Divorced Dad 3: Like Father, Like Son by BlueCollarBaldy

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Matt had finally gotten his hands on that brand-spanking new GPU and OLED gaming monitor for his PC—and for a criminally low steal too—when he heard the beeping of a time bomb.

‘Uh… why is there a bomb?’ he thought. ‘Crap. I *knew* those prices were too good to be true.’ Then he realized.

Matt tapped away at his phone screen, blindly trying to defuse the bomb that was his alarm. He groaned, glancing out the window. The morning sun was just starting to cut through the streetlights. It was way too early to be up on a Saturday morning. But he was a dad again, after all, so there was no such thing as ‘too early’ anymore. Now, that late-night gaming session didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. But the worst part was the fact that he didn’t actually get that new GPU and gaming monitor. Now *that* was what hurt the most.

Matt stretched and yawned loudly like a bear who’d just woken up after months of hibernation. He ran a hand over his scalp, catching the stubble that was already trying to break through the surface. The bear of a man lumbered to the bathroom. He splashed cold water onto his face to wake himself up, then brushed his teeth, practically forcing the toothbrush down his throat and being louder about it than he needed to be. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and lathered his scalp up. While he was shaving, he caught a glimpse of movement in the reflection of the mirror—a small shadow lurking just outside the slightly ajar bathroom door.

Matt smiled, knowing exactly who it was by the shock of dirty-blond hair and stained Star Wars pajamas. "You just gonna stand out there, or are you gonna come in?"

Noah burst in through the door like a ray of sunshine. "Morning, Dad!"

"Mornin, Bud," Matt chuckled, "What are you doing up so early?"

"I heard something loud, then I felt your big smelly feet stomping on the ground. I thought it was an earthquake!" Noah exclaimed, his eyes wide and gawking at his dad’s big bald head. "What are you doing?"

"Routine maintenance. Takes effort to be this aerodynamic," Matt explained, dipping a finger in the shaving cream on his head and wiping it onto his son’s nose. "Wanna see how it works?"

"Mmhmm!" Noah nodded eagerly.

"You have to make sure your head is covered in shaving cream first," Matt relathered his scalp. "Then, while you shave, you can follow the skin to see where the blade’s been. And then you have to pull the blade *just* right," Matt explained, performing a single slow pass on the side of his head.

"Whoaaa. That’s so cool! Can I try?"

"No can do, Bud. This is something only big boys like Dad can do," Matt teased.

"But I’m a big boy too!" Noah frowned, puffing his chest out to try to look big like his papa bear.

The bear sized his cub up. "Hmm. Well, you *are* starting to look a lot like your handsome Dad." Matt grinned, turning his son’s frown upside down. "Alright, Big Boy, let’s give Dad a haircut."

Noah bounced with excitement, ready to explode.

Matt went to the kitchen to grab a chair and set it up in the middle of the small bathroom for their early-morning trip to the barbershop. He sat down, wiping the shaving cream off his head with a towel, and lowered his half-shaved head toward his son.

"Alright, Bud. Let’s go back to square one. What’s the first thing we need to do?"

"Shaving cream!" Noah answered, so sure of himself.

"That’s right," Matt smiled. He handed him the can of shaving cream. Noah laughed, playing with the white fluff between his hands and giving himself a big fluffy mustache just like his dad’s. He really liked the way it smelled like his dad too.

"OK, Handsome," Matt chuckled, "now lather Dad up."

Noah put the big ball shaped like his dad’s head between his hands. It was warm, and one side was smooth, but the other side was really rough. "Why does it feel like sandpaper?"

"That’s because Dad’s hair is growing back."

"*It grows back*?" Noah asked, his eyes wide with shock.

Matt chuckled. "Yep. That’s why Dad has to shave everyday."

"You have to shave *everyday*?" Noah asked again in rapid fire. His eyes were even wider now.

Matt laughed. "Yep. Twice a day, even, because Dad’s hair grows back too fast. Told you it’s a lot of effort."

"Do they make anything so that you wouldn’t have to shave anymore?"

Matt paused, a genuine thought flickering across his face—the engineer in him immediately calculating the cost and commitment. "They do, actually. It’s called laser hair removal."

"*Lasers*? So the lasers would just zap away all your hair and you’d be bald forever?" Now Matt had just rocked Noah’s world. "Are you gonna get that, Dad?"

"You sure are one curious kid, aren’t you?" Matt chuckled. "Alright, Bud, let’s finish the job."

Noah did what his dad asked him to do and covered his big bald head with the white fluff. He didn’t really know where his head stopped and his forehead started anymore, so he just traced the cool marking on his dad’s head like he would’ve if he was coloring.

"Good job, Bud," Matt smiled. "If you squint, it almost looks like Dad got his hair back."

"You look like an old man!" Noah commented with the brutal honesty of an eight-year-old boy. But he wasn’t wrong.

"Well, Dad *is* an old man," Matt chuckled, unashamed of what he was. "What’s next, Bud?"

Noah thought about it for a moment. "Umm… the razor?"

"Right on, Bud," Matt smiled. "Now, this is the big boy part of Dad’s haircut. You *sure* you’re big enough?"

"I am, Dad! I am!" Noah insisted, bouncing up and down.

"Alright, alright, Big Boy," Matt chuckled. "Since this is your first mission, Dad’s gonna need to help you out. Think of me as the operations center, and you’re the commander."

"Whoa! I’m a commander?"

"You sure are, Commander Clean," Matt grinned, "and every good commander has a fighter! This bad boy right here is called the Cleanfighter."

"Wow…" was the only sound Noah could make while he held the razor-shaped ship his dad gave him, tossing and turning it over, looking at it from every angle like it was the coolest thing ever.

Matt carefully positioned his large, callused hand completely over his son’s much smaller one, securing the razor in a joint grip. He lowered his head, giving Noah a clear shot at the target.

"Alright, Commander," Matt explained, his voice low and slow. "We’ve crash-landed on a weird alien world—Dad’s Head—in a galaxy far, far away. We’re in a rough part of the Outer Rim with all kinds of bad guys like Stubbletroopers, and the mission is to clean Dad’s Head up with the Cleanfighter. See how I’m guiding your hand?" Matt explained, wiggling his control hand slightly. "I’m the brains of this operation, and you're the brawn. We both have very important jobs to do. Your job is to keep the Cleanfighter steady, or it’s mission over."

"No! It’s not over!" Noah protested, shaking his head.

"No, it’s not. Now, move the Cleanfighter over the shaving cream. Slow and steady." Matt guided their hands over the top of his head.

Commander Clean traversed the alien terrain that was his dad’s big bald head. He stuck his tongue out in hyperfocus as he moved the Cleanfighter over the top and sides, which were perfectly round and easy enough to shave, but the back was harder because it was so weird.

"The back of your head is like a boulder!" Noah commented, laughing.

"Hold on tight, Commander. We’re in for a wild ride!" Matt announced, guiding their hands over the bumpy occipital bone.

"Whoa!" Noah laughed as they rushed down the edge of the ridge to safety at the base of his dad’s big, strong neck.

Commander Clean went on two more missions after the first one, this time going backwards ("against the grain" is what his dad called it, but he didn’t get why he called it that) to beat up all the Stubbletroopers. The Commander felt so safe with his dad at his side, like he could take on the whole galaxy.

Afterward, Matt wiped the shaving cream off his freshly shaved head with a towel and assessed his scalp with his hands.

"Mission accomplished?" Noah asked, his eyes wide with suspense.

"Mission accomplished. Outstanding work, Ace," Matt chuckled, giving him a high-five. "You know what? Why don’t you give your aerodynamic Dad a feel?" Matt grinned, lifting his son up off the floor and holding him tightly.

Noah laughed, being lifted high up into the air by his big, strong dad. He reached for his shiny bald head. "Wow… *We* did this?" he asked, completely awe-struck. It was so smooth! He explored every inch of his dad’s head, tracing a line from mole to mole with his finger like they were towns on a map. He also found out he could make his dad’s head get all wrinkly like his brain if he squished it hard enough, which he thought was really weird, but fun.

"We sure did," Matt nodded, chuckling, feeling his son’s small hands—sticky with shaving cream residue and God-knows-what other gross things an eight-year-old boy would’ve touched—all over his head and face.

"You’re like an alien!" Noah commented, running his curious hands through his dad’s bushy beard, then through his thick chest hair, playing with it. "A big, bald, hairy, smelly alien! Like if you shaved a Wookiee’s head!"

"So now I’m a bald Wookiee, huh?" Matt asked, chuckling at the thought. "How’s it feel having Chew-bald-ca for a dad?"

"I wanna be just like you, Dad," Noah beamed.

Matt ruffled Noah’s shaggy, dirty-blond hair. He used to cut his son’s hair himself once a month, but Dad’s Barbershop went out of business the day he moved out of the house earlier this year. Matt wasn’t a professional barber by any means, of course, having taught himself mostly through YouTube haircut tutorials and trial and error, but he had enough tricks up his sleeve to make his son happy while keeping him clean-cut and dress code-compliant enough for school—usually giving him an objectively cooler, Noah-approved version of his own cut. But now, he didn’t really have much of a "haircut" anymore. Matt genuinely thought about giving Noah his same exact cut, but he knew he’d have a "fun" time trying to explain to Amanda why their son was now bald after a weekend at his also-now-bald dad’s.

"I think It’s about time you got one of Dad’s famous haircuts again…" Matt started. "Bad news is, I can’t make you look exactly like Dad cause then Mom would get mad at both of us, and you really don’t wanna see Mom when she’s mad at Dad," Matt chuckled, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"Oh… It’s OK, Dad. I don’t like Mom when she’s mad either." Noah mumbled, deflated.

"But the good news is, I *can* give you something a lot cooler," Matt smiled mischievously. "I’m gonna give you what I call the Commander’s Cut. It’s super short on top—shorter than anything you’ve ever gotten—and it’ll feel just like Dad’s in the back and on the sides. I’ll cut your hair every time you come visit Dad’s Barbershop, and if you like it, we can go even shorter over the summer."

"Really?" Noah asked, back to his usual bouncy self.

"Really," Matt nodded, smiling. "And tell you what—you can even give a Dad a haircut after I give you yours."

"You promise?" Noah asked sincerely with the biggest puppy dog eyes ever.

"Bud, when has Dad ever broken a promise?" Matt winked. "Just don’t tell Mom about this, alright, Bud? This is just for us boys. Deal?" Matt stuck a hand out for his son to shake.

"Deal!" Noah beamed, shaking his dad’s hand.

"OK, let’s give you that Commander’s Cut and make you the coolest kid in school," Matt grinned, ruffling his son’s hair one last time before the start of their new father-son tradition.

With the clippers, Matt made quick work of Noah’s hair, taking it all down to a tight number-three buzz cut—the shortest, but safest length they could go on top—before fading the back and sides high into skin with the foil shaver. The first visit to Dad’s Barbershop in months ended with one very happy customer—well, two if you count Dad himself. The Commander’s Cut was the new customer favorite.

"Wow! I’m almost as bald as you, Dad!" Noah exclaimed. He looked at himself in the mirror. The top was so short and it was like the bristles on his toothbrush, but then the back and sides were so smooth, just like his dad’s head. He couldn’t stop touching it, or rubbing it against *everything* in the bathroom—including his dad.

Matt chuckled, Noah rubbing his head against his arm. "You like being almost-bald?"

"I love it! But I wanna be real-bald like you, Dad!"

"When you’re a big big boy, we’ll make you even balder than Dad," Matt grinned, rubbing his son’s half-buzzed, half-bald head lovingly. Noah really did look like his dad. As the saying goes: like father, like son.

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