“Hey, Em. Don’t worry. I’ve got the poop monster under control.”
“Poo mama!” Bash cries. “Big poopoo inna dydee!”
“It’s amassivepoo,” Jack says. “I think it’s the biggest poo he’s ever had.”
“Big big poo!” Bash says.
And through it all, Jonas sucks in a breath, looking past me as Jack side-carries a laughing Bash through the living room and down the hall toward the bathroom, where there’s a permanent supply of wipes, diaper cream, and Bash-sized diapers.
I try to ignore the wonder and longing on Jonas’s face as he stares at the hallway.
He’d be a good dad, a small voice whispers in the back of my head.
We don’t blindly trust people anymore, I fire back.
My logic gets the message.
My heart does not.
“You can go around back,” I say. “I’ll meet you there.”
His brown eyes flick to mine, suddenly unreadable. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t ask who Jack is.
And I realize he probably already knows.
He probably has people who already researched us, which is likely as necessary in his world as the two muscular guys standing just outside the black SUV that clearly delivered him here.
He probably knows all about me.
“Holy patooties, Bash,” Jack exclaims down the hall. “Did you eat an entire dinosaur?”
Bash laughs.
Jonas angles his head to look in their direction through the screen door.
“Out back,” I repeat, and then, like a complete and total awkward fool, I shut the door in his face.
17
Jonas
When Emma saidfamily cookout,I expected to see her dad and her brother and her brother’s new wife.
Maybeher friend Sabrina and Sabrina’s boyfriend too.
I didn’t expect a patio full of people staring at me like I walked out here with my underwear on my head and my butt cheeks hanging out.
Theo’s at the grill. Even if I’d only known Emma’s brother wasthat tatted guy who once had a popular GrippaPeen channel, or as the guy who tried to end me for causing a scene after his wedding, I’d recognize him. He and Emma have the same eyes and mouth, though his hair is light brown and wavy instead of blond and tucked into a neat ponytail, and they have different noses and chins. He looks me square on, silently threatens to disembowel me in very creative ways, nods once, and goes back to putting burgers on to cook.
I’m guessing the guy with the salt-and-pepper hair next to him is Emma’s dad. Lots of family resemblance there too.
Two dogs, one a chocolate lab about the size of Begonia’s Shiloh Shepherd, the other a significantly larger St. Bernard, sniff in my direction. Grey Cartwright rises from an Adirondack chair on the edge of the patio and heads my way the same time the older man does.
Grey, who towers over everyone else on the patio, with dark hair, a short beard, and the attention of both dogs, reaches me first and extends a hand. “Jonas. Nice to meet you. Formally. I’ll try to not rack you in the balls again today. Probably. You meet Mike Monroe yet?”
I turn and shake hands with Emma’s dad. “Not yet. It’s a pleasure, sir.”
