“I feel devious about this,” he said.
Grant laughed. “That’s all part of the fun.”
37
PROUD OF HIS KID
“Hey, Maverick,” Jocelyn said the next morning and reached to pick up Chance’s son. Chance had been coming in second place now. He couldn’t complain too much since his son was happy and it seemed, though the dynamics of what he and Jocelyn had changed, it wasn’t in a horrible way.
Dates were out of the picture, but they were spending more time as a threesome. Like a family.
Things he never had and found he’d rather do that than go to dinner with the two of them.
“Joce,” Maverick said. “Hi.” He was waving his little hand backwards at her.
“Hi,” she said, giving him a snuggle. “You smell good. Did Daddy bathe you this morning?”
“I had to,” he said. “He had a blowout after breakfast. We have to start potty training. I’m not sure how many more times I can do that.”
“It might have been the avocado,” she said, cringing. “There is a lot of fiber in it. He ate two pieces of avocado toast. I didn’t think he’d like it but wanted to try mine.”
“Jocelyn,” he said, his voice as pained as his sinuses were cleaning his kid up. “A little warning would help. After he’d filled his pants, he took off and was hiding in his room.”
She laughed and poked Maverick in the belly. “Tell Daddy that’s your new game when you poop. You think it’s funny.”
“How come I don’t know that?”
Shouldn’t he know everything about his kid?
“Because I didn’t realize it was a thing, but the past two times he’s done it. He doesn’t always poop with me.”
“True.” She put Maverick down and he took off for the toys in a bin against the wall. There was more space here and his son could move around better. “I hope he doesn’t do that today at your parents’ with everyone around.”
“Hopefully he got it out of his system. Do you have a change of clothes just in case?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t think of that.”
She ran her hand down his arm. “I’ve got clothes here. We’ll just put it in with his stuff. I’ve got some toys in a bag to bring too.”
He’d thrown a few things in the backpack he carried everywhere now. It felt as if he was in school all over again and would be thrilled when he could ditch it and his son used the toilet.
“Whatever,” he said. “I don’t want to be high-maintenance every time we go somewhere. I should be able to just grab him and go run errands.”
“You can. But this is a full-day event. It will be better if he has things to entertain him.”
“He’s going to be a bear if he doesn’t get his nap,” he said.
“My father has a couch in his office on the first floor. We can put him in there with the door open. It’s off the family room and we can watch him. There is a TV in there too to keep him entertained. My mother has it all set, don’t worry.”
It was hard not to.
As it was, he was anxious about the first holiday meal he’d had with a woman and her family and then add in a child that he was navigating care with.
If it weren’t that he wanted Maverick to have childhood memories he felt robbed of, he would have passed on this.
But he’d already been buying Christmas ornaments and decorations to put around the house that Maverick might like. Even ordered a small toy train to go around the tree when he picked one of them up. The first one he’d have.
Santa always showed up at the firehouse so his son would get to experience that too.
