“Harry?”, Jonah asks me the next morning when we’re sitting on the couch, “Why are your nails like this?”
He carefully traces along the edges of the halfway scraped off nail polish.
“I think it’s pretty, that’s why I did it.”
He nods understandingly and raises an eyebrow slowly. “So, it’s not only for girls.”
“No, it’s not. More girls than boys do it but it’s for both.”
He wraps his fingers around one of mine and presses it once.
“And it’s also for kids.”
“Yes, love, it is.”
“So I could paint mine.”
I smile softly and nod. “You definitely could. Do you want to?”
He lets go of my finger and runs to the bathroom before coming back with the blue paint. “Can we do ours the same? I wanna be like you.”
I smile even more and nod. “Of course, we can.”
He sits down on my lap and watches me paint over the old polish first, before I finally turn to him.
“Okay, lets go.”
He nods and puts his hands down on his thighs, trying not to move his fingers and looking at his hands concentrated.
“So pretty”, I say when the first hand is done and he smiles and nods.
When I’m done with the second hand, Jonah can’t sit still anymore and blows air onto his nails, trying to get them to dry faster.
“Finished”, he says and grins proudly, “Now I look like you. When I’m old I want to look and be like you and Daddy.”
“I think you’ll be even better”, I say, “Want to send a picture to dad?”
He nods when I pull out my phone to snap a picture, he tries to form a peace sign, accidentally using three fingers he covers half his face with.
I do a peace sign as well so Louis gets to see our fingers and take the picture.
I send it to Louis, captioning it with ‘I’m such good influence’ and get a reply after a few seconds.
Lou:my pretty boys
so lucky to have you two
still everything alright?
Me: Yes, Lewis.
Lou: shut up
Me: love u too
Lou: i love u but stop calling me lewis anyway
I grin and Jonah snaps the phone out of my hand. “I send something too.”
I nod and wait for him to give me my phone back. When he hands it to me again, I smile at the message.
Me: 🦕🐱🦖🐈🐙🥀
DADY JONAH HAZI
I chuckle quietly. “You can write that all by yourself?”
Jonah nods proudly. “And I made a dinosaur picture and a cat ‘cause I love them and some other pictures ‘cause red’s my favourite.”
“I can see”, I say, “Good choices. I think dad’s replying.”
Lou: Hi J, how is it going?🦖
I hand Jonah the phone and he grins. “He made a dinosaur too. But read to me what it means. I only know ‘Hi J’”
“You’re so smart already”, I say and he nods proudly, “He asks how it’s going. What should I reply?”
Jonah rolls his eyes. “No, stupid texts”, he says and takes the phone before clicking on the little microphone symbol.
“Hi daddy”, he says, “It’s going good. Yesterday we watched a whole movie and we ate popcorn, it was a real sleepover. And Jeffrey can have some popcorn, not only milk. Also, Harry made me some pancakes for breakfast but I help him so it goes faster. And then we painted our nails blue and it looks like the sky. I sended you a cat and a dinosaur and red cause it's all my favourites, you know. And thank you for the dinosaur. Bye daddy have fun with the theatre childrens and see you tomorrow.”
I grin when he sends the audio, still not able to deal with how adorable he is.
“Hi baby”, Louis says in the audio he sends, “I loved the dinosaurs and cats, they’re my favourites too. The sleepover sounds like so much fun, that’s just so cool. I love you and I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Tell Harry I love him too.”
My smile won’t stop growing with every second I hear his voice.
“Stupid daddy”, Jonah says, “You’re right here, I don’t need to tell you he loves you.”
~~~
I wake up in the middle of the night by some tiny hand tugging at the fabric of my shirt. I open my eyes only slightly and smile when I see Jonah sitting next to me.
“Sorry I wake you.”
I pull him down onto a bed and hug him tightly. “Don’t apologize, honey, is everything alright?”
He nods. “Wanna sleep here ‘cause I miss daddy. Brought Stacey and Jeffrey, they miss him too.”
“We all miss him, don’t we?”, I whisper and brush through his hair carefully, “When you wake up, it’s not long until he’s here, I promise.”
He nuzzles up against my shirt and nods again. “Good thing you’re here.”
I feel my heart pumping a little louder and smile broadly. “Good thing you’re here, I’d be so bored without my Jonah.”
He giggles quietly. “Daddy and I are the happiest that you’re here.”
It’s silent for a few minutes after that and I keep brushing through his hair in a slow rhythm, hearing his breath calming down as he tries to keep his eyes open.
“Sleep now, baby, and before you know it your dad’s back. It’ll be so soon.”
He hugs both is stuffed animals with one arm as the other finds a way up to my curls and he starts wrapping strands of my hair around his finger before letting go again. He’s done it more often recently and it somehow seems to calm him.
“Goodnight, Hazzie.”
I press a kiss to his forehead. “Goodnight, Jonah, I love you.”
It somehow slips out. I didn’t really want to tell him yet, in case it overwhelms him, but there’s nothing I can do about it, I just said it.
He doesn’t seem to pay much attention to it though, as he continues playing with my hair silently.
“You love me?”, he asks after a few minutes, happiness in his voice.
“I do, course I do, how could I not love you? You’re my most, most favourite, remember?”
He nods. “Yeah, I remember.”
Then it’s silent again and I try not to smile too much because of how grateful I am to get to watch this little person grow up. I think he finally fell asleep when his fingers stop moving in my hair but instead, he sits up and moves closer to me and presses a kiss to my cheek.
“I love you too, my Hazzie.”
~~~
<3
blubbla06 thanks for the idea babe
YOU ARE READING
three hearts in one home (l.s.)
FanfictionLouis is a single dad having problems raising his son, Jonah all by himself. Harry is a student at university. His part-time job is to teach children how to swim. What if a rather unpleasing incident forces them closer together than Harry ever coul...
