AllFreeNovel
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Because of course she will.
Mommy is used to handling so much on her own.
Bitterness has me briefly shutting my eyes.
How is it he’sphysicallyhome yet still missing from our lives?
Doesn’t this defeat the whole change in career thing?
“Maybe she can video chat!” Lu squeals her brilliant idea, summoning my gaze back downward. “That way he here for this too! He not have to miss all ofNochebuena!”
Dear Santa…Could Mommy get a little love for already being here? Is that too much to ask? Really?
“Mommy,” Lair Bear calls over her shoulder as the blonde animal handler, Cassie, retrieves a bag of treats she had placed off to the side, “can you try to video chat Daddy?” She doesn’t even wait for me to possibly think of an answer before poking out her bottom lip and releasing one more pale pink word. “Pwease?”
I offer them both a sweet smile of surrender and dive into my tiny tights pocket to retrieve my cell. One quick password and swipe later, I’m attempting to reach him for the first time since he left. Until now, we’d been treating this shopping situation like any other “mission” with him left alone to focus on completing the operation at hand in the quickest and most efficient way, but my little Panic! At The Disco fangirls have sung. Their “High Hopes” are more important than their uncle’s last-minute journey to find them gifts.
While it’s no shock to me that he doesn’t answer, I am a little surprised when Blu parks himself beside me and suggests, “How about Uncle Blu recordsall three of youfeeding the reindeer andsendsit to good ol’ Jolly Saint Ditch?”
“Yeahhhh!!!” they squeak in excitement, enthusiastically clapping in tandem.
“Go on,” he happily insists at the same time he bounces his newest bundle of sweetness in his arms. “Go get in line behind your cousins. I’ll wait back here with Mom until it’s your turn.”
Hand in hand they slide directly in the row behind T’s oldest who is closest to them in age and immediately begin to ramble about all the things they’re going to do with the pair of creatures they decided needed better names than the ones they originally had.
Can’t argue with them there.
Rainbow and Sprinkles aremuch betternames for reindeer than Sam and Steve.
“Thanks, Blu,” I mutter under my breath, arms folding across my chest, phone still in hand on the off chance he calls right back.
“Yeah, no problem. We’ll nominate this moment for my Godfather of the Year award.” His bouncy green lettering instantly has me shaking my head with a crooked grin. “I mean I win oneevery year, but I like to knowwhich onepushed me to the top.” Chuckles from us both precede him asking, “Seriously, shouldn’t Wahl have been back by now?”
My oldest nephew takes over assisting Cassie with the younger children allowing me to meet his gaze. “That’s what I thought too.”
“I blame Kolby.” An impish smirk slips onto his lips. “I don’t know why, I don’t know exactlyhow,but my gut says, it’s Kolby’s fault.”
“Because it can’t beyour fault?” I playfully tease in return.
“Or Reynolds,” he reminds on a louder laugh. “That f-er is inside on present surveillance.”
“What?”
“Some of the kids have apparently been blitz attacking the gifts, trying to get sneak peeks of what’s inside, and since it washis kidhe caught in action, he put himself on guard duty.”
Snickers are attached to additional headshakes.
“I swear every yearallour children become mini operatives on some joint task force with one main Christmas related mission in mind. Remember last year and The White Christmas Crusade?”
“So many marshmallows…So many sticky surfaces.”
“And I think Baby Bee here,” he gives his four-month-old a loving bounce to get her giggling again, “is already in on the operation. Pretty sure she sounds the alarm for when an adult is approaching.”
Like Slater, Blulovesbeing a dad.
Getting to do all the dad things.
Come to think of it…so does Reynolds.
