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"Dylan is my boyfriend."
Logan almost choked on his coffee and stared across the table at his daughter who excitedly bounced on her chair while nibbling on a piece of bread. A chocolate milk moustache wasn't only gracing her upper lip, but the brown liquid was successfully smeared all around her mouth.
"Excuse me?" he inquired incredulously and put down his coffee.
"He said - yesterday, in kindergarten, Dylan said," Ava rambled on, not even looking at her parents while she picked on her toast, "I can be your boyfriend and then he said you can be my girlfriend."
"No. Absolutely no. You don’t need a boyfriend, peanut."
Veronica let out a snort, hiding her amusement at the look of sheer shock on her husband's face behind the cup of coffee at her lips.
"But daddy, I wanna have a boyfriend."
Ava scrambled to her knees, pushed herself up on her elbows and leaned on the table, giving her father an intense how dare you look. He rubbed a finger against his temple, his eyebrows knitted. That was a look he knew all too well. The determination of a Mars. In that regard, his little girl was most definitely her mother's daughter through and through.
"You're five. Five-year-old girls don't need a boyfriend," he reasoned with her, but his line of argument fell completely flat when Ava just huffed at him dramatically.
"But I do."
"No, you don't."
"Yeah, I do. Leah, she has a boyfriend, too. And she's my bestest friend."
"Just because Leah is your best friend, and she has a boyfriend - which I highly doubt by the way - it doesn't mean you need a boyfriend, too."
"But I want a boyfriend."
"Why do you want a boyfriend?"
"Because I want one," she shrugged at him and stuffed a piece of toast into her mouth.
" Because I want one is not a very good reason."
"But I want one, daddy. Everyone has a boyfriend."
"Mommy doesn't have a boyfriend," Logan told his daughter, hoping that that would be one argument Ava wouldn't be able to discredit.
"Mommy has you, silly," the girl giggled in amusement. "She doesn't need a boyfriend."
There was a snort to his right, and he looked over at Veronica who just bobbed her eyebrows at him and shrugged her shoulders while she silently sipped on her coffee.
"You have me as well, peanut."
"But you're my daddy!" Ava huffed exasperated. "You can't be my boyfriend."
"You don't need a boyfriend, Ava."
"But I want one. And Dylan said I can be his girlfriend. I said yes," she nodded enthusiastically to emphasize her statement, "so he's my boyfriend now."
"What's so special about this boy Dylan?"
"He shares his lunch with me."
"He shares his lunch with you?"
"His mommy always puts cookies in his lunch box." Another piece of toast went right into Ava's mouth, and, absolutely ignoring her parents' you do not talk with your mouth full, she went right on explaining why this boy Dylan most definitely needed to be her boyfriend. "And I loooove cookies. I like chocolate cookies the best. So Dylan, he gives me his cookies when mommy doesn't put any cookies in my lunch box. Sometimes, I give him the veggies mommy puts in. Because he likes my veggies a lot more than I do. Especially carrots. He loves carrots. But no cucumbers. So don't put those in anymore, mommy."
"Right, no more cucumbers because Dylan doesn't like them," Veronica stated flatly, unsuccessfully trying to hide the amusement in her voice.
"Peanut, you're supposed to eat what's in your lunch box," Logan cut in, much less amused by his daughter's rational reasoning why it was so important to have a boyfriend in kindergarten. "Veggies are good for you. They help you grow up strong and healthy."
"But I don't want veggies," she whined, pushing her plate with the leftovers of her breakfast away from her just to prove her point. "I want cookies. Dylan doesn't want his cookies. He wants my veggies."
"Maybe we should talk to Dylan's mommy to put more veggies in his lunch box then," Veronica argued, and with a warm smile, pushed the plate right back in front of her daughter, indicating with a nod that she was supposed to eat what was left on the plate.
"He likes my veggies best. He doesn't want Leah's veggies when she doesn't want to eat them. I can bring him these peppers," Ava picked up her plate and held it up in her mother's direction. "He'll like them. But don’t put the eggs in my lunch box."
"Ah, ah, ah," Logan placed a finger at the edge of the plate and gently forced her to put it back down. "Your veggies are for you, not for Dylan."
"But when Dylan is my boyfriend, I can share my lunch with him." Ava poutingly stuck out her bottom lip and leaned back against her chair, arms crossed defensively in front of her. "Because, because he likes my veggies and I love his cookies."
Logan tapped his finger against the plate, which was answered with a vehement headshake from the feisty five-year-old. Headstrong and stubborn. Most definitely her mother's daughter.
"How about we pack your lunch box together, sweet pea? You tell me what veggies you'd like to eat, and then we'll put those inside, okay?"
"But then I don't get to have Dylan's cookies if I don't bring the veggies he likes," she huffed at her mother's offering.
"Daddy will make sure mommy won't forget to put a cookie in your lunch box. Now finish your breakfast or you'll be late for kindergarten."
Ava just shook her head, "Dylan is my boyfriend. And I want a boyfriend. If I don't bring him veggies anymore, he won't be my boyfriend."
"Sweetie, you can't have a boyfriend," Logan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in a desperate attempt to loosen the knots that had started to form the moment he'd heard the word boyfriend come out of his daughter's mouth.
"But I want a boyfriend."
"As long as you're still in school, you can't have a boyfriend."
"Then, when I go to college, I'll just have a boyfriend then. And then he can have my veggies," Ava harrumphed and grabbed a slice of pepper off her plate, then hopped off her chair and skedaddled towards her room without as much as glancing at her parents.
"Seriously?" Logan muttered as he turned towards Veronica who still had sheer, delighted amusement written all over face. "And you didn't even say a word about the boyfriend issue."
"She's five, Logan. It's not like she even knows what a boyfriend really is. She just needs someone who eats her veggies for her because clearly, mommy always packs the lunch box with the wrong kinds of food."
She waggled her eyebrows at him, then picked up her empty mug and Ava's plate and placed them near the sink.
"Just thinking about that… no," he brought his coffee to his lips and took one large sip. "Hell no."
"She's not gonna be five forever. Boys will be an important thing in her life at some point whether you want it or not."
"Not thinking about it."
"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" Veronica chuckled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and sat down in his lap. "It'll be so rewarding seeing you squirm uncomfortably when she brings home the first boy crush."
"Nope. No boys near my daughter until well after college."
She leaned back, giving him an incredulous look, "We dated in high school and college."
"And I'm finally starting to understand your dad's urge to keep a telescope mounted on his rifle."
"Oh, I love the irony in this!"
"Of course you do," he sighed, as his hands snaked around her body and came to rest on the small of her back. "I really need to ask your dad about that rifle."
"I’d give it another eight or nine years until you even have to worry about using that weapon."
She patted his chest lightly, but he just rolled his eyes at her.
"I really don't want to have the image of my little girl showing any interest in a boy in my head. That's what nightmares are made of."
"Imagine all the grilling you can subject these poor boys to. You can be the intimidating dad every future boyfriend will be afraid of. I'm pretty sure my dad can give you some great advice on that."
"We're doomed."
"Nothing will happen with any boy for quite some time. But, I'll talk to Dylan's mom about the cookie and veggies thing, so you can have some peace of mind, okay?"
"I really thought we could put off the boyfriend discussion for a few more years."
Veronica shrugged her shoulders innocently, "When you get a chance, ask my dad about the time I announced I was going to marry Marty Peterman."
He stared at her in disbelief, his hands slowly shifting from her back to her hips.
"He was in my kindergarten class. For all of two weeks he was it for me. And then he broke my heart when he started sharing his juice box with Lilly instead of me."
"Point?"
"He stopped sharing his lunch with Lilly a few days later when Sarah Winters waltzed in. Lilly and I both lost a potential husband, but gained a new best friend. Point is, it didn't last. Come next week, she'll most probably have moved on from this whole boyfriend thing and we’ll get the boys have cooties spiel instead. You gotta worry about the fifteen-year-old boyfriends, not the five-year-old ones."
"Nightmares, Veronica."
"Now imagine,” she mocked him lovingly, “you get to go through all this again with Harper."
"I hate you.”
"Ten years from now, just remember that it's always the father's sperm who determines the baby's gender. This is all on you, champ."
"You just love tormenting me, don't you?" he whined exaggeratedly, obviously enjoying this whole teasing just a tad bit too much.
"You hate me, I hate you," she smiled at him and pecked his lips. "I gotta go nurse the baby before the coffee kicks in. You make sure Ava gets dressed for school." Releasing him from her arms, she climbed off his lap. "Oh, and pajama bottoms are not appropriate school attire."
"But mommy, they have Anna and Elsa on them!" he mimicked his daughter's pouty voice.
"Wrangle the girl any way you like. No PJs at school!"
"Fiiiiiine," he puffed, giving her an incredibly sulky look before his lips twitched into a wide grin. "You feed Thing Two, I'll get Thing One ready and off to school."
“ How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before its afternoon,” she mused, winking at him before she turned and trotted down the hallway. “December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn! How did it get so late so soon?”
“Geez, I’m moving, I’m moving!” he called after her, his voice laced with laughter. “And hon? Tell your dad I will most definitely be calling about that R-I-F-L-E!”