Chapter 32
Emma
Yolko Ono is sleeping on Jonas.
They’re both on my couch, Jonas covered by a light quilt that my mom made me when I was a baby, the quilt serving as Yolko Ono’s nest tonight.
And I finally do it.
I break my own rule, pull out my phone, and I snap a picture of Jonas.
I haven’t done it yet. I haven’t wanted anyone to see if I lost my phone and they hacked it, which, yes, is an abnormally ridiculous paranoid thought, but it’s also the truth.
That viral video changed me.
I don’t trust things the way I used to.
But I trust Jonas.
And I want a picture of him and my chicken.
Unfortunately, though, Yolko Ono is nothing if not very sensitive to someone looking at her—even when she’s sleeping—and I’ve barely hit the shutter button before she startles awake with a squawk of terror.
And I do mean a squawk of terror .
It’s loud. It’s sudden. If it could echo in here, it would.
It’s like the chicken version of my brother sneezing but longer.
Weirdly more annoying too.
Theo at least stifles it the best he can if he knows he’s sneezing while people are sleeping.
Yolko Ono?
She’s informing the entire world that her aura has been violated, and she would please like rescue personnel to come treat her for emotional distress.
I’m used to this.
Jonas, however, is not.
Clearly.
You can tell by the way he bolts straight upright on the couch, sending the chicken tumbling beak over claws with a terrified chicken-yelp while he tosses the quilt aside, which also ends poorly for Yolko Ono.
Who falls off the couch.
Inside the quilt.
While squawking like the house is being invaded by flaming Martians who are lighting everything up with their eyeballs.
“Who—what—I’m up. I got this,” Jonas gasps.
He leaps to his feet, taking the rest of the quilt with him, and trips over the fabric.
Yolko squawks in terror again.
Jonas flails on the floor.
And I?—
I am not proud of what I do.
I just want to state that for the record.
Nothing about my reaction to the two of them scaring the ever-loving chicken shit out of each other is appropriate.
And it probably serves me right that I laugh so hard I pee myself a little.
Childbirth.
Ugh .
But also, as soon as Jonas realizes what’s making the noise, his face goes full-on horrified. “Yolko Ono!”
He dives for the quilt.
Yolko squawks like she’s possessed by the devil.
Jonas yanks the quilt, and there she is.
My pretty white silkie, rolling out of the quilt like a bowling ball.
An angry, squawking, molting, beaked bowling ball.
Jonas gapes at me through the flying feathers.
And I am not okay.
I’m not.
I’m squeezing my legs together to keep from wetting myself more while I laugh so hard that tears stream down my face.
Yolko Ono jumps to her foot, shakes out her feathers, looks at Jonas, ba-GOCK s once, and then?—
And then my chicken charges him.
Hopping.
On one foot.
Faster than I’ve ever seen her move in her entire life.
“Stop,” I gasp.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jonas yelps at the chicken as he dodges her.
“ BA-GOOOOOOOCK! ” she yells back, flapping her wings at him.
He vaults onto the couch.
She hops straight into the side of it, knocking herself over, then bounces back to her one leg and tries again.
He looks at me.
She looks at me.
I’m on the floor.
I’m absolutely dead on the floor, in the middle of a swirl of chicken feathers, unable to stop laughing.
“Mama?” Bash says behind me. “Dodo Ono otay?”
Yolko Ono answers herself with a loud squawk and a fluff of her wings.
“It’s like Fiji,” Jonas mutters.
I’m trying very hard to stop laughing, and I’m not quite there. “She’s okay,” I tell Bash.
“She woaw .”
“Yes, she did her chicken roar.” I giggle.
Giggle some more.
Glance at Jonas, who’s alternately watching the bird suspiciously and me half-suspiciously. “Did you goose the chicken?” he asks.
“I took a picture!”
“Dodo Ono no wike pikker,” Bash says.
Jonas raises his brows at me and crosses his arms. “So the chicken doesn’t like having her picture taken, and you did it anyway?”
I giggle so hard I snort. “You were cute.”
“I koot.” Bash flexes an arm. “And tudwy.”
Jonas blinks. “Studly?” he asks me.
“Too much Theo, but he was totally egged on by Zen and Grey.”
“Pantakes!” Bash yells.
I’m finally able to speak without laughing. My cheeks hurt. My stomach hurts. I definitely need to change my pants.
And probably give my chicken a bath and smooth her ruffled feathers.
Quite literally.
Definitely change her diaper.
This is totally the sort of thing that would make any rational being crap themselves.
“And where are our manners?” I ask Bash.
He puffs out his chest and grins at me. “Pantakes pwease .”
“Jonas, you know how to make pancakes?”
He steps off the couch. “Sure. I mean, I know how to google and YouTube. And I’ve watched Francoise do it a hundred times.
Or maybe half a dozen times. She doesn’t like people in her kitchen.
I blame Keisha. She’s a bad influence. Except for the part where it got me lessons in making pancakes when she made me go into Hayes’s kitchen with her for coffee while Francoise was cooking pancakes. ”
Yolko Ono growls at him.
I swear, she does.
He eyes her.
She eyes him back.
“Truce?” he says.
She squawks once, then hops to me and settles on the floor beside my leg.
I giggle again. “I think you’ve been dismissed,” I tell Jonas.
“Better than being chicken food. How much do you know about making pancakes, Bash? Wanna help a guy out?”
“Pantakes!” Bash yells, taking off for the kitchen with all the speed he has in his adorable chunky toddler legs. “I get fower! I get pan!”
“And I’ll get you happier,” I tell Yolko Ono.
And then vacuum. And give her a bath. And change her diaper. And clean up from that too.
Jonas pauses on his way into the kitchen. “You took my picture.”
“You were cuddling my chicken.”
“That the first?”
I sincerely hope my cheeks were already red from all of the laughing. They are definitely hot now.
Caught .
I nod, telling myself I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
He grins back at me. “You want more, I can pose later. Pretty good at it. Natural talent.”
And just like that, I’m laughing again. “Go make pancakes before I throw this chicken at you again.”
He’s smiling as he strides into the kitchen.
I watch his ass.
No apologies.
Not when I think last night means we’re dating.
And if we’re not yet—I want to.
I want to date Jonas Rutherford. I want to date the father of my child. I want to date my friend.
And I sincerely hope I’m not making a mistake.
It’s not just my life—my comfort, my safety, and my heart—on the line anymore.
It’s Bash’s too.
It’s Bash’s first .
And that’s what makes dating so much more terrifying than it should be.