Chapter 30
Emma
“He kissed you a week ago and hasn’t tried anything since?
” Laney whispers to me while we hover behind Bee & Nugget the next Saturday morning.
The big baby shower for her and Sabrina is today.
Theoretically, Zen and I are organizing it.
In actuality, all of our friends have rallied and they’re doing most of the work inside.
Laney and Sabrina both objected to a baby shower, but we convinced them they could use it as an opportunity to gather baby supplies for mothers in need while letting the community celebrate their excitement about two of their favorite Snaggletooth Creek residents starting their families.
So that’s what we’re doing.
And we’re going all out.
Except for right now, while I’m confused and needing my friends to assure me that it’s normal for a guy to not try to make a move for a week after telling me he’s changing his life to be here for me and Bash.
He’s even inside helping set up.
In the kitchen. So he’s not spotted.
“Maybe he’s waiting for me to initiate it again?” I whisper back.
Sabrina makes a noise that sounds almost like Grey grunting his disapproval over something. “Do you want to kiss him again?”
“Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know.”
We’re out with the dogs for a potty break and for Jitter to shake off all of his drool before we head back inside.
He’s a lot more chill than he was as a puppy, but the drool will be with us until the end of time.
“Do you like him?” Laney asks.
“Yes.” No hesitation there.
I do. I like him.
He’s funny and he’s sweet and he pays his taxes and he hasn’t tried to double-cross any of my friends. He’s been infinitely patient with Bash, which is a serious checkmark in the he’s a good man column.
“But?” Sabrina prompts.
And here are the problems. “But he says he’s quitting the public life, and one, I don’t know if that will make him happy, and two, just because he quits the public life doesn’t mean the press quits him.
And three—I don’t know if he’s doing this for me, or if he’s doing this for Bash and I’m just part of the package.
Like, would he do this for any woman he accidentally knocked up, or does he like me? ”
Laney wrinkles her nose while she rubs her belly. “Valid concerns.”
“He likes you, Emma,” Sabrina says.
“But if he liked me, and I initiated a kiss, and he’s kept his hands completely to himself for the week since then, what does that mean ?”
“Have you gotten anything out of his family?” Sabrina asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve seen them, but they basically treat me like I’m an old friend instead of the woman who’s been hiding his secret baby for the past two years.”
“Bash was not a secret baby and you didn’t hide him. You tried to tell Jonas. He failed to get the memo.” Her eyes bulge, and then she smiles while she rubs her own belly. “Oh, hello , little one. Rather opinionated about that pork green chili for breakfast, aren’t you?”
Now that’s worth smiling over. “Are they kicking? Can I feel?”
Sabrina takes my hand and puts it on her belly, where I get a little flutter against my palm.
And then I squeal.
“Here, me too.” Laney grabs my other hand, and all three of us giggle and squeal while the babies kick us. “But mine’s just Theo’s child. They don’t really care what I eat for breakfast.”
We did this when I was pregnant with Bash too. All three of us feeling him kick.
With me keeping the secret about who my baby’s daddy was.
“I miss this,” I whisper.
My friends share a look.
Yes, the look of she could have it again if she lets Jonas back into her life .
I’ve seen him nearly every day. He declared the hot tub dead a week ago, asked very politely if he could replace it for me so long as his name appeared nowhere on the paperwork, and also if he could add a fence with a lock that Bash and the chickens can’t open.
On Monday, he patched the screens in a few windows around my house, including one in Bash’s room, that I hadn’t realized were the source of the increased bugs in the house.
Tuesday, while I was at work and Bash was at daycare, he tackled a deep clean of my kitchen, which I’d been meaning to get to but hadn’t yet.
Wednesday, he took Bash and me for a picnic dinner behind Hayes and Begonia’s house.
After sandwiches and carrot sticks and watermelon, we had fireless s’mores that he warmed up with a solar oven he made out of cardboard and aluminum foil.
YouTube can teach you the coolest stuff , he’d said, smiling like he was a kid again himself.
Thursday, we didn’t see him at all. He flew back to New York for a charity dinner to put the rumors about his public absence at bay.
And while he was gone, there was a crew at my house who believed that they’d been sent by Theo to install my new hot tub and fence.
I texted Jonas pictures and updates and my appreciation.
Friday, when he got back to town, we had a smaller pizza party. Just Bash and Jonas and me.
Bash asked very politely to watch Panda Bananda , his favorite cartoon, which made Jonas’s ears turn bright red.
When I asked if he had an issue with Panda, he winced, then very quietly did Panda’s voice.
“Did you two know Jonas does Panda’s voice in Panda Bananda ?” I say suddenly.
“ What ?” Sabrina says.
“ No ,” Laney says.
“I’ve never watched the credits before. But he does.”
“Since when?” Sabrina demands.
“The whole time. It’s only in the second season. He said he auditioned on a dare not long after…we met.”
“Is he giving that up too?” Sabrina whispers.
Laney’s shaking her head. “The show would be ruined if they got a new voice.”
“And how would Bash feel if he found out his father leaving was the reason his favorite TV show ended?” Sabrina adds.
“Moral dilemma,” I agree. “I’m staying out of it.”
“But what do you want him to do?” Laney asks.
I feel the ugly face coming on. “Not be famous in the first place.”
It’s the truth.
And it’s not fair.
It’s not fair to ask him to not be who he is if he wants to be part of my life and part of Bash’s life.
And if he wasn’t famous—well.
Life would be a lot different right now, wouldn’t it?
We wouldn’t be hiding in my house or around Hayes’s house. We’d have lunch in the café. He’d go with me when it was time to drop off or pick up Bash at daycare. We’d paddleboard together on the lake. Take Bash on a train ride, leaving from the station at the lake.
Instead…instead, I feel like he’s my dirty secret.
And I’m starting to wonder if that’s how he feels too.
Laney and Sabrina share another look.
“Whatever it is, just say it,” I tell them.
“If you’re prepared for public attention, will it be as bad?” Laney asks.
“What you went through was awful,” Sabrina adds.
“I won’t ever minimize that. This is not any of us making light of the impact of that video on your life and on your mental health.
This is us asking if there’s benefit to taking advantage of the kind of media training that you and Bash will likely both need before he’s fully grown, no matter what. ”
“He looks so much like Jonas,” Laney says. “And we know you won’t hide the truth from him when he’s old enough to understand. Once he’s grown up…isn’t it better if he’s prepared too? Can you imagine if one of your parents had been even moderately famous? How that would’ve impacted you and Theo?”
I shudder.
The idea of Theo being Theo in the public spotlight in his teenage years…no.
Just no.
And Bash might look like Jonas, but he has that male Monroe gene through and through.
Oh god.
Oh god oh god oh god.
A teenager who looks like Jonas Rutherford and behaves like my brother—he wouldn’t make it to his twenties. People will notice. The not safe , not friends people.
I need a paper bag.
Sabrina squeezes my hand. “We’d hide you both here forever if we could. But we know it’s not realistic. Not long-term.”
Laney loops her arm around my back and squeezes me in a half hug. “Whatever you want, we’re here for you. But we’re not keeping our promises to always tell you the hard things if we don’t speak up on this.”
The door squeaks behind us. “Hate to interrupt,” Theo says, “but we have a small problem.”
“The food?” Sabrina says.
“Oh, no, tell me they aren’t bringing us presents,” Laney adds.
Theo shakes his head.
I don’t like his grin.
I especially don’t like that he’s aiming it at me.
I cringe. “Did Bash get into the flour again?”
Jack is on Bash duty. He’s sworn my baby is not getting out of his sight, and I believed him enough to sneak out here and ask my friends for advice.
Plus, the café’s closed while we prep for the shower this afternoon.
No one in. No one out, except through the back door.
Theo shakes his head again, grinning bigger, and gestures all of us into the kitchen.
The first thing I notice are the balloons.
They’re everywhere .
Pink balloons. Blue balloons. Yellow balloons. Green balloons. Purple balloons. It’s a pastel rainbow of balloons that have overtaken the kitchen to the point that you can’t see the floor. Most of it is buried under at least three layers of waist-high balloons.
And then I notice the shoes.
They’re nice shoes. Brown leather. Large. Propped up on a stool and attached to denim-covered legs that disappear into the balloons.
“I didn’t do it,” Decker says. He’s leaning on the edge of the metal prep table.
“Not it either,” Jack says from his spot across from Decker. He’s shooting glances at the dining room that tell me he’s watching Bash.
I think.
I hope.
The balloons stir. “I’m okay,” they say. They sound like a very wheezy Jonas. “Just a little light-headed.”
Jack smirks. Decker smirks. Theo smirks.
“Where’s Bash?” I ask them all.
A little giggle under the prep table, behind a bunch of balloons, answers me.
“I’m okay,” Jonas says again.
He’s completely covered in balloons, and he does not sound okay.
I cross my arms and look at Theo.
He gives me a petulant single-shoulder shrug. “Decker started it.”
Decker tosses his hands up. “So you’re throwing me under the bus now?”