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Evan: So we might need a change of plans for Saturday night
Tommy read over the message again. Did he and Buck have plans for Saturday night? He didn’t remember anything specific, just a date, maybe at that new Greek place that had opened up, maybe on the couch for a movie. They hadn’t decided yet.
They hadn’t decided yet, so how could their plans be changing already?
Tommy: What do you mean?
Tommy watched as the three little dots indicating Buck was typing came up on the screen, then disappeared for a second, then reappeared, and finally the message came through.
Evan: So Maddie and Chimney were pulled into this thing on Saturday night and asked if I could babysit Jee. I may have said yes before I realized what day they needed me for.
Oh, Tommy thought, that made sense, a lot of sense.
He smiled as he typed back.
Tommy: That’s fine.
Tommy: I can still join you two, right?
Buck’s reply was near instantaneous.
Evan: Of course! 😄
❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Saturday afternoon brought Tommy hanging out at Buck’s loft, waiting for Maddie and Chimney to drop Jee off.
“According to Chimney, Jee started a dinosaur phase last week,” Buck said as he was going through one of the storage cabinets below his TV, looking for the box of markers and crayons Jee had left there the last time she came over.
“A dinosaur phase?” Tommy asked. “Does she know the different types?”
Buck paused his search for the markers as he looked up in thought. “I don’t know,” he said. “Chimney didn’t mention much other than a dinosaur phase…” he hummed in thought then and turned to face Tommy where he stood in the kitchen. “Do you know the different types?”
Tommy shrugged. “I did when I was her age,” he said. “Now… not really.”
“When you were her age?” Buck asked, confused.
“Are you saying you never went through a dinosaur phase?” Tommy asked.
“... no.”
It turned out that Buck didn’t actually need to go on a research binge of dinosaur types. Jee had come in carrying a book detailing all of them, and walked with it straight to where Tommy was standing on the other side of the kitchen.
“Uncle Tommy!” she yelled as she ran over to him.
All of the adults in the room did a double take.
“Uncle-”
“Did she call him-”
“Did she say-”
“I think she-”
“Uncle Tommy, can you read me this book…. Please?” she asked as she held the dinosaur storybook up to him.
Tommy gulped and looked with wide, surprised eyes down at the small girl. “Um… sure,” he said.
She then reached up and grabbed his hand and began pulling him to the couch in the living room area.
Buck looked over at Chimney and Maddie. “So… what’s this about ‘Uncle Tommy’?” he asked quietly, too low for the two people in the living room area to hear.
“I- I don’t know,” Maddie whispered back. “That’s the first time I heard her say that.”
Buck turned his gaze to Chimney. “Yeah… same,” he said as he nodded, half dazed. “First I heard of it too.”
Buck leant back slightly and hummed, thinking.
“Well,” Maddie said as she lifted a small backpack full of some of Jee’s toys and a change of clothes. “Here’s her things, And we’ll send you some money for dinner-”
“You don’t have to do that,” Buck tried to say, but Maddie waved him off.
“Don’t say that. You’re spending one of your Saturday nights to watch her while we go out. The least we can do is pay for your dinner,” Maddie explained.
Buck let out a resigned breath. “Fine, if you insist,” he said.
They exchanged goodbyes, and Maddie waved to Jee, now sitting on the couch with Tommy. The girl didn’t even pick her head up as she waved back.
Buck waited the ten or so minutes it took for Tommy and Jee to finish the book. He had missed out on the first half of the story, so wasn;t exactly clear on what the storyline was, but it had something to do with a group of dinosaurs going to find a stolen egg.
“So, what should we do for dinner?” Buck asked when the story was finished.
“Pizza!” Jee shouted as she jumped up and ran over to him. “I want pizza!”
Buck chuckled. “Okay, okay. Pizza it is. Just let me get my phone.”
An hour later, as Buck came back up to his loft carrying the boxes of take out food, he found Tommy and Jee sitting around the coffee table, with little bottles of nail polish on the table and Jee staring down at Tommy’s hands splayed out on the table, a very intense look of concentration on her face.
Buck set the food on his kitchen counter and walked over to them. “What are you guys doing?” he asked.
‘Shhhh ’ Jee hissed.
Tommy craned his neck in Buck’s direction. “She’s painting my nails,” he said.
“Painting your nails?” Buck asked. He walked over the rest of the way and sat down on the floor, on the other side of the coffee table and leant forward to see Tommy’s hands. Jee was in the middle of painting Tommy’s nails a bright blue, already having completed two fingernails. It wasn’t the neatest, some polish having come up on the sides on Tommy’s skin, but Buck had to think it was remarkably neat for a four year old.
“Wow that’s… that’s a good job there, Jee,” Buck said.
“Really?” she asked, a smile lighting up her face.
“Yeah,” Buck nodded. And instead of what he expected her to do, either turn back to continue painting Tommy’s nails or ask if Buck wanted his done, she looked over to the kitchen. “Can we eat pizza now?” she asked.
Buck was once again caught off guard by her today. “Y- yeah, let's go eat,” he said.
After eating a couple slices of pizza, and Jee could eat much more than Buck was expecting, they settled down back on the couch to watch a movie, Jee finding some sort of dinosaur movie on Netflix that neither Buck nor Tommy had ever heard of.
When the movie had wrapped up and reached the credits, Jee had just about fallen asleep when Maddie texted Buck to tell him her and Chimney had just parked outside of Buck’s apartment building and were on their way upstairs to pick Jee up. He looked over at Jee, who was leaning into Tommy’s side, her eyes slowly blinking open and closed.
“Maddie and Chim are on their way up,” Buck very quietly whispered into Tommy’s ear.
‘Should we wake her up?” Tommy asked as he remained very still.
It needn’t have mattered, as soon as Buck opened the door and Maddie said hello, Jee picked her head up and was instantly awake again. “Mom! Dad!” she almost screamed.
“Hey Jee,” Maddie greeted her as she walked into the loft. “Did you have fun tonight with Uncle Buck and Tommy?”
“Yes!” Jee eagerly nodded as she wrapped her arms around Tommy’s large bicep and gripped tight. Tommy let out a very small wince as one of her elbows dug into him. “Uncle Tommy is my favorite!” Jee’s voice sounded out through the loft, followed by a couple of her light giggles.
Buck paused in the conversation he was having with Chimney, his head turned around to face the girl sitting twenty feet away in his living room.
“What? What was that?” Buck asked, his voice nearly cracking at the end.
Jee giggled again, turning to Tommy sitting on the couch and jumping up onto his lap. “I said, Uncle Tommy is my favorite!”
“Even, even more than me, Jee-bug?” Chimney asked.
“Yes!” she shouted enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes!”