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Luke woke up to hell.
It started with a thump. Then another. Then a high-pitched voice belting baaby shark doo doo doo doo doo doo. Somewhere in the other room, he could hear the creak of the closet door opening and the muffled slam as JJ probably stomped on it like a stage.
He groaned into the pillow, face still half buried. “If I hear that song one more time, I swear...”
“That’s not the dance!” came JJ’s voice, scandalized. “You gotta do the fin! The fin, Momma!”
“I’m doin’ the damn fins, J!” Anna yelled back, cackling like a maniac, “Doo doo doo doo doo doo…” Something glass hit the floor. JJ howled with laughter.
“Doo doo doo doo doo doo’” he bellowed from the hallway then, thumping past “Daddy shark! Grrr!”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Luke muttered, but he was grinning.
By the time he dragged himself into the living room and dropped onto the couch, JJ was doing some kind of interpretive shark battle with his plush toy, wearing nothing but underwear, one sock, and a cape. Anna was dancing too (badly), half a joint tucked behind her ear, eyeliner from last night still smeared under her eyes. Pupils too big for how early it was.
“You know you love it,” she teased, bumping her hip into his knee. “Say it.”
“I’m livin’ in a fever dream.”
“Daddy shark goes GRRR!” JJ roared, diving at Luke and landing knees-first on his stomach. The swear came out before Luke could stop it, loud enough that JJ froze where he was, wide eyes flicking up quick and holding there like he was waiting to see if the mood had shifted.
Slowly, he let the breath out, ruffling the boy’s hair. “God damn.. Okay, okay! I surrender.”
The grip on the shark loosened and JJ grinned, all teeth again. “We watched it six times, daddy. Now we doin’ the dance. Wanna do the dance?”
“If I do the dance, will y’all shut the damn thing off?”
“No!” Anna and JJ answered in unison, which made the boy cackle so hard he fell off Luke’s lap.
Anna flopped onto the couch beside him and took the joint from behind her ear. “Smoke and chill, old man.”
JJ jumped between them, shark tucked under one arm. “Momma said sharks are older than dinosaurs,” he told Luke solemnly. “Like… a million.”
“That right?”
“Yup.” He leaned in close, whispering, “I’m a real one.”
Luke blinked at him, then at Anna, who was already lighting the joint and not sharing. She didn’t offer it over until the third pull.
“It's in your blood now,” she muttered, smoke curling out her nose. “That song. It lives there forreverrrr.”
Finally, he took the joint and pulled. “It’s rotting my fuckin’ brain.”
Half an hour later, they were high and hungry. JJ sat on Anna’s lap screaming the “doo doo doo” part at passing cars while Luke drove with the windows down and the music off, blissfully off, because even stoned out of his mind, he wasn’t about to get brainwashed by that damn song again.
They pulled off the main road for food. JJ wanted nuggets shaped like sharks, which didn't exist, so he sulked with a chicken sandwich instead. The kid meal came with a cheap plastic diver, whose head he bit off.
Anna spotted the souvenir shop first and tugged at Luke's sleeve. “C’mon, Bet they got more shark shit.”
Luke rolled his eyes but followed. The kid lit up when they walked in –walls lined with keychains, beach towels, those t-shirts that changed color when wet. He bolted straight to a spinning rack and latched onto the first thing he saw. A thin black cord, dangling a grey shark tooth.
“I need it,” he gasped, grabbing it with greasy fingers.
“It’s seven bucks for that crap,” Luke grumbled, already reaching for his wallet, but Anna stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Don’t bother.” She gave him a smirk, then turned toward the cheap sunglasses near the register. Picked up a pair of shiny blue shades and called out to the cashier, “Hey babe, you think these make me look like a narc?”
The guy didn’t know what to do with that. While he blinked and tried to laugh, JJ wandered back, necklace clutched in his fist, tag still flapping. Anna crouched without missing a word, fingers quick as she twisted the tag free and tugged the cord wider. One motion and the tooth was settled against the kid’s chest. To the cashier, it was maybe nothing more than a mom fussing with her kid, but Luke clocked it immediately.
A moment later, Anna edged closer to him, a second necklace now looped around her wrist. Then a third. “What?” she winked when she saw his look. “Sharks travel in packs.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. She was already pulling them out the door.
“Now I’m a real fuckin’ Shark,” JJ announced.
Anna crouched to tie it on him properly. “You're Baby Shark, doofus.”
“Nuh-uh.” he held up his plush toy like a trophy. “He’s Baby Shark. I’m the Big-Ass shark.”
Luke let out an easy laugh that shook his shoulders and, for some reason, made Anna leap at him like a goddamn jungle cat, almost taking him down. She wrapped her arms around his neck, legs around his waist, and kissed him hard, full of nuggets breath and weed and whatever the hell that feeling was that made everything feel worth it.
Kid didn’t even blink. “Real sharks don’t kiss. They bite.”
“Fine, Big-Ass shark,” Anna mussed the boy’s hair. “But you lose that thing in the ocean, I ain't givin’ you mine.”
“I won’t!” he swore, already running in circles. “It’s my favorite forever!”
And he meant it. The dam thing went on that day and didn’t come off. Not through baths or sleep or school or fights. If someone asked, he’d show it off. Said he was the Big-Ass shark and that it made him fast in the water.
Two years later, they buried Anna with that same damn necklace around her neck.
After that, Luke’s stayed on the counter for days, then weeks, between her lighter and that shiny-ass pink lipstick she’d toss somewhere and then tear the place apart looking for. He never wore it again, but he couldn’t throw it out either. Then one day it wasn’t there anymore.
Not JJ’s though. Kid never took it off. He changed the cord twice at least, but it's frayed again, and the tooth’s chipped. Luke can’t stand the look of it – the way he fiddles with the thing the same way she used to. Sometimes he catches himself staring for too long and JJ tucks it in behind his shirt without saying a word.
Luke’s pretty sure he’d bite the hand off that tries to take it from him.