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84% Dash It All / Chapter 84: 84. Chapter 84

บท 84: 84. Chapter 84

"Drop it, Rick," she says, raising an eyebrow at him. Final warning in her voice.

But he just laughs and carries his laptop to the couch, plops down even as she watches him. He's not going to leave it alone, is he? He thinks it's sooo funny.

She just wanted to read the stupid story. She totally regrets it now.

"Mommy, what about bananas?" Dashiell asks, giggling when the dog licks his cheek.

"No, baby. I said no people food. Dogs need dog food."

"But bananas are monkey food," Dash says. Rex is licking his neck now, knocking the boy over. Almost like a wrestling match, because the dog stands over him, grinning, tongue hanging out.

Ellery crawls over her brother and wraps both arms around Rex's neck. "Monkey food not dog food," she says.

"Ella's right. Monkey food is still not dog food."

"But it is animal food," Rick says from the couch, his voice sounding distracted.

Kate huffs at him. "Not helping."

Dash giggles again and crawls under the coffee table to grab the dinosaur toy, then waves it front of the dog's face. "What about-"

"No, baby. I said no."

"But you don't even know what I was gonna say."

Kate gives him a look, a mom look that she remembers her own mother giving her whenever she was being petulant. "You were going to name something else that's not dog food."

"But what about dinosaur food? He's a t-rex-"

"Dashiell." Kate levels a look on him, similar to the one she gave Castle, and Dash makes a stubborn face. But he does shut up.

Ellery hikes a leg up onto the dog's back and Kate grabs her foot.

"No. You cannot ride the dog."

"He a horse. He so big, Mommy."

Dashiell giggles and flops back in the floor. "He's a horse! He needs horse food. Can we feed T-Rex some apples and carrots and - and - and-"

"Sugar cubes," Castle says.

Kate shoots him a glare; he's focused on the laptop, typing away. "Castle."

"Oh, actually, we don't have those. Apples-"

"Castle," she hisses at him, and finally gets his attention. His head snaps up to hers; he's grinning, the idiot.

"Okay, guys, never mind. Mom's touchy about her food. Though I don't know why, since she's so eager to steal other people's stuff-"

"Rick." She cannot believe he won't shut up about this. He's grinning at her and going back to the laptop. Does he seriously have no earthly idea?

"I won't steal your apples, Mommy. I'll get Rex his own."

"No. He's a dog, not a horse. Not a dinosaur. A dog. We can really hurt him if we give him people food. Dashiell, you hear me? Ellery?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dash says, and rolls his eyes at her.

Kate levels a look on her son, waits until he catches her gaze. He stiffens, panic rolling across his face.

"Dashiell. Time out for disrespect. Five minutes." She points towards the front door, then remembers Allie and Rafe are still out and might knock into him if they come up. "In your room."

"Mommy-"

"Don't make me say it again."

Dashiell throws down the dinosaur toy, and if Kate didn't already feel sorry for the kid, she'd tack on another five minutes for pitching a fit. As it is, he stomps back to his bedroom and flounces inside, slams the door.

"Kate."

She glances over to the couch and Castle is frowning at her. Oh no. No. He does not get to question her discipline when half of this is his damn fault.

Ellery is standing uncertainly beside the dog; Rex must sense the tension in the air because he whines and licks Kate's face, startling her. Ella gives a little laugh, but keeps an eye on her mother.

"You are fine, cricket. Play with the dog. Daddy and I are going to have a talk."

"We are?"

Kate gets off the floor and heads for him on the couch, reaches out both hands to take his laptop away. She loves that he writes; she really does. But he so often gets into these moods where he just doesn't see what's going on around him. And she doesn't always love that.

"Wow, you are just having trouble respecting other people's property today, aren't you?" Castle laughs and grabs the laptop back, saving his document.

She wasn't going to turn it off or anything; she would've saved it. "Castle."

He puts the laptop on the coffee table. "Jeez, Mommy, it's funny-"

"Can you not drop it already?"

"Uh, no, not really. You read my story and you always hate to-"

"Seriously?" She feels it snowballing in her, tries to regain some kind of control over her frustration. Ellery is standing beside the dog, watching them, so Kate grabs Castle's hand and yanks him towards the bedroom, trying to give her daughter an easy smile as they pass.

"Kate."

"Shut it." She pulls him inside the bedroom, shuts the door after him, then moves into the bathroom, closing that door after them as well. "Rick Castle. What the hell is wrong with you?"

He stares at her a moment, then a flicker of anger crosses his face. "Me? What's wrong with you?"

"You. You're being an asshole."

"Don't curse at me," he growls back, poking her in the shoulder.

"Then stop being such an asshole, and I wouldn't have to."

"What is your problem? I didn't do anything."

"You told Dash he should feed the dog sugar cubes!"

"I did not."

She gapes at him, growls, and turns her back on his mulish, childish face. She could hit him. She really could. Only thing that keeps her from hitting him is the knowledge that she could actually do real damage. It kind of makes her pleased.

"I didn't tell him to feed the dog sugar cubes. I told him what horses eat."

She paces to the shower door, the toilet, tries to keep it back. Buried. This is a ridiculous argument, a seriously inane fight. She will not fight with him over this.

"It's not like Dash was being serious. He was joking around. Everyone else in the room knew that, Kate. You're the only one who takes thing-"

"Oh, seriously, seriously, Castle, shut the hell up." She turns on him, livid with it, glaring at him.

"Stop cursing at me just because you're overreacting-"

"Overreacting?"

"Calm down," he says, holding both hands up like she's going to strike him.

Calm down? She really could hit him, she could, she really wants to. "Don't tell me to calm down. You're the one who can't stop talking. I'm pissed at you and you keep opening your mouth."

"I don't understand why you're pissed at me, Kate." He leans forward, trying to tower over her like he does when he gets angry, and she's inordinately pissed that he's pissed too.

"Because I told you to let it go. I told you to drop it, and you keep bringing it up. It's not funny. And then you go and egg the kids on, completely undermine me-"

"Just because you're feeling guilty and ashamed for reading my story, doesn't mean you have to take it out on me. Or the kids."

She freezes, her anger so white-hot at that accusation that she's speechless. The kids? The kids. Like she-

"Jeez, Kate. I was just teasing you. So you read the story? So you were snooping? It's funny. You know me; I'm gonna rub your nose in it for as long as a I possibly can-"

"Richard Castle. If you don't shut the hell up about that story-"

"Me?" His eyes turn dark. "You're the one who can't stop cursing at me. How about you take a time out while Dash does, huh?"

Her nostrils flare, but he turns for the door and yanks it open, keeping her from being able to reply. He heads out, leaving her there, and all she can do is seethe.

She hates him; she really hates him.

She loves the stupid idiot. That's the problem.

Castle snatches up the laptop and settles back into the couch.

The problem with arguing is that all he wants to do after that is write. Get it all down. He's got an idea for a scene in his head now, and he needs it out. He can't even take the time to go back in there and soothe her, make it right, because it's perfect in his head and he needs to not interrupt the flow of dialogue already leaking out of him.

I'm pissed at you and you keep opening your mouth.

He calls up a fresh document and titles it Nikki, then starts typing, as fast as he can make his fingers go, his whole being focused on the story, the story, the lines-

A weight flops on his feet, stretched out on the couch, and he looks up.

Ellery is crawling up his legs to sit on his knees. Her little hand reaches out and touches the top of the computer. "Daddy."

"Uh. Yeah?" He glances back down to the document, writes, Shut the hell up, Rook.

"Daddy."

"Uh, baby girl, this is really not a great moment-"

A little sigh cuts through the haze in his head and he jerks his eyes to her, sees her turning away.

"Okay, okay, wait. Ellery."

She's sliding off the couch; he saves his document, pushes the laptop to the coffee table, feels the words building up in him, the pressure, the swirl in his head, over and over, that just needs out. If Kate wasn't mad at him, she'd be teasing Ella and consoling her away from him, letting him work.

"Ellery, baby girl, wait a minute. Come here."

She stops and looks back at him over her shoulder. "I find Mommy."

"Hey, no, wait." He reaches out and scoops her up, kisses her cheek. "Mommy is in time out," he whispers to her, kisses her cheek again.

She giggles, a little look on her face so much like her mother - oh really? - and then she wraps her arms around his neck, hugs him.

"Not really, but I think Mommy is reading or taking a bath. What do you need?"

"Daddy writing?"

"Yeah, trying to."

"Mommy say Be quiet when you write, Daddy."

"Oh. Oh, she does?" Castle hugs her tighter in lieu of Kate herself, stands up from the couch. The dog is down the hall, whining outside of Dashiell's door, so Castle opens it and lets him inside.

Dashiell is sitting on his bed, chin in his fists, and he perks up when his dog comes in. "No more time out?"

"Time out's over." He'll have to remember that a better punishment seems to be withholding the dog. "Tell me why you got sent to time out, Dash."

Dashiell sighs and pats the bed so that Rex will jump up with him. Castle shifts Ellery onto his other hip, arm across her legs as he holds her up. She still has an arm hooked around his neck.

"Disrespect," Dash says, rubbing his face in the dog's fur.

"Sit up and tell me how you were disrespectful."

Dash lets go of his dog and lifts baleful eyes to his father. "I don't want to."

Oh, really? So it was bad. It was one of the big ones. He doesn't remember hearing Dash yell at her, so it has to be-

"Dash rolls him eyes," Ellery tattles.

Castle squeezes his hand at the back of her neck, whispers into her ear. "No tattling on your brother. You let Dashiell tell me what he did."

Ellery pouts at him, biting the side of her lip and narrowing her eyes. Castle ignores that and turns back to Dashiell.

"Dash. Tell me yourself."

"I rolled my eyes," he huffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

"Why did you do that?"

"Cause Mommy was being silly and I thought she was being silly and I-"

"Dashiell," he admonishes. "That's not respectful either."

"But she was!"

"You might feel that way, and your feelings are valid, kiddo. But you are not allowed to treat your mother like that. She's an adult; she's your mother. She's going to be right 99% of the time, even if you feel that she's not. Feelings can lead you astray."

"What is 99% percent?"

"That means Mommy will be right, and you, my wild man, will be wrong, pretty much every single time. If Mommy is wrong, it will be once in your whole entire life."

"Once in my whole life?" Dash moans, flopping back to the bed. The dog crawls up on his belly so that his face is next to Dashiell's.

"Don't be melodramatic. Dashiell, you owe your mother respect. We've had this conversation. Don't roll your eyes at Mommy."

"But you did!" Dash says hotly, rolling over to sit up, his face mutinous.

Castle pauses, rehashes that conversation in the living room. Horse food, dog food, something about sugar cubes. Did he roll his eyes? He has before. Kate does the same to him. It does seem unfair. . .

No. Wait. If there's one thing that Kate has taught him about parenting, it's that they are the adults here. The kids are kids.

"I get to roll my eyes at Mommy, and Mommy gets to roll her eyes at me. We're equals. We're the same, right? We're both your parents."

Dash tilts his head, a hand in the dog's fur. "What do you mean?"

"Mommy is my wife. She's my best friend. We're the same age-" Sort of. Close enough. "We get to roll our eyes at each other because we know what it means and we have history together."

Dash's eyes start to glaze and Castle knows he's explaining too much. He backs up, tries again.

"Point is, Dashiell, that I get to do that, and you don't. Ever. You hear me?"

"I hear you," he grumbles.

"Do I need to leave you here for another five minutes and let you think about it?"

"No. I got it. No rolling my eyes. Even if you do it first."

Okay, so that's humbling, it really is. "Good. You can get up now."

Ellery squirms in his arms, so he lets her down. She runs to the bed and climbs up, falling all over the dog. Rex seems to patiently endure the girl's maneuverings, and then snuffles at her neck when she gets close. Dashiell shares his bed, even letting Ellery get between himself and his dog.

"You guys good?" Castle asks.

"We're good. Me and Ellie are gonna play Legos with my dog."

"Oh, um. Actually, kiddo? Be careful with those. Don't let Rex accidentally eat any of those small pieces."

"I won't, Daddy."

"Okay, kids. I'm gonna be writing in the living room. Come get me if you need something."

Castle turns away, heading for his laptop. He has to write; he has to get it down. Just the bare bones of it so he can fill it out later. He hasn't been inspired to write Nikki Heat's next novel until now, and he had all those book tours these last few months, so it feels good to get back to it.

He's pretty sure he owes Kate an apology, but first he has to get this down on the page.


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