Raffi
I’m going stir crazy.
I’m not allowed to work out yet, and Victoria won’t let me do anything physical in the bedroom. And while I love her appetite for giving head and taking care of me, I just want to fuck my girl senseless.
Is that so much to ask?
Apparently so.
She’s been amazing over the past couple weeks. She’s all but moved me into her house with her mom and Wyatt so she can take care of me. But, the truth is, she wants me to be close to her and Wyatt as much as I’ve needed taking care of.
Waking up in the morning, often by being smacked in the face with an eReader or tablet of some kind by the most adorable miniature version of myself is one of my favorite things.
I’m teaching him to make the best PB&Js in the world, while his mom casts a wary side eye our direction. Granted, a soon-to-be threenager wielding a butter knife is probably not the smartest idea I’ve ever had. But I’ve got him.
Living here, even temporarily, I’ve become familiar withthe Barnett family’s routine. They eat every meal they possibly can together. And when Victoria isn’t at class, or working on a shoot, she’s with our son.
They’re practically joined at the hip.
Mrs. B works every hour of every day, and then some. She probably has one of those time turner things Hermione Granger has inHarry Potter. How does Victoria’s mom have the energy to cook and clean? I’ve been helping out where I can, but after putting their dishes away in all the wrong places, I got relegated from emptying the dishwasher, to loading it.
And when I turned all their cream towels a light shade of pink because I neglected to pull out Wyatt’s bright red Paw Patrol tee from the laundry, I got told to leave that the hell alone, too.
I’m not even trying to cause trouble. I want to be helpful. These women have been nothing shy of amazing to me, and as much as I love food, my cooking skills need some work. Apparently there are only so many times you can say thank you with grilled cheese.
Who knew?
Wyatt is slashing his plastic child-friendly knife his nana switched out for the metal one when he threw it across the kitchen and almost broke a vase. He’s hacking a piece of bread into pieces instead of carefully spreading grape jelly on top of it, but he’s having fun, that’s all that matters. Or at least, it’s all that matters in this moment.
His birthday party is coming up. We gently guided him in the direction of a Paw Patrol party. Decorations are much easier to come by than for some of the international cartoons he loves. For a beat we thought we were going to have to pay international shipping for Peppa Pig or Bluey decorations, but he relented. Ryder and the pup-squad will do just fine.
Penelope is baking the cake—apparently baking is her jam, and I can’t wait to taste test just how good she is. We havemore Paw Patrol decorations than I know what to do with, and most of my teammates are coming.
My parents have already bought him a ride-on tractor thing he picked out in the toy store, and they’re so freakin’ excited to be coming to their grandson’s birthday party, they’ve told everyone who’ll listen.
It’s adorable.
“Are you actually going to eat any of that?” Victoria bumps my hip with hers. “Or are you just letting our kid chop an entire loaf of bread into duck-sized chunks?
“Haven’t decided. He’s so gleeful chopping the bread, I might go get him a second loaf.”
She narrows her eyes at me in what I’ve learned is her signature mom face. It’s both adorable and terrifying all in one go. “I will unalive you.”
“He could help. He’s really great with a knife.”
She shakes her head, flinging out one of her all-time-best eye rolls. “That’s dark, Raffi.”
“No one would ever suspect him either. He’s just too cute.”
She claps her hands. “Okay, buddy. Are we finished making sandwiches?”
Wyatt looks up at me, and I answer with a shrug. If Victoria tells me I’m done at something, I’m fucking done. But this kid of mine has no such sense of preservation. He shakes his head. “More.” He waves his knife around like it’s a wand, a huge glob of jelly dropping onto the counter.
If there was a trapdoor under my feet, I’d make it open so I could flee. Unfortunately for me, the architects of this particular house didn’t factor in an escape route from the Mrs.
“Wyatt Jefferson Shaw.”
He tips his head like she said it wrong. He’s adjusting to the fact she’s using my name as his surname now. We both are. His birth certificate has her last name, because she didn’t know mine. She’s applied to have it changed, and despite the ball ache and red tape, she’s determined to set the official record straight.
