None of us believe him.
“Dada bwing pwesents for me?” Bash asks.
“There’s something for you in your mama’s box,” Laney tells him.
“Right on top,” Theo agrees.
“This treehouse isnotbuilt for nine,” Sabrina says.
“Not nine and presents,” I agree.
“Pwesents!” Bash slingshots himself off the chair, making Yolko Ono squawk in irritation at almost being flung off too.
Jonas grabs Bash in one arm and rescues the chicken with the other, letting her down to glare at all of us from what looks to be her preferred corner of the treehouse.
Theo reclaims his daughter from me after he’s set a box at Laney’s feet, and after a quick reshuffle, the men are holding the kids in the seats while Laney, Sabrina, and I sit on the floor and tackle the boxes.
The first thing we pull out has all three of us doubling over in laughter, which makes me suspect Theo wasn’t lying about these being his fault.
“Look, Bash,” I say, handing him his T-shirt. “Aunt Laney and Uncle Theo got you a shirt.”
His is yellow—his current favorite color—and it has a tractor on it—his current favorite vehicle.
It also saysHeir to the Ugly Heiress Societyin scripty font around the tractor.
The babies have matching onesies.
Complete with the tractors.
“They don’t care what they wear,” Theo says as Laney holds theirs up. “Why can’t my daughter like tractors too?”
“Heaven help us if she tries to hotwire one someday,” Laney replies, which sends all of us into a fit of laughter again.
There’s a box clearly holding a coffee tumbler of some type next, and when we all open them at the same time, we once again double over.
“TheHot Ugly Moms Club?” Laney says.
She’s the first of us able to speak.
Theo looks her square in the eye. “We have traditions to uphold.”
“Should it beHot Ugly MomsorUgly Hot Moms?” Grey asks Theo.
Completely dead serious.
“Ugly Hot Momsimplies menopause,” Theo replies, equally staid.
“You gave this a lot of thought.”
“It’s what I do.”
Jonas is watching all of us with that amused, quiet smile that I love so much.
I love when he’s quiet. It’s a peaceful, happy quiet. Like he’s spent his whole life looking for something out in the wide open,only to find it in a cramped treehouse behind a fixer-upper in the mountains.
He catches my eye and smiles bigger and softer at the same time.They know, I mouth to him.
Good, he mouths back.
