“No, Devlynn!” Devil growled, going to one knee as he shook his head in front of his young daughter as he met her determined, obstinate gaze. “For the last time, you cannot fly. You have no wings, sweetheart! Flying is biologically impossible for you,” he insisted gravely, frowning at his fearless offspring. She’d taken twenty years off his limited lifespan with her latest death-defying stunt, and his heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal. A quick look at his pale, shaking wife confirmed that his significant other was in no better shape than he was.
His kid, however, remained unconvinced of his loud mandate. And if her tenacious little face hadn’t warned him that she still remained committed to the idea of defying gravity, then her clear little voice declaring, “Can so!” would have done it.
“You know, I bet that’s what they told Wilbur and Orville, too, Mols. Do you really want your hubby to be such a dream killer at this young age?” Samantha Dixon muttered under her breath to the wife of the worried man on the floor of the orthopedic unit of Emory Children’s Hospital.
Flashing an ominous look at the statuesque blonde, Devil’s eyes narrowed. “Not helping, Sami. Not helping at all.”
“How ‘bout you and I move out of the line of fire,” Sami’s husband, Ben, murmured, curling a protective arm around his wife’s waist and pulling her against his chest.
“I just thought it was a factoid worth pointing out,” the svelte model grumbled even as her red-haired best friend smacked her on the arm and sent her a warning look.
“Sami, shhhh… let Devil handle this,” Molly insisted, shooting her exasperated husband and willful daughter a tired smile. “Preferably before our kid ends up in a full body cast. These gymnastic stunts of hers are going to put us all in an early grave if someone doesn’t manage to get through to her soon. As it was, we’re lucky she only had a broken arm after she leapt off the top of that water slide into the pool. She could have broken her neck,” Molly whispered haggardly as she shuddered again, the thoughts of how much worse little Devlynn’s accident could have been haunting her. “She’d been watching all the other kids use the slide to go in the water. I still can’t figure out what possessed her to jump! It was a six foot drop, for God’s sake! Into four more feet of water!”
Closing his eyes for a moment before he addressed his determined little acrobat, Devil inhaled deeply. Patience was key when dealing with both his child and her mother… yelling wouldn’t help the situation.
Not much, anyway.
“Devlynn, tell me why you think you can fly,” Devil tried to reason, prepared to take whatever explanation his five year old gave him and poke every hole known to man in her theory to prove her wrong. Either that, or superglue her toes to the ground. Right now, things could go either way.
“’Cos dats now how da red man in da moobie did it!” Devlynn grumbled grouchily, glaring at the heavy plaster cast on her arm before eyeing the metal doorframe curiously.
Seeing the wheels turning in his devious kid’s mind, Devil reached for Devlynn’s arm just as the little girl reared back to smack her cast against the doorframe. “Dev! Don’t you dare! You absolutely can NOT beat that cast off your arm!”
Irritated, Devlynn leveled her parent with a glare that would have made her daddy proud under any other circumstances. “But I don’t like dis ting on me!” she yelled, shaking the cast. “Da red man didn’t haf to hab one and he jumped ev’rywhere!”
Confused, Devil looked from his kid to his wife. “Do you know what the hell she’d talking about, Molly?” he asked in a low voice.
Molly could only shake her head and stare at her little girl. Kneeling, she reached out to take Devlynn’s uninjured hand in hers. “Baby girl, what red man are you talking about?”
“You know da one,” she huffed impatiently. “It da one dat Uncle Nick and Uncle Mando took me to see him, ‘member, Momma? He had da strings come out of his fingers and he could fwy tru da air!” Devlynn explained, wiggling the fingers on her damaged limb before lifting both arms above her head, waving them in the air energetically, cast and all.
“Uh oh,” Armando Savage winced, shooting Molly a remorseful look. “I think I know where this is going, chica.”
“Then perhaps you should tell me,” Devil ground out as he glared at their tanned Mexican friend.
“Yes, tell us,” Molly urged, her eyebrows furrowing as she ran a hand through her auburn hair.
“Spiderman,” Mannie whispered reluctantly, cracking one eyelid to look at Devlynn’s two puzzled parents. “We took her to see Spiderman,” the nervous man clarified in a near whimper.
“You two boneheads took my kid to see that webbed wacko?” Devil growled angrily. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was under duress,” Mannie’s husband, Nick, quickly stated as he pursed his lips and glared at his spouse. Sending his husband a stern look of reproof, he continued. “If you recall, Armando, I wanted to take our niece to see My Little Pony, didn’t I?”
“Ewwwww! Ponies are for pansies,” Devlynn announced huffily, curling her nose in distaste. “All dey sing about is sharing and caring…. Da red man jumps over buildings and beats up bad guys! He was soooo cool! He could fwy, Daddy!”
Devil’s eyes went from his kid to the two men he’d trusted with her life for a couple of hours … hours he’d spent trying to convince his wife to have another baby.
And suddenly, he completely understood her reluctance to embark on another pregnancy journey with him. It was only his baby girl’s soft, “Daddy, my ouchie is starting to hurt ag’in! Make dem peoples in the funny clothes make it stop” that managed to snag her dad’s attention and redirect his thoughts back to where they needed to be. Which, of course, was solely on her.
Scooping his little troublemaker up in one arm, he reached for Molly’s hand with the other, lacing their fingers together. “I don’t think the nurses or docs can help us much more, but I bet a triple fudge sundae might make things a bit more bearable. How ‘bout we try that?”
“Okay, Daddy,” Devlynn agreed with a small smile as she laid her head on her father’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
“As for the rest of you,” Devil growled as he jabbed the button for the elevator. “You’re all off our babysitting list!”
And maybe it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn he heard several sighs of collective relief.