“And then there’s something else,” Cricket says.
“What?”
“Heath?” Cricket leans out of her door and looks up, catching me listening in at the top of the stairs.
And I should be listening in. It’s what a good parent does. This has nothing to do with wanting to hear Cricket’s voice while she bonds with my daughter.
Fuck, I have issues. “Yeah?”
“Are these chicken eggs or dragon eggs?”
Lav leans through the doorway too, staring up at me like my answer will determine how the rest of my day goes.
And suddenly everything’s okay again.
No, better than okay.
Like I belong in my own life again.
Like life is more than a string of little stresses.
It’s joy too.
Infectious, contagious joy.
The missing piece from the past few years.
The fuckingjoyof being alive.
I make myself act normally as I shrug at my daughter. “I’m not the dragon expert. How do you tell the difference between a chicken egg and a dragon egg?”
“You look at it, silly,” Lav says. “What color was it?”
I scratch my beard. “I don’t remember. I hadn’t had my coffee before I cracked them.”
She huffs at me. “That’s helpful.”
Cricket sucks in a breath and claps a hand over her own mouth, clearly hiding a laugh.
I don’t mind when she’s amused by Lav.
She loves Lav and wouldn’t ever hurt her. I don’t know the same about the women at the salon yesterday.
“Also, can’t dragons disguise their eggs to look like chicken eggs?” I ask.
Lav’s eyes go big. “Theycan.”
“How else can you tell them apart?” I ask my daughter. “Do they taste different?”
“Of course they taste different.”
“Will it hurt me if I eat dragon eggs?”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Cricket. I have to go taste the eggs to make sure they won’t kill my daddy.”
“Since The Cluckinator’s still here, I need to get her some food,” Cricket says. “And also probably make sure she doesn’t meet Fluffy again.”
Fluffy.
