Jonas is asleep on my backyard swing out in the back part of my yard.
And mama instinct tells me Bash is awake a split second before I hear his little voice drift down the stairs, singing a Waverly Sweet song that I suspect he learned from Zen.
No “Baby Shark” or “Twinkle Twinkle” for my kid.
He’s all pop songs.
And I adore it.
“Gotta go,” I rasp. “Bash just woke up.”
“We’ll swing by with breakfast,” Theo says.
“You just got married. Have breakfast just the two of you andgo on your honeymoon.”
“No.”
“You think Sabrina and Grey and Zen will leave me hanging if he shows back up?” I ask, hoping Jonas is actually asleep out there and not faking it. My window is open.
He can hear me.
But I don’t know if he knows who my friends are.
Grey’s a scientific genius who invented self-sealing cereal bags. Licensing the patent pays him enough that he’ll likely be a billionaire before long.
Never mind the research he’s working on now that’ll probably be even bigger once he wraps it up and goes public with it.
If I can’t afford the best family law attorney, then no matter how much I hate having people take care of me, I’ll ask my friends for help.
Purely for Bash’s sake.
And then I’ll owe them for the rest of my life.
I can’t battle the Rutherford family’s lawyers solo.
Whichsucks.
All I want to do is live my simple life with my son. With our chickens and our little family-of-two-size house and good friends in our close-knit community.
When Jonas didn’t reply to my emails about my pregnancy and Bash’s birth—which was the only way I knew to try to get in touch with him—I thought we were safe.
That wecouldlive a private, simple life.
“Knowing you have other people to help and being some of those people who help are two different things,” Theo says. “We’re delaying.”
That’s hisI’m a stubborn ass and I’m digging my heels invoice.
He tried to break up with Laney using that voice when my wedding fell apart, but he barely made it a week before he was eating his words and groveling.
Or so the story goes.
Sort of missed witnessing it myself, and it took a while after I got home from Fiji before my friends and I found normal again.
But we found it.
Because that’s what friends do. We all shared blame for hurting each other, and we’re all stronger for having worked through it.
“We’re absolutely delaying,” Laney echoes.
