Heaven Help Us

Joy

I couldn't believe how well it had gone.
I  had half expected Andy to have a nervous breakdown or something the way he was stressing over Jeph's gifts.
"Hey, Rain, you still coming to PMB's bus to wrap gifts? Andy should probably come too, since he's got gifts to wrap as well..." Dante asked me when we were in the car.
"Yeah, I'll go," Andy said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
"Dante, I never miss it. Um, I'm going to call Damon." I reached to get my phone out of my pocket, but Dante caught my hand.
"Rain, stop worrying about Jeph. I know exactly how you feel; I worry about him everytime we leave him somewhere, too. But we have to get over it soon, because Jeph will be wanting to start school soon. He's going to start wanting friends his age."
"Yes, I know, but I don't want to send him to school yet...can't we wait a little longer? Like, forever? Can we keep him at five forever? They can genitically do that now, right?"
Dante smiled at me. "I know, I know. I'd love to keep him at this age forever, too, but then I think about all the other things I'd miss out on teaching him if he had to stay five forever."
"Yeah, that's true." I smiled back. "But, we are waiting until at least this september, yeah?"
"Of course. I talked to the head of the school, and he said that he can arrange for Jeph to stay there while we are on tour. I'll be at home with him when I'm not on tour and you are, and you'll be at home with him when I'm on tour and you aren't."
"Okay, that's good."
Andy cleared his throat beside me. "I-I could stay with him when both of you are on tour and I'm not."
"He does need to spend some more time getting to know you..Let's see how Christmas goes first, okay, Andy? He already loves you, I know that."
"I don't know...I just suddenly came into his life...turned up out of the blue-"
I couldn't help smiling at the glee that popped up on Dante's face.
"Uninvited, but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it," He sang.
Andy's voice faltered as Dante grinned and continued, "I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that from me, it isn't over. Never mind, I'll find someone like you!"
I couldn't fight off the happiness that seeped into me from the joy that was spilling out of Dante. I could tell Andy was starting to find it hard to resist, too.
We ended up singing Adele for the rest of the ride to the bus and we spilled into Picture Me Broken's bus, falling over each other laughing and trying to untangle shopping bags while clutching our sides and working to stay upright.

Eventually, Brooklyn and Shaun helped us out and we sat there for a moment catching our breath before -

"Let's wrap presents!"
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More Christmas-y stuff coming up. A load of Atheists and Agnostics celebrating Christmas...sounds familiar.