Page 18 of A Clutch for Hutch
“I thought they were majestic last time,” Dirk teased.
“They are majestically adorable. I don’t know why I assumed they would look just like big old chicken eggs, but they don’t. Each one’s so unique. I-I wish I could see them in person.”
“Good. Quit your job and come here and work for us,” I blurted out, not really teasing.
“What? You start another company?”
“Not a company as much as…you know…our own little flight here.”
“So, if there’s no company, what job are you asking me about?” He was honestly considering coming here. I knew that just from the tone of his voice.
“I’m not. I was just teasing.”
“He’s not teasing, Burns.” Dirk took the phone from me. “We were just talking about maybe hiring a manny to help us out when the babies came. But the idea of having a stranger here didn’t really work for us.”
“I’m in,” he said without hesitation.
“You’re in?”
“Yep. I’m in. I was looking for an excuse to come out there. And honestly? I’m good at what I do here, but it’s not the same without you. You have room in that place for me?”
“We’ve got room in this place for everyone, including the five little ones.”
And that was how Burns decided to move across the country to help us out. He wouldn’t be there right away. He needed to give his notice, deal with his lease, all that good stuff, but he was coming, and that gave me so much relief.
“Is he still gonna keep calling you boss when he’s here?” My mate was amused by the way he still addressed me that way.
“Yeah. I think at this point, it’s my name.” I’d come to accept that I’d never be Hutch to him.
“He won’t call me that, too, will he?” Dirk was dead serious.
“Knowing him, he’s gonna call you Daddy, just like the kids will.”
“Do you think I’m gonna be the daddy, not you? I kind of saw myself as a papa.”
“Do you want to be Papa?” I wasn’t married to a particular name.
“Maybe. As long as I’m something, I don’t care.”
“Well, then, something it is,” I teased. “Are you okay with Burns coming? He’ll understand if we were just speaking too quickly and brainstorming. He won’t take it to heart.” Burns was great like that.
“Honestly? I’m so relieved. I know you trust him completely, and every conversation I had with him was great, and five is overwhelming. I was trying not to let you see how nervous I was about it.”
“Same,” I said. “We probably shouldn’t do that anymore.”
“No. We definitely shouldn’t do that.”
He snuggled back into me. At least until we both woke up, seemingly for no reason. It was nearly two a.m. But when we looked in the papasan, one of our eggs was moving. And then another. And then the other. And then another.
It was egg time. It was baby time.
“What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?” Dirk said. We’d gone over the plan a million times, but knowing a plan and then acting on it when it was happening were two very different things. The bassinets were already here, ready to go, as were their clothes and diapers. We had it all set up.
“We just wait, my love. We just wait.”
Slight movements turned into rocking, turned into a crack, turned into another crack. They were all moving at pretty much the same pace until a huge chunk fell off the yellow one…and then another chunk and another chunk—and out came our first baby dragon.
“So beautiful.” My mate snapped a picture of him and then reached over and held him.
