I let out a long, slow breath and tried to fall back asleep. Why go digging up those things now? It would only lead to disappointment. I’d talked to other ‘donor conceived people’ over the years and a lot of them had run into the same roadblocks.
Chapter 12
Jade
The Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
With Ferrick gone to the Other World, I expected to wake up and find that Eran and Vatten took their babies and went home. Not that I wanted to kick them out of the house, but it was clear that Beryl was going to be a jealous ass until I screwed some sense into him or something.
Yawning, I nuzzled against his chest. He still smelled like the pond and grass. It was a scent that had become familiar to me since adopting Jondi. Beryl smelled a bit worried and a little bit sad. The last couple of days had been long and stressful.
“Dad?” Jondi called, walking up to us.
“Oh, baby!” I pushed myself upright. “I’m sorry I was gone so long.”
“It’s okay. Uncle Eran made breakfast. I ate the whole box of fish sticks too. Don’t worry. He baked them. I didn’t eat them frozen this time.”
A couple of months ago I woke up in the middle of the night to him devouring a box of frozen fish sticks. I had told him then that he could wake me up anytime he was hungry and needed me to cook for him. He claimed he liked them frozen but with research on otter shifters being so sparse I wasn’t surehow healthy that was for him in either form. Sure, the company claimed they were all natural, but it was my job to worry about whether or not they were lying.
“Is he still not allowed inside?” Jondi asked, looking down at my sleeping mate. Beryl still had one arm wrapped around me, but the other was sprawled above his head.
“We just fell asleep.”
“Because the bullies are mean,” he nodded. “The bullies at school make me want to nap too.”
“Are they still bothering you, baby?” I asked, doing my best not to frown.
“No, but they’re still there. Them being around makes me sad,” he shrugged. “It’s almost like I can hear them thinking that I’m weird. What are we going to do with him? I don’t want to share my room.”
“Of course, not! That’s your room. He’ll share mine, probably,” I managed to say without laughing.
“He could sleep out here, but he might scare other people. Uncle Eran said that Ferrick was gone,” he said, looking around as if he wasn’t going to believe it until he heard it from me. I sniffed the air. The farm was a lot less tense. Gaia had mentioned something about it too before I fell asleep. At least I thought her name was Gaia. Maybe it was Gia. I didn’t know anymore. I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. The sandwiches I bought earlier in the day still lay in the grass not far from us.
“Uncle Eran said not to eat them because they were in the sun and he didn’t know how long,” Jondi wrinkled his nose up. “He didn’t fix my pool, though. Said the pool needed to retire.”
“He’s probably right,” I said and added replacing Jondi’s kiddie pool to my ever growing to do list.
“Morning?” Beryl said, squinting against the sun as if he wasn’t sure what time of day it was.
“Afternoon,” I said, looking around. “Late-ish afternoon.”
“Is Ferrick really gone?” Jondi asked again, looking around the farm as if Ferrick might spring forth from a blade of grass any second now.
“Yeah, baby,” I said.
I almost reached out to give him a one-armed hug, but I needed a shower since I took a nap on top of a man who smelled like a pond.
“You don’t stink, daddy,” he laughed. “I like how the water smells. It smells like home.”
“I need a shower anyway,” I laughed.
“Does he have to take a bath?” Jondi pointed at Beryl.
“Most definitely.”
“Don’t forget to wash between your toes. That’s where the dirt hides. If you don’t crabs will move in there,” he said, referring back to a kid’s book we read so long ago that I almost forgot it. Back when we read it, Jondi wasn’t even talking to me yet. Only clinging to me as if I was his driftwood lost at sea.
“And don’t play with my bath toys. They’re mine,” Jondi said.
