Courtney held her hand out to Bax. He linked their fingers together.
“Uh-huh.” Courtney needed to think about this. “It’s time to go back.”
* * *
Courtney hadminimal time to process the Bax panic situation—given that social media was blowing up and Dimefront was getting loads of attention.
She was getting loads of attention.
Bax’s new pregnant girl, Linx’s little sister, and Bax going bananas at the Shake Shack-A-Roo apparently made her interesting.
Even Hans buying everyone ice cream hadn’t quelled the curiosity, the internet chatter, or the fans’ disappointment that she was the one to take Em’s place.
That one sort of stung the most.
So she was now playing defense again, on her phone, curled up on the tour bus with her feet propped up on pillows.
“I’m ready to talk,” Bax said, freshly showered and striding into the living area—if one could really call it that.
They hadn’t spoken much since the buses left the lot. A few words here and there, but the air practically crackled with unspoken words. Starting with “What’s your favorite milkshake?” and ending with “What the actual fuck?”
Speaking of—
“A pirate hat?” Courtney couldn’t really believe was she was seeing. And yet? She totally could. “You want to talk about this while you wear a pirate hat?”
“No. I wants t’ natter about it while we both wear pirate hats.” Bax removed two folded-up cardboard paper pirate hats from Pirate Pizza Palace and placed one smack on his head.
Perhaps this was the part of pregnancy no one ever talked about—where your baby’s father turned into a pirate-hat-wearing cartoon character.
“You’re trying not to be angry.” Also, she was not wearing that hat.
“Aye. No ship here fer us. So we’ll ’ave t’ do wit’ a stand-in option.” He handed her one of the two hats.
“Or we could just move forward.” She took the hat so it didn’t become a whole thing. She did not, however, put it on her head.
Bax sat, crossed his arms, then said without an ounce of pirate, “You freaked me out.”
“I was totally fine. This happens all the time when you guys are touring. Every time, this is what I do. It’s not like I did something that’s out of the ordinary. Becca and Irina got an introduction to how I handle the crowds. That introduction involved a smoothie with kale. We brought Chet with us.”
“I came back, and you weren’t here.”
“And that’s going to happen again. Every time we stop on tour. I’ve got my complete plan mapped out.”
“I don’t like you going out alone.”
“Okay.” She shifted on the settee, moving her feet to the floor so he could sit closer. “I am an adult.”
“And we’re in this together.”
“I’m an adult,” she said again. “I get to decide about things that affect me. For example, if I want a smoothie, I will have one.”
Surprisingly, he said nothing. Didn’t argue. What the hell, she’d just keep on trucking. “I will take the precautions and bodyguards and traveling birth guides, but you can’t start telling me everything I can or can’t do. You don’t want me to do that to you. I don’t want that to be who we become.”
He nodded. Pulled the hat off his head. “I got scared.”
“It’s gonna happen a lot when Tiny Badass comes. I’m pretty sure ninety-nine-point-nine percent of parenting is being terrified.”
He nodded.
