Chapter 38
Emma
Jonas stayed.
We had sex—no, made love , and he stayed.
I didn’t realize I was still afraid he’d disappear in the morning until I feel him rubbing my arm gently as the first light of day breaks through my window.
“Emma,” he whispers. “Bash is awake. I’m gonna go get him. You can go back to sleep, but I wanted you to know I’ve got him. And I love you.”
I absolutely fall back asleep.
With a smile.
My entire body feels like I slept on a magical stress-relief cloud. There’s no tension anywhere.
There’s simply this sensation that all is right in my world.
Jonas loves me. He loves Bash. He has Bash. My house is overflowing with love.
And when I wake up again an hour later, it’s because the two of them are laughing too loudly outside.
“Dick-dick say gaaaawwwwk !” Bash crows.
“I was trying to feed her,” Jonas replies, softer, with definite indignation in his voice.
But he also sounds happy. Amused, even. Like he can somehow be annoyed with my chicken yet also be enjoying himself here at the same time.
“Dick-dick no wike Dona.”
“I’ll still feed her even if she doesn’t like me. That’s the job when you’re a grown-up. Or a chicken owner.”
“I get egg!”
I creep to my window and peer out.
Jonas and Bash are both inside the coop with the chickens.
Jonas has the entire pail of chicken food with him, which feels right.
There wasn’t much more left than one feeding’s worth.
Bash is chasing the chickens, dressed in his dinosaur pajama shorts and a kitty T-shirt that he undoubtedly picked out himself, getting distracted from his plans to check for eggs.
The chickens have decided Jonas is the enemy.
Probably need to get him some good rubber boots to protect his legs from their suspicion.
But since he clearly has this, I take advantage of having time to myself for a leisurely shower. It’s been a while since I haven’t had to rush, knowing Bash was waiting for me, or—more recently—roaming the house since he can now climb out of his crib.
After I’ve stood under the hot water so long that all of my skin is pink, I dry off, pull on lounge pants and a tank top, and head downstairs to check out the breakfast situation. Kitchen’s clean, but I spot evidence of a banana missing.
Yolko Ono is pecking at a chunk of it under the chair Bash usually stands on in the kitchen when he wants to help with something.
I peek outside again and verify the boys are still doing okay without me, which they are.
It’s Sunday. None of us have to go anywhere today.
There’s time to do something else I haven’t done in even longer than it’s been since I’ve taken a leisurely morning shower.
It takes me about fifteen minutes to prep everything and get it in the oven. Once it’s baking, I slip out the back door to say good morning to my guys.
My guys .
They spot me at the same time. Jonas smiles, sweeping a glance over my body that makes every inch of my skin blush.
Bash is oblivious to the look I’m sharing with the man he still doesn’t know is his father. “Mama! Mama! Dick-dick no wike Dona!”
“We’re working on making friends,” Jonas says. One of the chickens pecks him in the shin.
He doesn’t react at all, which I take as a good sign that it was an affectionate peck and not an I’m going to murder you peck.
Or at least that Jonas sees it that way.
“They’re friends worth making,” I tell Jonas. “Especially when they all let you cuddle them.”
“Do they like to have their pictures taken too?”
“Dodo Ono no wike pikkers,” Bash says.
I take a seat on the porch swing near the coop and watch as Bash chases more chickens and occasionally runs to the coop to check the boxes for eggs. Jonas has refilled the chickens’ water in addition to feeding them, so he seems to be hanging out for the mere fun of it.
“Sleep okay?” His eyes twinkle like they’re made of stars, which fits.
Even if he wasn’t Jonas Rutherford, movie star , he’d still have that air.
“I did.” I couldn’t hold back smiling at him if my life depended on it. “You?”
“Better than I have in weeks.”
“Good.”
We have a lot to work out still. I know living here, in my little house, won’t work long-term.
Security considerations and all that. And I need to get started immediately on talking to everyone Jonas has promised can help me navigate a world where people outside of my community will know who Bash and I are.
But we have today. And soon, I’m pulling my cheat cinnamon roll bites out of the oven and bringing them outside for a peaceful breakfast on a quilt with my family, complete with Yolko Ono hopping around the yard looking for bugs.
My family .
I love the way those words feel.
Almost as much as I love the way Bash stares at me with open suspicion when I hand him a plate with three small, fluffy cinnamon pastries. “What dat?”
“This is a kind of a cinnamon roll. Like Aunt Sabrina serves at her café.”
“It no wook wike cimmanin woll.”
“It’s a different kind.”
Jonas bites into one, and his eyes cross while he flops back onto the blanket. “Oh, wow. That’s delicious.”
He’s acting.
I am a hundred million percent certain he’s acting.
But Bash looks at him, takes his own small cinnamon roll, bites into it, and does the exact same.
“Dat so good,” Bash moans.
“I’ve never had anything so delicious,” Jonas says.
“I no have dewisus,” Bash echoes.
Jonas flops his head to one side, looking at Bash with the biggest smile. “Your mama makes the best breakfast.”
“I eat evvy day!” Bash says.
Oh.
Whoops.
That was the error in my plan.
Totally forgot how this would end.
“You do eat breakfast every day,” I agree. “And you eat so many good things. Oatmeal and eggs and pancakes…”
He holds up a mashed cinnamon roll in his little fist. “I eat dis evvy day.”
This is a problem for tomorrow.
Just like everything else.
But none of my problems feel too big. For the first time in a very, very long time, I don’t think I’m faking it when I tell myself I can handle this.
I bite into my own cinnamon roll, and I’m suddenly eight years old again, back in my mom’s kitchen while she shows me how to make her fake cinnamon rolls.
Sabrina says they’re technically cinnamon biscuit bites, but that’s not what Mom called them.
Mom called them fake cinnamon rolls, so fake cinnamon rolls is what they will forever be.
“Your grandma taught me to make these,” I tell Bash.
“Gamma Seffy?”
“Yes. Grandma Stephanie.”
“I wike Gamma Seffy.”
He’ll never meet my mom, but I tell him stories. It’s important. “Me too.”
“Gamma Seffy zoom zoom Unka Deo,” Bash tells Jonas.
I crack up.
And not just at Jonas’s expression, which could mean anything from I have no clue what that means to I’ll bet a lot of people want to zoom zoom your Uncle Theo if it would make him behave himself .
“My mom once chased Theo all over town on a motorbike,” I tell Jonas, filling in the details of Bash’s favorite story about my mom and brother.
He heard it once a month or so before Theo and Laney’s wedding, and he’s repeated it every time anyone’s mentioned my mom since.
“He borrowed one from someone, and she happened to be sitting in the salon getting her hair cut when she saw him ride past, so she took off after him on another borrowed motorbike. With foil in her hair. She was having it dyed. The story is a little legendary around here.”
“How old was he?” Jonas asks.
“Eleven.”
We both look at Bash, who’s grinning while shoving the last of his crumbled cinnamon roll in his mouth. His perfect every day would likely be eating fake cinnamon rolls and hearing the stories of Uncle Theo’s escapades so he can plot his own fun once he’s tall enough to steal a motorbike.
“Yeah,” I say on a sigh as I meet Jonas’s eyes again. “I think about that sometimes, and decide I can save thinking about it more for when he’s a little older.”
Jonas smiles at me. “I got this one.”
And there go the warm fluttery happies in my heart.
“Mama more cimmanin woll?” Bash bats his eyes at me. “Pwease?”
“I don’t got this one,” Jonas murmurs.
I’m laughing again as I hand Bash another cinnamon roll bite. It’s a good day for a treat. Why not?
My heart is full this morning.
So full.
I never would’ve had morning cinnamon roll breakfast picnics if I’d stayed with Chandler. It would’ve been silly . Or we would’ve had more important things to do.
And I haven’t had them often with just Bash and me, because there is a lot to do when you’re doing it solo.
But today, we’re all hanging out in the backyard, just being.
No rush.
Nowhere else to be.
Cleaning can wait. Laundry can wait. Checking the text messages that I know I’ll have waiting from Laney and Sabrina can wait.
Right now, I get to just be.
But more important—I get to be with my family. I pull Bash into my lap as he’s licking his fingers. “Hey, you,” I murmur in his ear. “Can I tell you something?”
“Mama tell me everting.”
Mama does not tell him everything. But I’ll let him think I do. “Do you remember I told you Aunt Laney’s growing a baby in her belly?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And Uncle Theo is that baby’s daddy?”
Jonas sucks in a breath next to me, and I swear I feel my heart swell as if it was his.
Pretty sure he knows where I’m going with this.
Bash sticks his finger in his mouth and stares at me.
“And Aunt Sabrina’s growing a baby in her belly too, and Uncle Grey is her baby’s daddy?”
“Everbody has daddies,” Bash says like he’s reciting it from a book.
Which he is.
He just hasn’t reached that stage yet where he’d ask who his daddy is.
“Well, Jonas is your daddy,” I tell him.
He stares at me with those big brown eyes that he got from his daddy, then looks at Jonas, whose breathing has gone a little uneven. “Dona my daddy?” Bash repeats.
“Yep. Jonas is your daddy.”
“’Kay. I go see dick-dick.”
He slides off my lap, leaps up, grabs a stick, and starts chasing imaginary pirates around the chicken coop. And Jonas slides over closer to me, his fingers linking in mine while our thighs line up.
“That’s not how it goes in the movies,” he says a little hoarsely.
I squeeze his hand. “It’ll click eventually. And he should know. You’re his family too.”
“Em—if he repeats that?—”
I kiss his cheek and put a finger to his mouth. “You’re family, Jonas. We claim our family around here.”
And Bash will repeat what I just told him. He absolutely will. Probably at daycare this week, the first chance he gets. Dona my daddy .
Jonas clears his throat again and drops his head to my shoulder. “This is way better than playing a role in a movie.”
We spend the rest of the morning watching and playing with Bash while he battles pirates and asks for more food and drags his blocks out to tell Jonas to build a better dinosaur.
And in the middle of showing Jonas how to do it himself, Bash squints at him. “You my daddy?”
Jonas goes misty-eyed all over again, which makes me go misty-eyed too.
“I am,” he tells Bash. “But you can call me Jonas or Daddy or Hey You or whatever you want, okay?”
Bash stares at him harder. “Dat a bad dibobor.”
“Not all of us can build good dinosaurs,” Jonas replies in his Panda Bananda voice.
Bash makes a face. “I fix it. You go ’way.”
“Bash, we share with friends,” I remind him.
He looks at me, and then he hands Jonas two blocks. Just two. “You pway with dese . I pway with dose .”
I shouldn’t laugh.
But today, smiling, laughing, and loving are all I seem capable of doing.
Eventually, Jonas and I end up sitting side by side on the quilt again. But this time, when he presses a kiss to my shoulder, he murmurs words that make me sigh.
“My mother apparently arrived in town last night. She wants to meet you two. You can say no. She’s…a lot.”
I slide a look at him.
Pause.
Weigh my words carefully.
And then decide if he’s serious, if he loves me, he can handle this. “ You’re a lot.”
His eyes flare wide for a second before he cracks up. “Not wrong.”
“I have to take media classes just to date you. I’m aware that I’m not wrong.”
“You changing your mind?”
“No. Never.” I squeeze his hand back and smile. “Just realizing that this being brave thing is going to have to start sooner than expected.”
“If she tries to imply I have to pick between the two of you, I’m picking you.”
“Would she do that?”
He shakes his head. “She’s overprotective, for good reason, but she’s not stupid.”
“Okay.” I nod. Nod again. Ignore the butterflies and hummingbirds and possibly a full-size crow or two starting to flutter around my stomach. “When?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Bash had a bath last night, and I’m already showered. So you tell me when you’re—oh, wait. Let’s let him finish.”
Jonas finally looks away from me and out at Bash, who’s gone totally still in the yard with an intense look of concentration on his face.
I put a finger to my nose and whisper, “Not it.”
And when Jonas swings a raised-brow, parted-lips look back at me, I double over in laughter.
Will I happily change Bash’s diaper?
Yes.
But Jonas’s startled expression at losing a game he didn’t even know we were playing?
I might have some of those Monroe male genes in me too.
Just a little.
And when that amused smile overtakes his handsome features again? Coupled with his sigh and his, “Only fair, isn’t it?”
I swore I’d never fall in love again.
That I was over men.
But Jonas?
He’s worth it.