17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Fear breeds fear and more fear

Divide and conquer. That had been Hawk's proposal. When he'd said it, Aaron had assumed he was talking about who'd do dinner prep and who would get the kids ready for bed. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined it would lead to him and Dani in the Save Rite grocery store, with the list he and Ella had composed from the handful of children's cookbooks they'd checked out from the library.

Hawk had taken Ella to do the back-to-school shopping he'd been putting off since the start of the school year, while Kelly had taken Liam to his gymnastics class. The plan was to meet back at the cabin with enough supplies that they wouldn't have to return to town for at least two weeks, which meant Aaron was probably going to need a second cart at some point, though…

Divide and conquer.

He could apply that to the grocery list too. He and Ella had looked through the cookbooks and stuffed tiny pieces of colorful paper in between the pages of the recipes she wanted for the teddy bear tea party, and of course, Dani had gotten in on it and selected foods she wanted to try. Currently she was content with the free banana they'd snagged on their way past the produce section, and the board book that Aaron had brought along to keep her entertained. If he were to get the non-perishables first, check out and pack them in the truck, then come back in to do the rest of their shopping, he wouldn't need to pull one cart while pushing the other and he could keep the bulk of his attention on Dani. Hawk had already warned him of her propensity for sidecar shopping, swiping things in bright packaging and dropping them into the cart simply because they looked pretty .

Last time, Hawk had gotten to the checkout counter with pink frosted animal crackers, three pairs of socks with kitty cat and llama faces, and an assortment of Japanese candies in bright packaging with cartoon faces and names Hawk hadn't been able to pronounce. She hadn't been the least bit remorseful either. Just pointed out to Hawk that she was helping. How was he supposed to argue with that, he'd mused later, while curled beside Aaron in bed.

It was eye opening, seeing the big man reduced to a puddle of goo by her giggles, and a frantic mess by her tears. He wasn't the only one either. She had Aaron wrapped around her little finger and there was no doubt in Aaron's mind that she'd soon have Kelly and the rest of the band there too, once they'd spent more time with her. How anyone couldn't love that curious, precocious little girl was beyond comprehension. He just had to take one glance at that wildly curly hair, dimpled cheeks, and gap-toothed grin to melt at her feet.

"Ohhh looky what that pink?"

She was pointing to a spiky looking fruit Aaron had never seen before. It had to be tropical, judging by the color. Hadn't he read somewhere that all those brightly colored fruits only grew in hot, humid places? Or maybe that was birds. The sign underneath said Dragon Fruit, but all Aaron could picture when he read the words was one of the refresher drinks he got at his favorite coffee shop.

"It's a Dragon Fruit," he told her, pointing to the picture to show her what the inside looked like.

"Dragons real? Won't they be mad we take their fruit? Unky Hawk said it bad to steal."

"It is, but it wasn't stolen, sweetheart, It grew from a tree, I'm guessing, and someone came along and picked it and it wound up here."

"But how can they pick it if wasn't theirs?"

"Ummmm…." Aaron stammered. "It probably grew on a tree farm, so the farmer paid people to pick the fruit when it was ready. It's called harvesting, and that's what some people do to make money."

"You harvest money?"

"Naw sweetheart," he drawled, "Money, unfortunately, doesn't grow on trees."

"How you get money?" She asked as they wheeled away from the produce section.

"I play the guitar and now I sing."

She narrowed her eyes at that, bottom lip poking out a little. "You sing for me!"

"Yeah, I do," Aaron explained. "But sometimes I sing for other people too."

"They my songs!" she declared, hugging her narwhal tight to her chest. "You said so!"

Well they'd just slid sideways into potential meltdown territory . Aaron leaned in, kissed her forehead, and ruffled her hair. "Yes, I did, which I way I don't sing those songs to anyone but you, but sometimes, I sing other songs to the people who come to hear me play, like the ones I sang in the music room. Those are songs anyone can hear."

"Not my Itsy Bitsy!" She declared.

"No, not any of the sings we sing together at home."

She smiled at that and nodded her little head. "My songs special."

"That's right, they are."

And just like that, crisis averted, and she was happy again. Time to get moving on the first part of the list. Flour, sugar, rice, who the fuck knew there were so many varieties of pasta and jars of sauce. He got red, white, and one that was some shade in between. Chili fixings, hold the beans, the plan was to serve it with corn bread. Speaking of which…he found a couple boxes of mix, several seasonings, honey, brown sugar, pancake mix and syrup. Pudding, Jell-o, cake mix, peanut butter, jelly, simple items the kids loved soon occupied his cart. Dani occasionally turned the book his way to show him an image, or ask about the words, but for the most part, she was content to show it to her narwhal while he shopped.

They were in the canned fruit aisle, with Aaron carefully scrutinizing the labels, since Hawk had been very specific when he'd written out and underlined, packed in juice or water only! Aaron had never known that it mattered what liquid was in the can, until he'd turned one around and seen the difference in the sugar content. Now he understood why Hawk was so insistent on not getting the ones that used syrup of any kind, heavy or light.

He was so focused on what he was doing, that Dani's sudden, sharp intake of breath started the hell out of him. He dropped the cans he was holding and whirled around, expected to see some hideous disaster about to befall them, but aside from a woman in a wheelchair several feet away, they were alone in the aisle.

"Dani, what's wrong sweetheart? Did you get your fingers pinched? I didn't knock anything on you, did I?"

"N-n-nooooo."

"Then what's wrong?" He knew he was getting frantic, his tone, his movements, he kept looking for blood or something poking her, and seeing nothing, started to lift her up out of the cart's seat, when suddenly she pointed, nearly poking him in the eye in her haste.

"It's eating her!"

"Wh-what….?"

Sputtering, he looked around, sure there was a reasonable explanation. It was closing in on Halloween, maybe some box had a person being nibbled by a vampire or chewed on by a werewolf.

Only….

She wasn't pointing at something on a shelf, she was pointing at the far end of the aisle and the woman who was staring at them, dismayed by Dani's freakout. She didn't have a dog with her, or even an overly large cat. There was no service animal of any kind to speak of, which left him even more baffled as to why Dani was screeching about something being eaten while she was trying to scramble onto his shoulders, her hands pulling at his hair. Then he remembered Hawk's words to her about not climbing in the swiveling desk chair because it would tip over and gobble her up and god dammit he had half a mind to kick Hawk in the shin for putting that in her head.

"Whoa, whoa, settle down, Dani, stop squirming, I don't wanna drop you."

"No no no no no put down! No put down it'll get me!"

She was still pointing. The woman in the chair was still staring, several more people had entered the aisle, and they were staring too, and Aaron had no fuckin' clue what to do or say to put her at ease. Maybe it was cowardly, but he clutched her close, grabbed the cart's handle and hurried away, pulling it behind him.

Shit shit shit shit shit what the fuck was he supposed to do. Did he cut their trip short and take her home? Go to another store? Call in an order for pickup?

At least she'd settled down. She was still hugging his neck, but she wasn't trying to climb him like a tree, and she still had her narwhal and her book, the corner of which was digging into his shoulder blade, so no reason to backtrack, which he was grateful for. He carried her three aisles down before deeming it safe to continue shopping, though he kept a close eye out to ensure they weren't sharing an aisle with the lady in the chair again. To say that he'd been relieved when they didn't encounter one another again was an understatement.

It wasn't until they'd finished shopping, and were on their way back home, that Aaron found himself wondering if he should talk to her about it or wait and tell Hawk what happened and let him talk to Dani? She hadn't reacted that way around Declan on family day, only Hawk hadn't told her a chair would eat her either, not until long after they got home.

Dammit.

The simplest solution would be to let Hawk unfuck the mess he'd made, but the moment he thought it, he realized what a bad idea it was. It hadn't happened when she was out with Hawk, it had happened when she was with Aaron, which meant that Aaron needed to man up, learn how to adult properly, and ask her about it so it wouldn't happen again. She'd been legitimately terrified, and he'd hated the helpless feeling he'd felt when he couldn't figure out how to put her at ease.

Okay, so admittedly, he hadn't exactly tried. He'd choose to flee instead, which in hindsight, might not have been the best course of action. Maybe he should have said hello to the woman so Dani would see there wasn't anything to be afraid of, though how awkward would that have been?

Truthfully, even miles away from the grocery store he still didn't have any more of a clue about what he should have done as he'd had inside the store. Maybe he wasn't cut out to handle the hard stuff. Maybe he was only fit to be the fun-loving uncle who popped in and out of their lives, entertained them and taught them borderline inappropriate things Hawk would spend the months between visits hoping to get them to unlearn.

That wasn't what he wanted though, or who he wanted to be in their lives. From the moment Hawk had started calling the cabin home , that's what he wanted it to be. A real home where he belonged and did all of the parental things that people who cared about the kids in their care were supposed to do. The last thing he ever wanted was to be as shitty as the people who'd raised him. Which meant he was going to have to suck it up and ask questions, even when he didn't want to.

Blowing out a long breath, he turned the music down so he wouldn't have to shout over it. "Hey Dani."

"Yeah Unky Aaron?"

"You know how Uncle Hawk said that you couldn't sit in the chair with the wheels because it might flip over and gobble you up?"

"Uh-huh. He said it was dangery when you're little."

"And it is," Aaron said, not wanting to undo all of Hawk's warning, but fucking hell, how was he supposed to explain one part without erasing the other. "It's just that, well, chairs don't really eat people."

"Unky Hawk said it would if I climbed it," Dani said. "He even made nommy nommy sounds and grabby hands."

Aaron slapped a hand to his head and groaned. Hell, he'd have beat his head against the wheel if he wasn't driving. "He was only joking with you, sweetheart."

"Is jokin' lyin'?"

"Ummm….no….not exactly….I-I mean…."

Was he about to lie? It dawned on him then that talking to little kids wasn't all sing song rhyming words and cartoon animals. This was…how was he supposed to talk about a subject that made him nervous and uncomfortable.

And yet, the moment he thought about how uncomfortable he'd been trying to get Dani away from all those prying eyes, it dawned on him that the woman in the chair had probably been mortified too. Everyone would have seen where Dani was pointing and turned their attention there. She'd have been forced to endure their stares simply for trying to come out and get her groceries. He tried not to wonder how that had made her feel or if it had altered the vibe of her entire day, but it was near impossible not too, especially when questions kept popping into his head. Number one on that list was if Declan had ever encountered anything like that, and if he had, how'd he handle the situation?

Another thought followed on the heels of that first one. The band would be there in less than a day and a half.

Motherfuckin' shity shity shit shit!

When Hawk had sprung that bit of news on him and Kelly, he'd been overwhelmed and broken down a little, because somehow Hawk had been the one to work out a way for them to have the relationship they'd been working towards for years, the family they'd inherited, and the music that they loved. For a moment, Aaron was thrown back several days, to the morning he'd followed his nose to the kitchen after a restless night of twisted dreams and memories of his mother's face when she'd left him, and that old yellow house he'd hated, only to discover Kelly there and none too happy about the lack of his favorite morning beverage.

"Do I smell…. coffee?" Aaron grumbled, eyes still heavy lidded because he wasn't fully awake yet. He rubbed at them, blinked, and rubbed them some more before stumble-staggering up to the counter. He'd have missed the stool he attempted to perch on if Hawk hadn't caught his arm.

"It might smell like coffee, but it doesn't deserve the name," Kelly grumbled.

"Ohhh man, noooooooo, when did you switch to decaf?" Aaron moaned, glaring at the label while giving some serious thought to climbing back in bed and pulling the covers up over his head.

"I didn't. Like I told Kelly, it was an accident, which I fully intend to rectify the next time I'm in town," Hawk grumbled, pressing a kiss to Aaron's forehead.

Sulking, Aaron crossed his arms. "When's that gonna be?"

"Whenever the list grows long enough," Hawk grumbled. "Until then, I'd appreciate it if you both suffer in silence."

"But…" Kelly pouted, a droopy, hangdog expression on his face.

"If I'm gonna suffer, it's gonna be while writing an epic song about the prolonged effects of coffee deprivation," Aaron replied, sticking his tongue out at Hawk.

"What have I told you about that tongue of yours?" Hawk growled.

"To keep it in my mouth unless I'm gonna put it to good use," Aaron shot back.

"And are you?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Cause you were about to serve me decaf," Aaron replied and stuck his tongue out at Hawk a second time. "Which means the only thing I'm gonna use my mouth for is to protest."

"Good, ‘cause I'm fresh outta brain bleach. Besides, how are either of us supposed to write anything when there isn't a drop of caffeine in the house?" Kelly muttered, smirking in Hawk's direction.

"You're not," Hawk told them firmly. "You are both going to spend the next few days vegging out and not stressing about anything, especially music."

"But the new band…." Aaron began, feeling a twinge of anxiety over the lack of cohesion that already existed between them. "Rocktoberfest…we gotta…."

His thoughts had spiraled into a whirling list of things that needed to be done before they left for the desert and how he'd already fucked up the timetable by having to go home and not being able to get his head right after burying someone that for all intents and purposes, he hadn't even known. Not in anymore than a shadowy, abstract way. Half the time he didn't even feel like he had a right to the grief he felt, yet he hadn't been able to shake it off either.

"Hey!"

Aaron jumped at the harsh tone in Hawk's voice and how loud it was right beside his ear.

"Breathe and focus for a moment, would you," Hawk said. "You looked like you were about to pass out."

"Because there are a million and one things we've gotta do to get ready and now my heads all fucked up and I don't know how to get back to what I felt the night I suggested we play at fuckin' Rocktoberfest!"

"Start with recharging and getting your mind right," Hawk suggested. "Micah and Declan will be ready to join you guys up here next week."

Kelly nearly fell off his chair at hearing that. "Wait…"

"What?" Aaron finished for him.

"I talked to Micah while you guys were still in the air and invited him and Declan to come up once you'd had a chance to process everything. They liked the idea and seeing as how I have a music room that's mostly collecting dust, it seemed like a good idea."

"Why would you do that?" Aaron yelped. He was off his stool and pacing, occasionally tugging at his braid. "This is...but…WHY!"

Hawk steepled his hands in front of him, watching Aaron but not saying a word while Aaron sputtered and gestured, the occasional curse word spilling from his lips, though every last one of them was in French.

"Let me guess….no swearing policy?" Kelly asked while Aaron continued his mini-meltdown.

"Complete with a swear jar that has almost as much money in it now as my bank account," Hawk muttered. "Dani has already learned purple-fuck from me, which was not my finest moment. Now she thinks it's an actual color. I don't need her learning more of them, at least, not any her pre-school teachers are likely to know. If she learns a few French ones, then so be it. I'm good with anything that won't get me hauled into the principal's office every other week."

"For the record, I still toss change in the swear jar even for the foreign ones," Aaron admitted, having finally calmed down a little. "Which means I'm going to owe it a mini fortune soon enough. What were you thinking!"

All through Aaron's newest tirade Hawk remained calm, arms crossed with a bemused expression on his face. "Get it all out of your system yet?"

"No."

"All right, I can wait."

His calm demeanor completely baffled Aaron who stared, blinked, the dropped his head onto his arms on the counter, grumbling beneath his breath.

"What was that?"

Aaron huffed out a long sigh before answering. "I said I was done."

"Good," Hawk replied. "Now, to answer your question, I invited them here because you need them and your music as much as you need me and the kids, so this was my way of giving you both."

When the words registered, Aaron froze, sniffled, then start sobbing uncontrollably. Hawk wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight, his cheek pressed to Aaron's back as he finally lost his shit completely. Never had Aaron loved him more than in that moment.

"Unky Aaron?"

Her little voice yanked him out of the memory and brought him back to the problem at hand. Declan and his chair were about to be a temporary fixture around the property and the undercurrent of tension that had run between them at the show had never been resolved since he'd taken off for the airport the moment they'd come down off the stage.

Damn.

Fuck this was complicated.

He knew his discomfort around the chair was making it difficult for them to create together. Having Declan here, where he had no space to flee to get away from him…

Maybe he needed to just bite the bullet and have Hawk explain to her that Declan used his chair to get around and that it was different from the rolling one in the office. She was a little kid with a big imagination and her uncle had painted a pretty scary picture for her, in the hopes of keeping her safe. Shouldn't Hawk be the one to explain the difference?

"Unky Aaron?" She said again, kicking her shoes against the base of her booster seat to get his attention.

"Yeah Dani?"

"Did Mr. Declan's chair try and eat you?"

Well, that question had come from out of left field. Sputtering, he tried to figure out how to answer it and couldn't think of a single flippant response.

"Dani, honey, we just went over this. Chairs don't actually eat people. Your uncle Hawk was trying to use terms you'd understand. What he really meant, when he said the office chair might gobble you up, was that it could tip over on top of you and hurt you. It's so much bigger than you, that we wouldn't have even been able to see you if you couldn't answer us, and we'd have been very upset if anything bad happened to you."

"But if chairs don't eat people, then why you scared of Mr. Declan?"

"Who said I was?"

"I heard you and Unky Hawk on the ‘puter, and you said you was scared. He is kinda scary. We be scared together."

Awe shit.

"I…ummm, Dani, you see it's, well it's not exactly Declan that I'm scared of, or even his chair, though I wouldn't want to get run over by it."

"That would hurt!" She declared. "Liam ran over my foot with his peddle car and that hurted too!"

Would he ever learn to watch what the fuck he said? This conversation was not going well.

"I told Liam he should be careful," she declared. "Want me to tell Mr. Declan be careful too?"

He could just picture her peeking around the corner at Declan wearing her sternest expression and a fairy princess tutu, wagging a finger at him while she lectured him, all while keeping well out of the way of that chair. The image left him laughing, shaking his head, and hoping Dani never stopped being her fierce, determined little self.

"How about we wait and see if he tries to run me over first, and then you can tell him to be careful if he gets too close?"

"But…what if it already too late? I don't want you to get squishied like wildy coyote."

In hindsight, the cartoons him and his bandmates had grown up with might not be the best thing for today's kids. They might have to think twice about letting them watch old school Loony Tunes, at least until they could make certain the kids understood that real people wouldn't just walk it off if you dropped an anvil on their head.

"I promise I'll be extra careful." Aaron said, hoping that would appease her.

"Pinky promise."

"Pinky promise," he assured her. "But only once we're safely parked."

"Okay," she said, putting her little finger down.

He was failing at this conversation. In fact, he was a thousand percent positive he'd made everything worse. He should stick to the things he knew, so in the spirit of that he told the vehicles smart speaker to pull up the playlist he'd made for the kids and let B.I.N.G.O. fill the SUV for her to sing along with. It produced the result he'd been hoping for. Dani fell asleep and stayed that way even after he'd parked the vehicles in the garage.

And now he was faced with another dilemma. Was he supposed to empty the vehicle and then bring her in, or bring her in, then empty the vehicle? Did it matter if the garage door was closed? They were in the middle of nowhere, it's not like they were in some subdivision or parked on a city street.

The clock on the dash said it was almost lunch time. If he woke her and she was hungry, he'd have to choose between getting the perishables put away or getting her fed. With that in mind, he opened the door that led from the garage to the inside of the house and unloaded all the bags, lining the hall that led between the garage and the kitchen. At least doing it that way he was never far from Dani.

The afternoon must have worn her out though because she didn't wake up when he carried her in, or when he laid her down on the couch in the living room while he got everything put away. He was just finished up when the front door slammed open, and Liam came running in.

"Look what I can do!" he declared, doing a handstand and walking across the kitchen floor upside-down. Aaron applauded softly once Liam had righted himself, pressed a finger to his lips so Liam would know to keep his voice down, passed him the snack he'd already prepared, and got him situated at the dining nook in the corner.

"How'd it go?" Aaron asked when Kelly walked in, notebook in his hands.

"Well, let's see….I got hit on by two different moms and some kids' grandpa, restructured some lyrics and discovered that Mocha-coconut iced-lattes are my new favorite things."

"Oh my god, that sounds delicious!"

"Right! Please tell me you got real, fully caffeinated coffee and if you didn't, do me a favor and just lie to me. I don't need to know if I'm drinking decaf. Just let me pretend it's the leaded stuff, it's better for my sanity."

"Does that mean it's a placebo and you've just convinced yourself it's helping when in reality, you being a grumpy douche in the morning isn't caffeine related at all?" Aaron remarked, laughing when Kelly started to flip him off, realized Liam was still in the room, and settled for sticking his tongue out at him.

"Would you really want to wager your health and wellbeing on that?" Kelly grumbled.

Chuckling, Aaron couldn't help but remember a much younger Kelly snarling expletives at the sun for shining one morning when they'd discovered the coffee machine in the hotel room was broken.

Not only had he cussed the thing out, but he'd threatened to take a hammer to it and bury its pieces in a deep, dark hole. "Not particularly."

"Wise man."

"Fortunately for us all, I made it a point to read the packages before putting things in the cart. We've got five varieties, from light roast to triple caffeinated," Aaron said.

Kelly yanked him into a hug, clutching him tight. "You're my hero!"

"You might take that back when you hear what else happened while we were out shopping," Aaron muttered.

Kelly groaned and pressed his head to Aaron's shoulder. "Oh boy, am I gonna need to sit down for this?"

"Mmmmaybe."

"Oh man, what did you do, knock over an entire display of two liters again," Kelly asked. "When will you just learn to take one off the top and stop trying to convince yourself that you're a Jenga master."

"Hey now, I pulled it out clean, it didn't topple until we were half an aisle away from it," Aaron protested.

"Result was still the same."

"Look, this time, I didn't do anything, but Dani might have had a little incident in the grocery store," Aaron began, still struggling with exactly how he planned to word this.

"I warned you!"

Hawk's unexpected voice boomed from the doorway where he stood, arms laden with bags as he strode into the kitchen with Ella at his side. "You have to watch her, especially in the produce aisle. She will eat a half a bag of grapes before you get to the checkout line if you don't keep an eye on her at all times."

"In this case, I'd have happily fed her the grapes and paid for an extra pound," Aaron grumbled, keeping his gaze averted so he didn't have to see the expression on Hawk's face when he said what he needed to say.

"Oh boy, what happened?"

Sighing heavily, Aaron finished making himself a chocolate milk before telling them everything that had taken place. "I tried talking to her about it in the car on the way home, but I don't think anything I said helped since someone put it in her head that the office chair would gobble her up and now she thinks that applies to any chair with wheels."

"Then you'll have to try again," Hawk instructed, the firmness of his tone leaving no room for negotiation. "Maybe you should give Declan a call before you do and see if he can give you some advice on how to help her be more comfortable with his chair before he arrives."

"Why am I suddenly feeling like I've been set up?"

"Oh no, I couldn't have planned this better if I'd tried," Hawk said. "This is the universe's way of giving you a reality check. You wanted to learn more about parenting and how to deal with issues when they popped up with the kids, well, here is an issue. Deal with it."

"Son of a…how can you tell me to deal with it when you're the one who made the crack about cannibal chairs in the first place?"

"Because it happened on your watch," Hawk insisted. "And because you need to if you're ever going to work around your discomfort."

"F…" grumbling, Aaron let the word die on his lips.

In fact, he managed not to swear in any language, though a couple dozen words rolled through his head. Surly Hawk didn't intend for him to call Declan up and just blurt out questions about his chair. Was he supposed to lead in with what had happened in the grocery store, or just warn him to be cautious with his chair around Dani? Would that kind of warning be taken as offensive? Was there a special way he was supposed to phrase it? Declan wasn't his grandfather but that didn't mean he wouldn't get pissed if Aaron said all the wrong things and what was he supposed to do then?

Damnit, damnit, damnit!

If today had proven anything, it was that the unexpected happened whether he was prepared for it or not. Hawk had said several times over that Dani was at an impressionable age. One where she copied the things she heard and saw. How he dealt with shit would shape how she'd handle things in the future. He needed to be a good role model for her and her siblings. They deserved that from him. If he couldn't give it, then maybe he didn't deserve to be as big a part of their lives as he was hoping to be and that was a cold and sobering thought he was unable to get off his mind for the rest of the day.