Chapter Eight – Fetch!
It was suspiciously silent upstairs. April mixed the pasta with the carbonara sauce he had just made and carefully turned off the stove and wiped his hands on a towel. The kitchen needed a bit of cleaning up, just like the entire house, but he had been too busy to start. There were just so many things he had to do.
One of them was to convince Jett that he needed to go to classes. For some reason, Jett was seriously against that. Was it because he wasn’t in college? Somehow, April couldn’t imagine Jett being jealous over such things, but who knew?
It was strange enough to feel so familiar around Jett, yet to try coping with the fact that they were grownups now – sort of – and not the same as their thirteen-year-old versions. The truth was he felt at ease, and that could mean that Jett hadn’t changed that much.
Or maybe he was projecting his wants and dreams onto this gangster-type Jett of whom he knew nothing about. If Jett had a gay best friend, he should have, at least theoretically, tested already whether he was attracted to guys or not.
But, if he were to listen to what Jett was saying, the guy had never attempted anything with another boy, which meant …
What the hell did it mean? April still couldn’t get his head wrapped around having had jerked off with Jett. It was like that was from another movie, or better said a dream, and he was bound to wake up soon.
Jett had been cool about it, too. How could a straight guy be so unbothered by being jerked off by another dude? April shook his head. It was a premiere for him, too, only that he was pretty much shaken if he thought about it.
He went upstairs and knocked softly on the door. There was laughter coming from the inside, so he went in.
Only to witness Jett throwing toys toward the edge of the bed while lying casually against the headboard. At the same time, Jay happily crawled to get the thrown toys.
“Good boy, now bring it back,” Jett said, and it looked like his kid was listening to him and was hurrying back with the toy clutched in his mouth.
April remained nonplussed for a second, and then he moved quickly. “Jay, give me the toy.”
The boy looked up at him. April sighed and made a move to remove the toy. Jay turned away, shaking his head just like a puppy up to no good. Exasperated, April caught him, tickled him a little to make him release the toy, and then grabbed the squeaky thing and threw it straight to Jett’s head. The object made a high pitched sound as it connected with the crown of Jett’s head and ricocheted, bouncing against the wall above the bed.
“Your kid is not a dog!”
Jett stared at him and then burst into laughter. “Come on, man. He’s so good at taking directions; it’s frigging amazing!”
April pursed his lips and balanced Jay on his hip, as he had seen his sister doing with his nephews. “Have you any idea how ridiculous that looks?”
“Really? Look at him. He’s happy.” Jett pointed at Jay, who didn’t seem bothered by being interrupted, and now tried to eat some of April’s hair.
“He’s growing teeth, and he would chew anything. That doesn’t make him a dog! And I thought you were going to change his diaper. Oh, god, what’s that smell? Great! You didn’t change him.”
Jett shrugged and put his arms up, his hands under his head. “You’re the mommy.”
“I didn’t know we were playing house,” April pointed out. “Get off the bed. Bring me that thing over there.”
“This blanket-like thingy?” Jett asked as he kept the object in his hand and stared at it dubiously.
“It’s a changing pad, and seriously, since you bought everything, how could you forget already?”
“I just showed the shopkeeper your list, and she put everything in a basket.”
“Of course. Always minimum effort with you, right?”
“Oh, fuck, why does he smell so bad? And why is he laughing?”
“Obviously, because he is a bit of a punk, just like his daddy, and he enjoys this.”
April worked efficiently, hoping Jett wouldn’t realize that he could count on the fingers of his hands how many times he had done that until now.
“Now,” April said, after scooping Jay into his arms, “we need to talk about your responsibilities as the father of this baby.”
“I don’t know for sure if I am, though,” Jett protested. “But the kid is fun.”
“The kid is not fun,” April said in an even, hopefully menacing voice. “He is a responsibility, and first of all, yours. And hey, we can establish that. We need to send some DNA samples from you and Jay and see if they match. You know, send them to one of those websites they use on TV.”
Jett looked away. “What the hell do we do if they don’t?”
“Maybe we start digging more to find out who left Jay on your doorsteps. Don’t worry; we won’t give him away, just like that. Don’t you want to know?”
Jett seemed to ponder. “I suppose. But it takes a while until we get the results back, right?”
“It could take a couple of weeks, I think. But we should do it. In the meantime, no dog training for Jay. How could you have the heart to treat him like that?”
“Hey, we were both having fun until you showed up. You really don’t like to party, do you?”
“Not really, no. I hope your tastes go beyond playing fetch with human beings,” April said.
“All right,” Jett said with a sigh. “But he’s my kid.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. But I know he is.”
“Do you now?”
“Yeah. I just feel it.”
April stopped for a moment. That was a pretty sweet thing to say, and coming from someone like Jett, it meant a lot.
“Also, he wants to kiss you, just like me,” Jett pointed out with a smile.
“Ouch!” April pulled away. “He’s trying to bite me, just for the record.”
“See? It’s better if he chews on toys, and not your cheek.”
“You’re such a joker. How about you go on a little trip to the store to get a crib and some teething rings? I forgot to tell you about those,” April said, feeling secretly guilty. He still depended heavily on Google, and he still didn’t know everything.
“I’m hungry,” Jett replied.
“All right. I wonder who the bigger baby here is. Let’s get downstairs.”
“Why are you taking Jay with you?”
“You’re obviously not the only man in the house I must feed,” April replied over his shoulder.
“Hey, you left something here,” Jett said.
April looked only to see how Jett was pointing at the used diaper carefully wrapped and put in a plastic bag. He watched it like it was something of an alien nature. “It’s packed. So throw it away. You won’t lose a hand.”
“Me? Seriously?”
“Yeah, you. Having a baby is not all fun.” Damn, he was such a fraud pretending to know everything about raising babies and whatnot. But somehow, he wanted to annoy Jett just a tiny little bit.
“Can we potty train him already?”
April made a mental note to ask Google about potty training, too. “I think he’s a bit too young for that,” he said promptly. “Ah, and get a diaper pail from the store, too, okay?” he hurried to change the topic a little.
“This kid is going to ruin me,” Jett said, shaking his head.
“Better him than strange girlfriends,” April replied.
“Strange? Where did you come up with that?”
“They must be. One of them left Jay, this beautiful little baby, at your door. Seriously, who does that?”
“Maybe she had a reason.”
“Yeah. She hated your guts and wanted you to suffer by getting you to change diapers and endure having pureed food thrown in your face.”
“Good thing I have you,” Jett said, and his grin became larger.
“Yeah, right?” April said in the most sarcastic voice he could muster.
It was a bit unfair that he couldn’t be upset with Jett. It was enough to look at him with those pretty eyes that somehow looked at home on his face, despite his punkish exterior, and April was sold.
He had always been, but that was a different story, from another time, and he needed to stop thinking of that.
“Are you daydreaming?” Jett asked. “We’re hungry.”
April rolled his eyes. “One can’t have a peaceful moment around here, can he?”
“Not when we’re hungry.”
“Funny how you now include Jay in your demands.”
“It’s easy. We are your men, and you should take good care of us.”
April sighed. “All right, men,” he said the last word with another roll of his eyes. “Let’s get you fed already.”
They were playing house, joke aside, April thought as Jett placed one hand on his shoulder and guided him toward the door.
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