking the frown.
I know that look.
I know that look entirely too well.
“Ba—” I start, and that’s as far as I get before the inevitable happens.
Bash opens his mouth as he looks up at Jonas again, but words don’t come out.
Something far, far worse comes out.
The beans.
How many beans did he eat? And how high was he going on the swing?
Oh my god.
Is that just today’s beans, or has he been sneaking beans and saving them for this?
It’s not stopping.
It’s not stopping .
And I’m frozen.
Completely, totally, shocked, horrified frozen.
Just how fast can Jonas run while he’s coated in toddler puke?
Dead silence falls on the patio aside from Bash making a low rumbly noise as he stares at what he’s just finished doing.
I can tell you what every last one of my friends and family are thinking right now.
Dad: serves the fucker right for knocking up and abandoning my daughter .
Theo: I wonder if I can make it look like an accident if I make Jonas eat it .
Laney: The fastest way to clean this mess is to throw Jonas in the shower, and Bash probably needs something for his stomach. Can toddlers have Pepto?
Sabrina: Oh my god, my favorite nephew just puked on my favorite movie star and I need to record every second of this in my brain forever in case I ever need to use it against the fucker who took two years to show up for his child .
Zen: Glad he waited that extra forty seconds .
Decker: Mental note, puking kids are good novel fodder .
Jack: How did the logistics work so that he got puke all the way up to Jonas’s face? That’s some physics-defying stuff. Cool .
Lucky: I’m off my normal nurse duties today, but for Bash and Emma, I’ll give my favorite little guy a once-over and make sure he’s not coming down with something .
Bash: Uh-oh .
But the one person whose thought process I can’t read?
Jonas’s.
His nose twitches. His lips too.
He doesn’t look down at his shirt. Or his pants. Or his shoes.
Holy crap , those look like expensive shoes. I hadn’t noticed his shoes until they were coated with my son’s vomit.
He leans forward, closer to Bash, and puts his hands to Bash’s sides. “How’s your tummy, little guy? You okay? That looked like it hurt.”
Fuck. Me .
He couldn’t have had a more perfect and simultaneously worse reaction if he’d rehearsed it a million times.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasp.
“No, she’s not,” Sabrina says.
Laney snorts. “Take it back, Emma. You’re not sorry.”
“Okay. Okay.” I nod. Shake my head. Nod again. Shit . “I am trying very hard to not be sorry.”
Bash sticks a finger in his mouth—yes, the mouth of destruction—and eyes Jonas with those big brown eyes that could talk me into nearly anything. “Eye keem?”
Jonas snorts, a smile lighting up his face.
He’s sitting there covered in toddler puke and he’s smiling .
Oh, god.
This is not good.
Not good at all. Not for Bash. Not for me. Not for our future.
“Made some room for it, didn’t you?” Jonas asks him.
I leap out of my seat while Bash nods.
Too much. This is too much. “C’mon, Bash. Let’s get cleaned up.”
And then I’ll talk him into the nap he needs but won’t want to take.
And I’ll insist I have to nap with him too.
Anything to avoid looking at Jonas any more than necessary.
“Thank you,” I stutter as I grab Bash’s hand. “You make a very good target. I should’ve told you to bring clean clothes. I always bring clean clothes.”
He holds my gaze for a moment that lasts a lifetime.
“I’ll be okay,” is all he says.
Out loud.
The quiet part though?
He’s my son too. I can be a good parent. I’ll do the work. This doesn’t faze me. I can handle anything. I want to handle anything.
That’s the part that scares me.
“You need any help?” he adds.
Lucky appears at my side. “I’m on it. You should go hose yourself off. Bash, wanna hear your heartbeat?”
I wave a floppy hand at Jonas. “You…just take care of you. Thank you.”
Not thank you.
He’s not going anywhere.
And I don’t know how I feel about that.