Page 83 of Jericho

"Did you see that bear outside your window?" Jersey asks when Eli takes a step back with his brown crayon and inspects his work.

Eli frowns, looking over his shoulder at the man. "Do you need glasses? That's a puppy."

He jabs the crayon at the paper as Nolan starts to chuckle.

"Do you want a puppy?" Jersey asks instead of taking his correction on the chin like a real man would.

"Jersey," I snap at him.

"That's actually not a bad idea," Nolan says. "Caitlyn mentioned a service animal last week."

I glare at him.

"This is like the fifth time one of you has mentioned this woman. Is she like a goddess or something?"

"She's my best friend," Eli says, and I know that comes with its own set of problems.

Eventually, Eli will graduate from therapy, and I don't want the distance between the two of them to make him regress.

"Do you think she has a dog?" Eli asks.

"I don't know. We can't even think about getting a dog until we make sure it's okay with Hemlock," I tell him, glaring even harder at Nolan when he doesn't hesitate to pull out his phone. "Some people have allergies, and we don't want to make people sick."

Eli scrunches up his nose the same way I do, but I already see the wheels turning in his head.

"Hemlock is my friend. He'll say yes."

"He says let him check with everyone first," Nolan says, holding up his phone as if I can read the tiny script on there from the other side of the room.

"I think that means you're getting a puppy, bud," Jersey says with a wide smile as if he's living vicariously through our child. He turns his attention back to the easel. "Now if that's a puppy, what's his name?"

Chapter 41

Jericho

"I'll name him Felix," Eli says as we walk toward the stairs that will take us to the swimming pool.

Despite what happened near the pool with Damien, he hasn’t had an issue with swimming here every day as I promised until the other day when a couple of the guys were down here killing time. He refused to get close to the water with them in it, and we're hoping that with Caitlyn here, along with a few of the other guys, he'll decide that he wants to stay.

"What if it's a girl puppy?" Jersey asks, having decided to join us.

"I'll name a girl puppy... Felix!" Eli says excitedly.

I glare at Jersey. He knows what the hell he's doing. The man won't leave it alone, and I'm already in hot water with Aspen as it is for even working toward finding out if a puppy was a possibility for Eli. To the child, he sees that effort as a guarantee that I'll make it happen, and because of that, I know I have to.

Aspen has mentioned more than once that I'm spoiling him, but I can't help it. I've already spent his entire life away from him. I don't want him to ever want for a single thing, especially not after what he's been through. A puppy? A couple of toys from Target? I'm not going to make him a deviant in society's eyes. He's a kid. He should have toys and outlets for fun. There isn't a single thing we had brought back here to the cabin. As far as anyone in their previous lives is concerned, Aspen and Eli Gaines—soon to be Aspen and Eli Parsons if sheanswers the question I plan to ask her later the right way—are dead, right along with their dear leader Damien.

They're both starting over literally and figuratively, and that includes toys, clothes, and all personal belongings.

Plus, what boy doesn't need a dog? Secondly, it was mentioned by a licensed professional that a dog is a great companion for a boy who suffered a trauma, and Eli has been through many.

Jersey grins at me, and I can tell he's goading Eli on just to piss me off, but he's good with my son. Aspen mentioned earlier that she thinks Jersey's been through some stuff, and her guess is that he lost some people very close to him, but I don't know the man enough to get in the middle of his shit. If he wants to talk about his past, I'm here to listen, but until then, it's none of my business.

"Jericho," Eli whispers when we open the door and step into the pool area.

The humidity in the air sticks to me, making my clothes cling to my skin. I'm glad Aspen is taking a little longer to get ready because I need to be in the water before I see her come out in her bathing suit. If I'm standing on the side of the pool, everyone in here is going to become very aware of the effect that woman has on my body. It's why we sit apart from each other when we're in the same room as Eli. Just the warmth of her body next to mine gets me riled up.

Eli calling me Jericho makes my skin itch, but I know he isn't doing it to hurt me on purpose. Maybe one of these days I'll be daddy to him, but until then, Jericho works.

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