The decorative box looked like something he found at one of those big craft stores and held what seemed to be a thousand crayons. “Once we get these picked up, I’ll start making dinner.”
He wanted to let me distract him with dinner, that was clear as he sighed, but he winced as my random crayon sorting drove him too crazy to ignore. “Nuggets…Daddy…colors…”
Chipmunk wasn’t an especially chatty little in his deepest headspace and had mostly descended into looking cute and giving me short responses to questions or just random chatter as we’d colored and watched TV, but he was incredibly easy to read because his face showed everything he was thinking.
And at the moment he was thinking about how to fix my chaos.
I was curious to see what he’d do, but I should’ve known to expect the unexpected when it came to my soup bandit.
“Daddy.” He gave me a big, clearly forced smile and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Good helper.”
Well, that was one way to get what he wanted.
“Thank you.” Brat. “I think that’s cheating, though.”
He managed not to laugh out loud, but his whole body jerked as he attempted to give me wide eyes and look innocent. “Good boy.”
Chipmunk’s shrug wasn’t believable either and became even less so when he reached for my hand and slowly moved it to a blue crayon. “Thank you, Daddy. Good Daddy.”
And I got another peck.
“Fine.” I wouldn’t be lectured but I’d let him bribe me. “Blue.”
His ridiculously dramatic sigh of relief had me trying not to laugh, but I decided not to fuck with him about the crayons when he started picking them up too.
The overly organized cleanup added time but made him happy, so we eventually got through it and made it to the table with his loot. “There we go.”
“Thank you.” Doing a little wiggle, he sat up straighter and started setting out his toys. “Nugget time.”
“That’s right.” The groceries had to be put away first, but I got the oven preheating as I figured out where everything was and got it organized. “Nuggets and tater tots and…hmm…green beans or cucumbers?”
Thankfully, he had other things he liked to eat that weren’t soup and had been very willing to tell me all the best vegetables to go with chicken nuggets.
“Green.” The way he held up a matching crayon didn’t answer my question, but he didn’t let that stop him from changing the subject. “Dessert?”
Playing dumb, I frowned and started putting away the first bag. “Dessert? I don’t think you have anything.”
Pretending to go over and look in the freezer to search for dessert, I ignored the bags on the table and shrugged. “I don’t see anything.”
He tried to groan and sound like a frustrated old man, but his giggles kept sneaking out. “Brownies, Daddy. Brownies.”
Since he thought I was a few crayons short of a box, he held up the brown one. “Like brown. Brownies.”
“I’m not eating crayons, Chipmunk.” My dry response and eye roll had the giggles escaping. “That’s yucky.”
Collapsing into the table, he laughed like I was hilarious and didn’t stop until I pulled out the box of brownie mix I’d added to the cart…clearly not as secretly as I’d thought. “How did you know I bought dessert?”
Nearly climbing on the table to see the box, his grin was ear to ear. “Sneaky.”
“Yeah, you’re sneaky.” I should’ve taken my phone with me when I’d gone to piss earlier. “I’m going to have to watch you closer.”
Nodding, he didn’t seem to find that threatening. “Closer. Closer. Closer.”
We needed to work on his self-preservation instincts.
“Brownies. Brownies. Brownies.” My ridiculous response got a snicker from him and he nodded excitedly. “Alright, dinner and dessert.”
It was slightly early for dinner, but I wasn’t sure when he’d eaten more than the soup in the fridge. His lack of real food was weird, though, because I knew he had the money to eat because he had enough to fuck with me, and his parents were beyond generous. He’d also gone over the menus for every takeout place in town so that wasn’t a problem either.
