thing when she pooped herself, but I knew that damn smell when it got that bad. I guess my brain had just blocked it out in a sense of self-preservation from the last time she’d done the same thing. How the hell could I ever forget retching as I cleaned her butt from how awful it had smelled?
Worse: I knew exactly what color was going to be in her diaper.
What the fuck had Grandpa fed her? Fucking fuck.
I accidentally sucked in a breath and gagged.
How the hell did something so small smell so goddamn awful?
I retched and heard Jonah laugh like an asshole. “I can’t smell a thing.”
I held my breath as I turned the wheel into the first parking lot on the right-hand side, pulling into a small strip mall with a pharmacy and gas station. I barely managed to throw the door open, leaving the car running when I sucked in another big breath through my mouth. Where the hell was a respirator when I needed one?
“Are you all right?” my girl’s dad asked a moment before a hand landed on my upper back and he slapped me lightly three times, sounding totally back to himself, thankfully, even though I wasn’t worried about that anymore.
“Mm-hmm,” I groaned, shaking my head and trying to clear my nostrils.
What had to be his hand stroked up and down the center of my back slowly. “All right, take a breath. I’ll see what’s going on, yeah?”
Did he expect me to plead with him not to?
And what the fuck was going on with his nose that he couldn’t smell death in the air?
When he opened the door, I took a step away and watched as he gave me a brave little smile before ducking inside the back seat.
I held my breath as I watched through the window as he unbuckled Mo from her seat, whispering who the hell knew what to her—probably how smart she was and how she was never going to need a man other than her daddy—and still Jonah didn’t flinch or slow down as those big fingers worked at her straps. Those big hands then went under her armpits, and he was talking away at her, making happy faces like that wasn’t radiation in the air as he lifted her up.
And I sucked in another breath, planning on holding it and letting this boss handle Poopy Pants since he had no olfactory senses. How many times exactly had he had his nose broken? Fuck.
I watched as Jonah took a step back and began to straighten, bringing a wide-eyed squirming and babbling Mo to that wide chest. “I don’t know what you—”
His mouth shut. Those lips of his pressed down into a firm line that made the corners of it go white. He shot up to a complete standing position, and I watched his own honey-colored eyes go wide.
His lips parted, and then they parted some more until they were open half an inch.
Mostly, there was no way to miss the way he gulped and asked very, very cautiously, “Lenny?”
“Yeah?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as his arms began to extend outward, moving Mo slowly away from him as he asked in the most hesitant voice he’d yet to use with me, “What is that?”
I knew it! “I told you she smelled!”
He shook his head quickly, blinking rapidly all of a sudden. “No.” Those big feet moved so that his whole body did too in a counterclockwise motion, stopping only when Mo’s back was facing me.
My eyes went wide and my own mouth parted before I managed to whisper, “Oh fuck.”
His voice was just slightly higher than normal. “Oh fuck what?”
One of my feet slid back on the concrete. “Oh dear God.”
Mo’s body went two inches higher, two inches farther away from her dad; his voice even sharper than a second ago as he asked, “Oh dear God what?”
I blew out my cheeks, slapped my hand over my mouth, and gagged. It was honestly a fucking miracle I didn’t throw up, and I knew it. I could handle feet on my face. I could handle touching them. Sweaty armpits on my cheek or forehead were nothing. Blood? No big deal. Pee? Whatever.
But….
Jonah held her even higher up and asked in a voice that was definitely fucking higher, “What is on her back?”
I gagged again.
“What is on her back?” he demanded in that Jonah with a capital J voice.
I pinched my nose, closed my eyes, and shook my head, hoping, fucking willing myself