At nine-fifty, class ended. Jonah had ten minutes before Broussard.
Should he wake Atlas for food and a change? Or could he make it through the crucial hour of Broussard’s class?
This wasn’t a day to gamble.
He found an empty classroom near Broussard’s lecture hall and slipped inside, waking Atlas when he took him out of the harness. The baby looked disoriented and miserable.
His face scrunched. His lower lip jutted. He took a breath to gear up for a big scream.
“No, no, no. Not yet, buddy. Hold on.”
Opting to skip the change, he pulled out a bottle one-handed while bracing Atlas’s head with the other. The maneuver would have been impossible two months ago and was now muscle memory.
Atlas latched onto the bottle and guzzled like a frat boy at last call. Formula dribbled down his chin, but Jonah blotted with a burp cloth.
Four ounces in three minutes. “That’s a record, small man!”
He hoisted Atlas to his shoulder, patted his back, got an epic burp, and wiped the collateral damage from his shirt.
“Pro move, my guy,” he said as he maneuvered the baby back into his chest carrier. “Now here’s the deal: We’re going into Chef Broussard’s class. He is not a man who tolerates disruption. So you’re going to sleep or, at minimum, be extremely quiet. Can you do that for Daddy?”
Atlas grabbed Jonah’s nose.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Broussard’s classroom was full when he slipped in, late enough that there was one seat in the back row. He had to climb over a few people but got comfortable behind a tall guy with bushy hair, which he hoped would hide the newest student from the professor’s sharp gaze.
Broussard was at the front, laying out tools on the demonstration counter with the deliberate calm of a surgeon prepping an OR.
Atlas was quiet. Eyes open, but quiet, one hand wrapped around the harness strap, surveying his new surroundings with what Jonah hoped was academic curiosity and not strategic planning for a full meltdown.
“Today,” Broussard began, setting a chef’s knife on the counter with that familiar soft clink, “we talk about the most important relationship in your career. The one between your hand and your blade.”
He launched into knife skills with the same intensity he brought to everything—the proper grip, the pinch hold, the role of the guide hand, the physics of a rocking motion versus a push cut.
Jonah listened, able to see and still keep the tiny baby hidden behind Tall Guy.
“Your knife is not a tool,” Broussard said, holding up an eight-inch chef’s knife that winked in the fluorescent light. “It is an extension of your intent. If your mind is scattered, your cuts will be scattered. If you’re distracted…” His eyes swept the room, right over Atlas without seeing him. “You’ll lose a fingertip and I’ll have to fill out paperwork, which I hate more than a dull blade.”
He slammed a carrot with a noisy thud. Atlas shifted and let out a whimper.
A small one. Barely audible. Jonah put his hand on the baby’s back and rubbed in slow circles, the way that usually settled him.
The chopping sounds were not going to be a hit.
“Thebrunoiseis your proving ground,” Broussard continued. “A quarter-inch dice, uniform, consistent.”Thwompf. “Every piece the same size.”Thwompf. “Every piecetells me whether you have discipline or whether you’re faking it.”Thwompf, thwompf, thwompf.
Atlas whimpered again. Louder this time.
Jonah reached into the backpack with his free hand and found a pacifier. He slipped it into Atlas’s mouth. He sucked twice, then spit it out. It bounced off Jonah’s knee and rolled under Tall Guy’s seat.
Exactlyas Meredith had predicted and shamed him for losing the pacifier clip, a device Miss Perfect reminded him was designed not to be lost.
Finding backup number one required two hands and the kind of rummaging that would draw attention. He opted instead for the gentle bounce—a rhythmic knee movement that had a roughly sixty percent success rate.
Jonah shifted and braced for the next noise. The chef’s knife moved in rapid, precise strokes that produced a pile of perfectly uniform carrot cubes, each cut louder than the one before.
“You hear that rhythm?” Chef asked.
