what we talked about?”
Heath draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. “I can’t hold my child’s failure to be born first against them for the rest of their life,” he recites.
Everyone at the table sniggers while Declan leans over to give Heath a kiss on the cheek.
5
Connor
* * *
“Jesus, has the whole city congregated in this mall?” I ask Josh as we join the mile-long line to meet Santa. For the record, we have Chase with us; we’re not just two creepy guys lining up with a bunch of kids we don’t know.
“It’s the Sunday before Christmas, Con,” he says reasonably. “Of course it’s going to be busy.”
I groan. “Fuck, this is going to take forever.” I lean out to the side so I can peer around the people in front of me. Way off in the distance I see Santa seated on a red, throne-like chair, while his elves usher just a handful of kids at a time into the little enclosure surrounding him. “They should have two Santas working,” I suggest. “Or three. It’d make the line move quicker.”
“Yeah, I think that’d probably freak the kids out, having more than one Santa.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s the real Santa,” I reason.
That comment earns me what I feel to be unjustified glares from a bunch of parents in my vicinity. I roll my eyes at them. “What? Everyone knows the real Santa is in the North Pole right now finalizing all the logistics for his big trip on Thursday. These mall Santas are all just body doubles.”
“But I want a photo with the real Santa,” a little boy in front of us whines, tugging on his mom’s hand.
I shake my head at him. “No one ever gets to meet the real Santa, buddy. He can’t leave the North Pole except for on Christmas Eve—haven’t you seen The Christmas Chronicles?”
Next to me, Josh is shaking with silent laughter, but he manages to recover enough to tug on my arm and pull me down so he can murmur in my ear. “As amusing as this is, I think you need to shut it now—these parents look ready to mutiny.”
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “But only because it’s you asking.”
The little boy in front of us is full on crying now, which makes me feel a little bad. But also a little disenchanted. I hope Chase isn’t this annoying once he’s whatever age this boy is.
And speaking of my awesome son, I get a whiff of something incredibly foul coming from the direction of Chase’s stroller and know he’s finally done that poop we’ve been waiting for all morning.
“Urgh, god. That’s enough to knock someone unconscious,” I groan, waving a hand over my face.
Josh chuckles. “Why don’t you go take care of it. I’ll smooth things over here.” He waves to the area around us and the parents who are still looking pretty peeved.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why do I feel like this is a ploy to get me to change what is going to be an absolutely disgusting diaper?”
Josh holds a hand over his heart, batting his eyes at me in a look of pure innocence. “Would I do that?”
I shake my head in amusement and move toward Chase’s stroller. He holds his arms up signaling he wants to be carried, so I unbuckle the restraints and haul him into my arms before tugging the diaper bag from the stroller’s handle and slinging it over one shoulder.
As predicted, the diaper is a bad one. I remember Josh telling me back when I first found out about Chase that his diapers would get worse when he started eating proper foods, but I honestly didn’t imagine this.
“You’re just a little poop machine, aren’t you?” I say with a grin as I clean him up and fasten a fresh diaper. “But you’re my little poop machine so your forgiven.”
Chase grins, clapping his hands together. “Dadadada.”
“Yep, that’s right.” Once I have his pants back on, I sit him up on the change table, pressing a kiss to his forehead before drawing back and smiling at him. “Can you say Santa?”
“Sa!”
“Eh, close enough.”
I haul him back into my arms and return to the bustling mall to meet Josh in the Santa line. Which has barely even moved in the twenty minutes I’ve been gone with Chase. Jesus Christ.
When we get to Josh, Chase immediately holds his arms out toward my fiancé. “Jojo! Jojo!”
I hand Chase over and start rooting around in