Chapter 32

Jerome

       After getting ready to head to the store, I left my bedroom and walked down the stairs to the front door. As I was putting on my shoes, I called out to Nolan. "Hey, Nolan, I'm going to the store! Do you and Kingsley want to come?!"

       "No!"

       "Okay, do you want me to take Kingsley so you can relax for a bit?!"

       "If you want!"

       The tone in Nolan's voice when he said that made me walk towards the living room, seeing him sitting on the couch as he watched a movie. I had a feeling he was either about to be in one of his moments where he didn't want to leave the house, or he was in the middle of it.

      It happened a few times. There were just moments in his life he didn't feel up to being around anyone, even his own family. That also included not wanting to be seen on camera at all, and I, of course, was fine with it. I wanted him to put his mental health first.

       "Are you okay?" I asked.

       Nolan sighed. "Yeah. I'm just in one of those moods."

       "I kind of figured that," I said, taking off my shoes before walking over and sitting down beside my husband on the couch. "You want to talk about it?"

       "Talking never does anything," Nolan said.

       "Okay, but what's this about this time?" I asked.

       "Does there ever have to be a reason?" Nolan asked.

       "No," I said. "There doesn't have to be, but is there a reason for it this time?"

       Nolan didn't reply for a bit before he paused the movie and leaned back into the couch. "I'm just getting tired of all the drama going on VidGalore."

       "Do you want me to go and fight Dirk?" I asked.

       "And cause even more drama? Go ahead."

       "No more drama can be caused when he's currently injured from me fighting him."

       "That will cause a lot more drama and you know it."

       "I'm only kidding," I said. "Besides, if I wanted to get into a fight with Dirk, I would have done it by now. Probably when we were on tour together. Anyway, is there anything you want to do to get rid of your stress."

       Nolan shrugged. "Nothing will work. I try watching TV, but I still feel horrible. I try napping, but I can't because of....Memories and things. Nothing I do let's me get rid of your stress."

       "I have an idea," I said before getting up and heading into the kitchen. Sitting on the counter was a small watermelon, so I picked it up.

       "A watermelon?" Nolan asked. "As much as I love eating, I don't think eating watermelon is going to help me whatsoever."

       "Who said anything about eating it?" I asked, and Nolan gave me a confused look. "Is Kingsley still in his playpen?"

       "Yeah, why?"

       "You think he'd be good staying in there for five minutes while we step outside?"

       "I think so. Seriously, what do you have planned?"

       I didn't reply as I walked out to the backyard with the watermelon. I grabbed one of the stools in the sitting area and dragged it to a more open part of the backyard. I set the watermelon on the before heading back inside to grab a baseball bat.

      When Nolan saw the baseball bat, he finally realized what he was going to be doing. "Jerome, I swear, if you tell me I'm going to be smashing the watermelon, you're delusional."

       "Well, it's either smashing the watermelon, or smashing me."

       "You're also disgusting."

       "I'm kidding. Well, about the me part. I'm not kidding about you taking this baseball bat and destroying that watermelon."

       "I'm not doing that, Jerome."

       "Don't be so boring. Come on, it will be fun. The best part is you can imagine it's Dirk's face, or any other person that causes your anxiety to get bad."

       "As much as I don't like Dirk, I'm not going to get violent."

       "Then don't pretend it's Dirk. Nolan, trust me on this. I used to do it all the time."

       Nolan furrowed his eyebrows. "I've lived with you for two years, Jerome. I've never seen you do it before."

       "Uh, that's why I said used to," I said. "As in when I was a teenager living back in Canada. Just give it a shot. If it doesn't work, we'll order in some pizza." Although if it did work, we were going to order in some pizza anyway. I would never pass up an opportunity to order pizza.

       Nolan, thankfully, got up from the couch and followed me outside. Snowball saw Nolan get up and tried to follow, but Nolan told him to stay and keep an eye on Kingsley.

       Snowball and Blizzard were basically baby monitors for us. While we had an actual one, we rarely had to use it because as soon as Kingsley started crying, Snowball and Blizzard would go to where we were to tell us.

       They sometimes even beat the baby monitor because they saw him squirming.

       I handed Nolan the baseball bat when we were outside and standing by the watermelon. "There you go," I said. "Now hit it. If you don't want to pretend it's Dirk's face, at least pretend it's all of your problems."

       Nolan looked at me before sighing and getting ready to swing at the watermelon. 

       Before just tapping it lightly.

       "Are you serious?" I asked. "That was weak."

       "What? You said if it doesn't work, we'll order pizza. I want pizza."

       "I was going to order pizza anyway. But now, I might only order it if you actually try your hardest to destroy the watermelon."

       Nolan sighed and got ready to swing again before relaxing his arms. "I don't think I can do it."

       "It's not that hard."

       "It is. I'm just seeing an innocent piece of fruit here. It does not deserve to be smashed with a baseball bat. It just wants to go in my stomach."

       "I'll buy you another watermelon. Actually, I'm pretty sure we have another one in the kitchen."

       "That doesn't change the fact that this one is innocent and doesn't deserve this."

       "Nolan, if you don't do it, I will."

       "Okay, okay, I'll hit it. Geez."

       Nolan actually swung the bat as hard as he could, completely smashing the watermelon which sent chucks absolutely everywhere. Even in our pool.

       I should have thought this through.

       Just kidding. It was totally worth it, even if I wasn't the one who smashed the watermelon.

       "So, how did that feel?" I asked.

       "Pretty good," Nolan said. "I mean, I'm still in a mood, but it was nice to relief my stress for a few seconds. I just wished it could be that easy for every other day of my life."

       "Hey," I said, pulling him into a hug. "No matter what, you'll always have me. I know you don't like talking things out at times, but I'm always going to be here for you. And I may just buy a few more watermelons just for the purpose of hitting them with baseball bats."

       "I actually wouldn't be opposed to that."

_________________

Ah, reminds me of the time we had a watermelon sitting in our kitchen and it randomly exploded. Good times, good times.

Someone tell me to stop singing. My voice is almost gone because I'm sick and I keep talking and singing lol.

....If only this happened next week when I have my presentation. MY TEN MINUTE PRESENTATION BLESS ME PLEASE.