He really didn’t seem to have much beyond soup and some weird bean salad thing that couldn’t have been edible given the questionable color and possible fuzz. He’d said he only got it yesterday but had no idea when it’d actually been made.
So out with the weird crap and in with reasonable groceries that wouldn’t kill him.
“Oh, pancakes?” He followed me into the kitchen and released me long enough to set the bag down on the table, but he glued himself to me again as I went to get the next bag. “Eggs. Like eggs.”
He seemed to like anything he didn’t have to cook.
“Yes, I can make either of those.” I wasn’t sure how the running joke of college guys not being able to cook got startedbut we all liked eating too much not to have figured at least some of it out. I wasn’t at Gary’s level, but I could keep Chipmunk fed. “We could also do a breakfast pizza or something else fun.”
Between the random stuff in his pantry and what I’d picked up, we had a variety of meals that I could make.
“Yes.” Nodding excitedly, Chipmunk tried looking in the bag as I shut the door and he nearly took us both down. “More.”
I wasn’t sure what more meant, so a distraction seemed to be in order. “Do you want to help make dinner or are you going to finish your picture?”
And he was off.
Since he ran into the living room, I took that to mean he was going to color. “Walk, please.”
Because he only paid attention to where he was going when he was making us walk in circles around the house. Otherwise, Chipmunk barreled through it at full speed, crashing into everything.
Yep.
“Oops.”
I wasn’t sure what he’d run into that time, but by the time I got to the living room, he was standing in the middle of the space and crayons were everywhere.
What had he hit?
The air?
“Help, Daddy.” He was frowning at the chaos, but hadn’t made any attempt to fix the situation. “Everywhere.”
“Oh yeah.” Hoping the groceries wouldn’t thaw too much more, I knelt down and patted the floor. “Help me, please.”
He couldn’t do it for himself, but he was a master at helping me with anything and everything. He also had opinions on everything, and he usually had me fighting to keep a straight face. “Yes. Helper.”
My method was to pick them up randomly, working my way across the mess, but Chipmunk groaned. “No, Daddy. Red. Blue. Green.”
Good fucking grief.
There were five different colors of red.
“Show me, Chipmunk.” I was not going to guess the best way to pick up fucking crayons. I would however pretend to be interested and not curse.
I was a good Daddy no matter what he liked to say when he was fucking with me to get his way.
“Red. Red. Red.” His words and actions didn’t match in the slightest but did show me that I was supposed to start with the lightest shade and move to the deeper ones. “Good boy, Daddy.”
Brat.
The way his eyes sparkled said he knew it too.
“Good Daddy, Chipmunk.” Repeating myself got a giggle from him and distracted him enough that I managed to pick up the greens in a completely random order.
As soon as his laughter stopped, though, he looked down at the floor and frowned. “Gone? Red. Blue. Green.”
I played dumb and cocked my head as I ignored the blues and reached for the yellow. “Yes, well, they’re not gone, we’re putting them away in your box.”
