Page 123 of The Champion
“Jameson?”
Axel bolted the other direction afraid to let his dad seehim in such a compromising situation. I mean he very nearly shoved the fuckingthing into his brain. It wasn’t coming out without some help. Help I was in nocondition to provide after my second long island ice tea that I’d beenpretending was regular ice tea.
“What do you mean he stuck a Lego in his nose?” Jamesonasked when I explained.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” I giggled feeling thealcohol in my system a little more. “He’s four and half, nothing they do makessense. Now go, he needs help.”
Jameson groaned and walked toward Axel huddled in thecorner of our kitchen holding his hand to his bloody nose.
“Why did you stick it up there?” I heard Jameson ask him.
Axel didn’t answer, just shrugged as a tear slipped downhis cheek. Poor kid.
As I’ve said, he hung on every single word Jameson said.I’m not sure what it was but he could do absolutely nothing wrong in Axel’seyes. The same went for Jameson—Axel was everything to him. I mean, he lovedall three of our children equally but with Axel, they understood each other.
Jameson went to work retrieving the Lego from his nose. Ihad to laugh when Lane, who did this when he was three, and remembers this wellbecause it had to be surgically removed, patted him on the back and said, “Ithappens to the best of us.”
Arie’s third birthday was already turning into aclusterfuck and we hadn’t even served the cake. I for one couldn’t wait to eatcake. Emma had whipped it up and frankly, it looked like heaven with frostingthat could give even the healthiest of us a heart attack.
Jameson had to leave tomorrow for Loudon New Hampshire some getting drunk and bathing myself in frosting wasn’t exactly a good idea.Besides, it was my daughter’s birthday.
I put down the long island ice tea and stuck to waterafter that.
Arie, who was still going through her terrible twos andprogressing nicely into the horrible threes, was running around tellingeveryone she was a princess and her daddy was her prince.
Axel never went through this. The princess phase and thetemper tantrums. Sure he had his moments but Arie, wow, I wasn’t prepared for her.That’s not to say she was as bad as the Lucifer twins or the Gomez boys but shewas...wicked at times and Jamesonrefused to admit this. He thought she was perfect. So perfect that for herthird birthday, he had her bedroom in our home in Mooresville transformed intoa Disney fairytale, complete with a carriage for her bed.
“So she’s not spoiled or anything.” Alley piped in when Ishowed them the room prior to cutting the cake.
“You’re telling me.” I sighed. “It’s getting out ofhand.”
Jameson really was creating a problem. Anything she everasked for, he got for her. So far, we’d kept Arie from seeing it. This wasn’tvery hard because she still insisted to sleeping in Axel’s room with him atnight. He didn’t enjoy this by the way.
“What are you going to do when the boys start to realizehow spoiled she is by him?”
“Axel knows but he could care less, he’s too into racingto care about that. And Casten,” I looked down at him laughing at Cole who waspunching himself in the face and then falling down laughing. “I don’t thinkanything could make him upset.”
It was true. My little one was all smiles, all the time.
Casten was a very active little boy. He would never sitstill for anything but at nearly a year old it was to be expected. Unlike Axel,Casten was spontaneous and up for anything. You could literally wake him upfrom a nap and he was ready to go do whatever you wanted and smiling whiledoing so. He smiled in the morning and never stopped until he fell asleep.
Jameson came up to me with wide excited eyes and Arielatched on to his back in her princess dress she insisted on wearing while Emmaconstantly fretted with her crown.
“Is it time to show her?”
He showed way more enthusiasm for this than Arie did.“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Show me what?” Arie peeked her head up.
“Your birthday present,” Jameson said climbing the stairstoward her room.
“Maybe she sleep in her room now.” Axel grumbled as weall climbed the steps.
He knew what we were doing and was more than willing to help,even at four, to get her out of his room.
It took a lot to surprise Arie. I blamed Jameson and allhis extravagant gestures toward her. So when we opened the door to her new,ornately magical fairytale room, I was surprised by the squeal of delight shelet out. It made me a tad jealous I never had a room like that.
“Oh wow daddy!” her eyes squinted as they always did whenshe was so excited she couldn’t control herself. I recognized the look as Emmadid this a lot. “It sopretty.”
