Page 76 of Broken Chorus

The afternoon must have worn her out though because she didn’t wake up when he carried her in, or when he laid her down on the couch in the living room while he got everything put away. He was just finished up when the front door slammed open, and Liam came running in.

“Look what I can do!” he declared, doing a handstand and walking across the kitchen floor upside-down. Aaron applauded softly once Liam had righted himself, pressed a finger to his lips so Liam would know to keep his voice down, passed him the snack he’d already prepared, and got him situated at the dining nook in the corner.

“How’d it go?” Aaron asked when Kelly walked in, notebook in his hands.

“Well, let’s see….I got hit on by two different moms and some kids’ grandpa, restructured some lyrics and discovered that Mocha-coconut iced-lattes are my new favorite things.”

“Oh my god, that sounds delicious!”

“Right! Please tell me you got real, fully caffeinated coffee and if you didn’t, do me a favor and just lie to me. I don’t need to know if I’m drinking decaf. Just let me pretend it’s the leaded stuff, it’s better for my sanity.”

“Does that mean it’s a placebo and you’ve just convinced yourself it’s helping when in reality, you being a grumpy douche in the morning isn’t caffeine related at all?” Aaron remarked, laughing when Kelly started to flip him off, realized Liam was still in the room, and settled for sticking his tongue out at him.

“Would you really want to wager your health and wellbeing on that?” Kelly grumbled.

Chuckling, Aaron couldn’t help but remember a much younger Kelly snarling expletives at the sun for shining one morning when they’d discovered the coffee machine in the hotel room was broken.

Not only had he cussed the thing out, but he’d threatened to take a hammer to it and bury its pieces in a deep, dark hole. “Not particularly.”

“Wise man.”

“Fortunately for us all, I made it a point to read the packages before putting things in the cart. We’ve got five varieties, from light roast to triple caffeinated,” Aaron said.

Kelly yanked him into a hug, clutching him tight. “You’re my hero!”

“You might take that back when you hear what else happened while we were out shopping,” Aaron muttered.

Kelly groaned and pressed his head to Aaron’s shoulder. “Oh boy, am I gonna need to sit down for this?”

“Mmmmaybe.”

“Oh man, what did you do, knock over an entire display of two liters again,” Kelly asked. “When will you just learn to takeone off the top and stop trying to convince yourself that you’re a Jenga master.”

“Hey now, I pulled it out clean, it didn’t topple until we were half an aisle away from it,” Aaron protested.

“Result was still the same.”

“Look, this time,Ididn’t do anything, but Dani might have had a little incident in the grocery store,” Aaron began, still struggling with exactly how he planned to word this.

“I warned you!”

Hawk’s unexpected voice boomed from the doorway where he stood, arms laden with bags as he strode into the kitchen with Ella at his side. “You have to watch her, especially in the produce aisle. She will eat a half a bag of grapes before you get to the checkout line if you don’t keep an eye on her at all times.”

“In this case, I’d have happily fed her the grapes and paid for an extra pound,” Aaron grumbled, keeping his gaze averted so he didn’t have to see the expression on Hawk’s face when he said what he needed to say.

“Oh boy, what happened?”

Sighing heavily, Aaron finished making himself a chocolate milk before telling them everything that had taken place. “I tried talking to her about it in the car on the way home, but I don’t think anything I said helped since someone put it in her head that the office chair would gobble her up and now she thinks that applies to any chair with wheels.”

“Then you’ll have to try again,” Hawk instructed, the firmness of his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “Maybe you should give Declan a call before you do and see if he can give you some advice on how to help her be more comfortable with his chair before he arrives.”

“Why am I suddenly feeling like I’ve been set up?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d tried,” Hawk said. “This is the universe’s way of giving you a reality check.You wanted to learn more about parenting and how to deal with issues when they popped up with the kids, well, here is an issue. Deal with it.”

“Son of a…how can you tell me to deal with it when you’re the one who made the crack about cannibal chairs in the first place?”

“Because it happened on your watch,” Hawk insisted. “And because you need to if you’re ever going to work around your discomfort.”

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