And just like that, my serious adult conversation about adoption had turned into wedding planning with a five-year-old.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“We’ll see, Button. We’ll see.”
Chapter 14
Theo
“I’m gonna hunt for the dinosaur unicorn now!” Debbie announced with the kind of sudden determination that only five-year-olds could muster. She bounced off my lap like she’d been spring-loaded and raced toward the living room, leaving behind a sticky plate and our conversation about adoption and wedding planning.
I sat there for a moment, still processing the whiplash of going from “Can I adopt you?” to “Can I be the flower girl?” to “I’m gonna hunt for a long-extinct fictional creature” in the span of a few heartbeats. Only a child could pivot from life-altering conversations to mythical mayhem without missing a beat.
I shook my head with a smile that felt permanently etched on my face and surveyed our disaster zone of a kitchen. Flour dusted every surface like snow, chocolate chips had somehow migrated to the floor despite Debbie’s careful measuring technique, and there was syrup on things that had never been anywhere near the syrup bottle.
It looked like a small culinary tornado had blown through, but I couldn’t bring myself to care, not after watching Debbie’s face light up when I’d asked to be her daddy for real, not after she’d casually accepted the idea of Jeremiah joining our little family like it was the most natural thing in the world.
What was that all about, anyway?
We barely knew the guy. Sure, he was hot and sexy and had the most brilliant smile that curled my toes and made me gushy, but he was still basically an unknown. Had he not been our delivery guy, I never would’ve let him even meet my daughter before months of dating and vetting and background checks and possibly a lie detector test.
I hadn’t done any of that.
The thought slapped me harder than a drag queen’s quips in her opening monologue.
We let a stranger into our house. I let him play with my daughter. A shiver crawled up my spine as nightmares of kidnappings—or worse—caused my brain to spiral into vile, dark places. Had I put my family at risk? Had I put Debbie in danger? Was Jeremiah, like I taught Debbie most strangers were, a threat I’d welcomed with open, horny arms?
Moby Dick and the Seven Dwarves, Theo, get a grip, my logical brain chided.He’s a good guy. Even Debbie can sense it. Besides, it’s not like you left her alone with him.
True as that might’ve been, it didn’t ease the vise on my heart. Why did everything have to be so confusing, so frustratingly overwhelming? Why couldn’t life be simple and easy, like in the movies I watched on Lifetime? Happily ever afters just happened in those movies. Doggonit, I wanted my own HEA, and I wanted it to be simple and clean and . . .
I banged my head against a cabinet door, more to knock sense into myself than anything.
My life would never be simple or easy.
But Jeremiahwasa good guy. I believed that.
Sure, Cuddles hated him, but dogs didn’t know everything. Debbie had never liked any man she’d met; at least, not any man I’d been interested in. I mean, it wasn’t as though I dated a lot. Fine, at all. Still, the one or two times I let a man meet my baby, she’d promptly turned up her lip, spun about, and stormed out, threatening to never leave her room “until he was gone.”
But not Jeremiah.
She liked Jeremiah.
I could see her grow to . . .
I shook off the words. That thought was too big, too grand, too . . . everything. I couldn’t handle it, not in that moment, possibly ever.
Jesus.What was I thinking?
My hand pried itself free from a puddle of syrup I hadn’t realized I’d laid it in, stringing golden liquid as it did.
“Awesome. That’s just awesome,” I said to the syrup, as though tree sap could hear me and respond. Stupid sap.
I spent the next thirty minutes scrubbing sticky fingerprints off cabinet doors and wondering how a five-year-old could generate so much mess from pancakes. By the time I’d restored some semblance of order, Debbie had found her elusive dinosaur unicorn—a purple stuffed animal that was definitely a Barney with a construction paper horn taped to its forehead—and was conducting an elaborate tea party in the living room.
“Button, I’m going to shower,” I called. “Julia will be here soon, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. Me and Sir Hornsworth are having a very important meeting about dragon cookies.”
