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 doesnotsound 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?”
“My wife doesn’t like it when people pass out blowing up balloons for her baby shower.”
“Hepassed out?” I repeat, wading through the balloons to try to find the rest of Jonas.
“I didn’t know dude wasn’t used to the elevation yet,” Decker says. “He’s been here for like a month. He should be used to the elevation.”
“And we figured anybody who talks as much as he does had to have good lung capacity,” Jack adds.
“Good lungs,” Jonas wheezes. “Dry. But good. Big. Big lungs.”
I push balloons aside to find him, but they keep falling back on themselves. “Can you four please start decorating the dining room with these?”
“Making—balloon pit—for Bash,” Jonas says.
“Bawoon pit!” Bash echoes. “I die!”
“Donotdive in the balloon pit, please.” The images flashing in my brain right now—Bash doing a header onto the floor and knocking himself out or gushing blood out of a head wound.
I shudder.
“We put cushioning on the floor first, Em,” Decker says, clearly offended.
“Lucky’d basically kill us if we didn’t,” Jack adds.
Decker nods. “He’s already pissed we’re interrupting his morning to come over and check out Mr. Airhead over here.”
“Sopissed.”
“My nut sack’s shriveling. And I wasn’t even the one who called him.”
“To be fair, I had a feeling he was on a date. This isn’t surprising.”
“The part where he had a date is surprising.”
“But him being pissed that we interrupted it isn’t.”
“Truer words, my brother.”
Jonas giggles.
Giggles.
It’s freaking adorable.
