He scrambles off the chair and dashes to the kitchen. “Feed dick-dicks!”
“We havenotfed the chickens,” Jonas says. “And I didn’t get him up. I rolled over on the couch, and he was staring at me. And, ah, holding the chicken.”
“Dona falled.” Bash screws up his face in an expression I can’t identify until he adds the noise. “Eeeee!”
And nowI’mchoking on a laugh.
Which hurts my poor stomach this morning, for the record.
“You scared Jonas and he squealed in terror and fell off the couch?” I ask.
“Uh-huh.”
“That was a really good impression,” Jonas agrees.
No irritation. No embarrassment.
That’s pride.
Like he’s thinking Bash will be the next generation of Rutherfords to go into showbiz as a natural.
“Don’t,” I mutter before I can help it.
He holds up two hands. “Actively battling every lesson from my own childhood right now. Promise. I’m not doing what you think I’m doing. Swear I’m not. You need help with that chicken food?”
I’m not the stubborn independent type. I’m theit takes a villagetype. Despite everything Jonas has seen since he got to town, my friends aren’t running thetake care of Emma show. I’m just as likely to stop at Theo and Laney’s place with cookies after Bash and I had fun in the kitchen all afternoon as they are to knock on my door with diaper cream when I let it slip that I’m out.
But Iwantto feed my own chickens this morning and not depend on Jonas.
My aching body, though, would prefer that I not be a stubborn ass about my independence.
“Dick-dick food here,” Bash says. He grabs Jonas’s hand and pulls him toward the kitchen. “Two soops.Two. No more or dick-dick get sick.”
Jonas looks at me like he’s waiting for permission.
I pretend I don’t see him blinking against his eyes going misty and his Adam’s apple bobbing. And also that I have no suspicion whatsoever that he’s having a reaction to Bash blindly accepting him like it’s normal to wake up with him on the couch.
I shrug. “Since you’re here, you might as well. Thank you.”
He nods and lets Bash tug him into the next room, the smile curving his lips as he looks down at my baby—ourson—absolutely wrecking my heart.
What happens if he stays long enough for Bash—forboth of us—to get attached? And then leaves again?
What happens if he stays, though?
If he walked away from Hollywood entirely to be here? To be a real dad?
I follow them into the kitchen, where Bash pulls Jonas to the floor, squatting and opening the lower cabinet where we keep the chicken food near the back door. “Mama, where Dodo Nono?”
“I don’t know where Yolko Ono is,” I tell him. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Dodo Nonoaaaaahhh!” Bash says, flapping his arms. “When Donaeeeeee!”
“She got scared and flapped her wings?” I ask him.
He nods. “Da hoe wows!”
“The horrors,” I agree. Second favorite on my list of things he says right now. And he’s saying more and more every day. “Do you think she’s hiding?”
