“No kids for me.” And fucking four of them? Not ever. “You know what my favorite thing about your kids is?”
“I bet you’re going to tell me.”
“That they’re not mine.” Bah dum bum. Jack shook his head and grabbed his travel bag.
“Wait, so are you seriously taking off?” Ben asked, standing and coming to the side of the desk to take a peek at Jack’s computer monitor.
“Yeah. Problem. Fixing it.” Jack shoved his cell into the outside pocket of his bag.
“The calm lady?” Ben asked.
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” Ben was tracking Jack as he buzzed around the office like a semi-frantic bee around a puddle of—you know what. He didn’t need to finish that thought. With any other boss, it would’ve stressed Jack out, but Ben wasn’t a normal employer. Mostly because he trusted his staff. Well, he trusted Jack. “How are you gonna fix it?”
That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? “Someone hit the delete button on her self-confidence. I’m going to help her find her way back there with some aggressive calm.”
Jack paced to the window, took a long look at Los Angeles. Hoping it’d do that grounding thing April always went on about on her feeds. All he could see was napkins drenched in urine.
No taking this back. It was out there. They either had to work with it or bury the hell out of it.
Burying it was the best option. Because…control. This was going to be about control.
Show April the path back to tranquility and control—that’s what he’d do.
“How big is the mess?” Ben asked, his voice pitching to the realm of boss instead of friend.
Jack would say about a Costco-size package of napkins worth of disaster. He turned to his boss, because that’s who Ben was in this situation. Ben got it with that look. Clearly, he knew a plan was percolating.
And that Jack needed to be in Denver two hours ago.
“It’s a big mess.” Jack nodded. “But lucky for you, messes are my specialty.”
Chapter Four
“Forget happy and healthy, sometimes I consider it a win if everyone is alive at the end of the day!”
—Tara, Colorado, United States
April
Funny thing about viral videos. The whole viral spreading thing happenssuperfast.
Which made sense if April were to stop and think about it. Unfortunately, during the spread, there was no time for mindful thinking. No time for any thinking at all.
Especially once Betsy Kelly—the self-appointed Queen of Mommy Land—got her hands on it. She’d already dissected the video and April’s parenting on her blog. Her extremely popular mommy blog.
Yup. One second, April was sopping up a pee puddle with organic napkins while formulating a plan to discuss appropriate word choices with Harmony.
The next? Boom. Internet sensation. Thank you, Betsy.
It turned out, a second grader cussing while her frazzled,supposed-to-be-calmmom cleans up coffee cans, body waste, and loses her shit is pure parent-fail fodder for the internet masses following Betsy’s blog.
April groaned internally.
Becoming an internet sensation for all the wrong reasons was not a good thing when she’d been carefully curating her online persona with Jack’s team in preparation for the great bigPractical Parentingepisode.
Jack.
