CHAPTER 3.2
Siobhan

The best part about the Wilkinses coming over was Crystal’s little sister, Piper. She’s got this pink ribbon bow of a face and droopy sad eyes. She looked like a basset hound. Mother told me that’s not a nice thing to say, but Piper seemed to like it when I said she looked like a dog. She got down on all fours and started barking. I thought it was so funny until she licked my hand.

Ew.

“Hi, doggy!” I said when she toddled down our hallway. But she didn’t drop on all fours and bark.

Instead, she cried.

She looked even more like a basset hound than ever.
“My mother says you aren’t supposed to call her names,” Crystal said in her I’m-the-boss-of-you voice. “She’s not a dog. She’s a little girl.”

“Well, duh,” I said back. “But she likes acting like a dog.”
Her eyes got all round like a softball and she said, “Do you KNOW how many germs are squirming on this floor? It isn’t healthy for her to crawl around like a dog.”
Crystal was almost a whole year older than me, so that made her smarter. I never thought about that.

I looked down, imagining all the creepies that I couldn’t see, slinking all over the wood and gulped.
Taking her hand, I ran upstairs to my room to get my mind off of it.

Instantly, like she always did, Crystal punched my stuffed rabbit, Mr. Poppy, right off. I didn’t think he liked that.

Then she turned around, looking all around my room. “You STILL don’t have any video games? What are we supposed to do?”
Crystal was in one of those MOODS. Mother described it for me. She said Crystal was a special girl who needed lots of love and lots of patience and that I had a lot of all of those things, so I still could be her good friend. But having a friend like Crystal was hard. She was like this ring I got that was supposed to show my moods and I was all excited and Daddy bought it just for me. When I put it on, all it did was turn black. Not red. Not sparkly pink or orange or swirly blue that meant I was loveable. Just dead, not-exciting black.

Yep. Crystal was a dead mood ring.

My lip got all quivery. “B-But I don’t like video games. Want to go outside? We could play space pirates. I’ll even let you be the princess and boss me around.”
“Space pirates? I’m not a...boy!”
I wanted to yell at her that space pirates and swashbuckling swords and cool creepy alien finding wasn’t for boys. It’s for EVERYONE! But I knew she wouldn’t listen.
Pointing, she said, “Oh, we’ll play that.” She hustled over to my Don’t Wake the Llama set. My Aunt Dakota got me that for my birthday.

I hated it.
And of course, right away, I pulled the wrong log and the whole thing came crashing down
“You are such a spaz. Let’s play again!”
I didn’t know what a “spaz” was but I bet it was something only second graders knew. I did a half smile at her, but I got the feeling “spaz” was a not-so-nice word. I was going to ask Daddy about it later.

*****

Jackson

“Thanks for having us over, guys. I was glad you called,” Luci exclaimed. She looked prettier today for some reason.
“Yeah,” Pax said, smirking. “Luci ran out of mac and cheese. Crystal was about to pitch a fit when you called. Saved our asses.”
“What are friends for if they can’t get you out of Mac and Cheese hell?” I said.

“We have tons of boxes,” Winter added. “Take a few before you leave tonight.”
Pax turned to me and asked, “So, dude, when are we going fishing? You’re about to head out on tour, right? We should go before you leave.”

“Name the time and place, brother. I’m a man of leisure right now. You’re the doctor with the impossible schedule.”
“True...must be rough living the life of a rock star.” He winked.
“Right, dude...it’s got its downfalls. Like never waking up to your beautiful wife on the road.” I gave Winter a kiss on the cheek. “You’re lucky in that respect.”

“True,” he said.

Just then, Luci made a gagging sound.

Winter’s eyes grew. “Luci...you aren’t...”

She nodded, turning almost as green as her shirt. “It was unplanned. Believe me.” Her stomach lurched again, and she hustled to the restroom.

Another kid. Wow. I couldn’t imagine. It was hard enough with the two in our lives. And poor Pax. His two made mine look like angels.

“Congrats, man!" I said. "I think this calls for celebrating. Want a beer?”

He chuckled. “Yeah...definitely could use one.”

*****

After we finished eating and cleaned up, I pulled out my guitar and strummed lightly. This put our two little ones to sleep.

“Just think,” Pax mused, “this time next year we’ll have three rugrats running around.”

“You’re so lucky,” Winter said. “I wish we could have another one but...”
Luci answered, sluggishly, “Believe me, it’s you that’s lucky, Winter. Not ever going through this sickness and the labor and all the stress...ugh.
I felt bad that Winter wanted another child. I figured she did because she’d dropped hints here and there, but I definitely didn’t. My sixth album was almost finished and another kid would wreck all that we’ve worked for up to now. Our children are happy and settled with our nanny. I definitely didn’t want to complicate things. And with Winter’s situation, an accident couldn’t happen. We’d have to adopt. I could only hope she wouldn’t bring it up.

But another little one running around wouldn’t be all that bad.
“It’s amazing those two get along so well,” Pax observed.

Glancing over at the two sleeping tots, I smiled. Pax and Luci lost their child that would have been right around Siobhan’s age. Still born. The cord had wrapped around the baby’s neck. It was such a horrible time for them. But I had to hand it to them. They kept trying until they got little Piper. And just at the same time we had Elias. Made great play buddies.
Our families had the perfect friendship and grown so close over the years. I never would have guessed back in high school that Paxton would become one of my very best friends later in life. Better than Ro, even, since we were at the same place in life as fathers. Ro and Eskander didn’t want kids and so Ro really couldn’t identify with the things I was going through. But Pax did.

I was really grateful to have him close by when I was out of town, too. Both he and Luci were a godsend.
We sang songs and chatted until the kids were exhausted and I was fresh out of beer.