Perfectly Adequate

“Daddy, let’s bounce.”

“Tiny fracture to my arm, but other than that, it’s been pretty safe. Let’s check it out while those three wear themselves out.”

I set Roman down, and he runs straight to the trampoline. We jog to catch up to him. I help him in through the mesh doorway and crawl in behind him.

“This view might be worth a tiny fracture.”

I glance back at Eli’s smirk as he stares at my ass. He’s seen his share of it today.

“Perv.” I roll my eyes.

“It’s not my fault you keep putting it in my face.”

We take turns jumping with Roman, having a fun day I didn’t expect. Then we play with Gemma, Orville, and Wilbur once their energy settles into something more manageable for Roman. And by manageable, I mean they are perched on their clean blankets in their shed, letting Roman love on them. I take at least fifty photos.

“What are you going to do with all of those pictures?” Eli asks as I flip through them.

“Put them on their Instagram page.”

“Whose Instagram page?”

“Orville’s and Wilbur’s.”

“What? Your emus have their own Instagram page?”

I hold up my phone.

Eli’s eyes try to pop out of his head as he leans closer to my phone. “Your emus have over five hundred thousand followers? Is that for real?”

“Real.” I shrug. “What can I say? People like animals better than humans. I know I do.”

He chuckles. “Clearly, you might not be alone.” He nods toward Roman asleep between Wilbur and Orville.

I have to snap ten more pics.

“Do you have a personal account? A Dorothy Mayhem account?”

“Yeah.”

“And how many followers does it have?”

I pull up my account and show him.

He lifts his right eyebrow at the screen. “Thirteen people?”

“It’s a private account. I don’t let that many people follow me.”

“So your mom and dad … who are the other eleven?”

“Couple people from work and school. My chiropractor, who my mom has a huge crush on. And several patients who share my taste in awesome tennis shoes.”

He pulls out his phone and moves his thumbs over the screen. A few seconds later, my phone vibrates with an Instagram follow request from Eli Hawkins. I close out of my screen and set my phone down to give Gemma some love since she’s managed to worm half of her body onto my lap.

“Um … did you just see my request to follow you?”

I nod, staring at my emus being all sweet to a sleeping Romeo.

“But you didn’t accept it.”

“I know. I usually think on requests for a while.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

He lowers his voice. “I was physically inside of you just hours ago, but you have to think about letting me follow you on Instagram?”

“Whoa … do you honestly think had I let Warren have sex with me that I would also let him follow me on Instagram?”

“I think it’s messed up that your standards for sexual partners are lower than your standards for people who follow you on a social media site.”

“It’s way easier to stalk someone and harass them on social media than it is to do it face-to-face. I could get a restraining order against you easier than I could shake you from my Instagram life. Do you realize how many creeps have multiple accounts? I mean … some psycho could steal a bunch of photos of say … emus and set up an adorable little account to attract unsuspecting victims.”

“Well …” He flaps his wordless jaw a few times before finishing his thought. “Okay. You think about letting me follow you. Clearly, you weren’t ready for me to follow you to your house, so I waited. And I will wait for you to let me follow you on Instagram.”

“Not funny. I wasn’t trying to lose you. I just had too much going on in my head.”

“Well, I’d love to crawl into your head sometime.”

“No. You wouldn’t. It’s a dark hole with blundering ideas. It’s where good intentions go to be suffocated. It’s a freight train with no brakes. It’s a million scenes from movies, books, and real-life observations, all trying to find where they fit into my own life—all waiting to be acted out at the right time. It’s an incessant replaying of missed cues and misspoken words.”

He narrows his eyes.

I look away and shrug. “I don’t mind being me. No one else can do it better.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The G-spot

Elijah

I could fall in love with Dorothy Mayhem. Even though my analytical brain won’t go there, not even a tiny bit. I’m a father. The woman I thought was the love of my life left me because she wants to be someone else without me. My mom is right—I reside in a cave of desperation and depression.

Dorothy doesn’t attract me with her attempts to mimic neurotypical people. She captures little pieces of my heart with her whispered honesty. I feel it, just in a different way.