“Not by you.” Jonah’s voice was firm but not angry. “I’m already getting school from a Dad loan, I’m not adding a babysitter. I’m an adult and I’ll have to figure it out. There are daycares all over Destin, and that’s less than a nanny.”
Again, Eli didn’t love that idea, especially with a house full of caretakers who loved Atlas, but he had to respect that this was Jonah’s parenting issue.
“When’s the internship start?”
“Well, I have to interview first. No stress there, huh?” he scoffed.
“You’ll have a solution before then. You always do.”
Jonah gave him a look that was half skepticism, half desperate hope. Then he straightened his shoulders. “I need to see Atlas.”
They walked in together and the moment Jonah stepped through the door and found Atlas in Kate’s arms on the sofa, everything changed in his demeanor. The exhaustion, the stress, the money—all of it dissolved as he crossed the room and scooped his son into his arms, pressing his face against the baby’s neck.
“Hey, buddy,” he murmured. “Daddy’s home. Late and dirty, but home to you.”
Atlas grabbed a fistful of Jonah’s hair and shrieked with delight.
Eli stood in the doorway and watched them, a sudden pang of a fifteen-year-old grief gripping his heart.
Melissa would be there for him. She’d move heaven and earth and grandma harder than anyone.
The thought faded as Kate leaned in and kissed Atlas’s head, one hand on Jonah’s shoulder with nothing but love.
“He was an angel, Jonah. I couldn’t love him more.”
Of course. The Lord provided. He always did.
Jonah launched Plan A—for Atlas, of course—on Friday. With only two lectures that morning and an open afternoon, it was the perfect opportunity to pretend it was “bring your motherless infant to school” day.
He’d mapped it out the night before with the confidence of a man who had once navigated a van with no GPS across multiple state lines. Once they got to campus, Atlas would ride in the chest harness—facing in, secure, warm, close to Daddy’s heartbeat, which was basically a human white-noise machine.
Meredith had helped him pack his backpack, guaranteeing precision. She’d included extra diapers, enough formula for twins, two burp cloths, and at least four totally sterile pacifiers, all tucked neatly next to his laptop.
First class at nine was Food Safety and Sanitation with Professor Daniels—an easygoing lecture course taught by a kind woman who genuinely believed that proper hand-washing technique could save the world.
There was no lab component, no hands-on work, nothing that required two free arms. Jonah could sit in the back, take notes, and let Atlas sleep through an hour on safe kitchen procedures.
Second class at ten was Broussard and that, he knew, was the variable in this experiment.
With plans to feed and change Atlas in the narrow sliver of time between classes, he hoped the baby would conk by the time Broussard started his lecture.
Please, God, please.
He arrived on campus at eight-forty, transferred Atlas from his car seat to the harness with ease, and walked across the small quad. He got exactly the kind of looks one would expect when a six-foot guy with shoulder-length hair showed up at a community college wearing a baby.
Two girls he knew from lab did a visible double-take, freezing mid-step. His favorite lady from the library had to stop and coo. A couple of guys he’d once tossed a Frisbee with made weird faces like they’d never seen a sixteen-pound human.
He just grinned and stroked Atlas’s head like any proud papa.
Professor Daniels’s classroom was in the smallest lecture hall, like most of the culinary arts classes. He snagged a back-row seat near the door in case he had to make a quick getaway.
But so far, so good.
Daniels launched into a unit on cross-contamination protocols—the thrilling world of cutting boards, refrigeration systems, and why you never, under any circumstances, stored raw chicken above ready-to-eat foods in a walk-in. Her delivery was clear and methodical and possessed the exact soothing quality that Atlas apparently required, because the school’s littlest angel didn’t move for forty-five straight minutes.
Jonah had both hands free on his laptop, stayed laser focused, and felt boldly confident in Plan A.
If he could do this every Monday and Friday, he’d have the whole day covered and wouldn’t mind getting help for shifts at the restaurant, assuming he got that internship.
