by Ariel Tachna
“We need a high chair first,” Jaime disagreed. “She can sleep downstairs in the playpen, but we can’t feed her there, and I’m not sure it will fit in the kitchen. We need a place for her when we’re cooking.”
Srikkanth chuckled. “I don’t know why you’d think that. You just hold her when I’m cooking anyway. She won’t need the high chair for herself until she’s six months old. I think that can wait a bit longer. If you think the swing would take up too much space, we could get a little reclining chair for her, like the ones next to the swings.”
“Is this your daughter?” Tricia, the woman who had helped them so much the first time they were at Babies / Us, asked, coming up to peek into the stroller.
“Yes, this is Sophie,” Srikkanth said, tipping the hood of the stroller back so Tricia could see Sophie better.
As if hearing her name, Sophie’s eyes opened. She blinked a couple of times before her eyes fixed on Srikkanth.
“She’s beautiful,” Tricia said, smiling down at Sophie. “So did you decide you needed more stuff for her?”
“Our third roommate decided to move out, which means we have room now to set up a nursery for her,” Jaime explained. “We were looking at furniture for her.”
“And trying to decide between a swing and a little seat for her,” Srikkanth added. “Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?”
“The bouncers are generally less expensive than the swings, they take up less space, and they tend to have more in the way of lights, music, and toys to keep the baby entertained while she’s awake as well as lull her to sleep with vibrations,” Tricia replied. “I’ve known people who have both or who really prefer the swing over the bouncer, but for the most part, the bouncers are sufficient. I had one friend whose baby needed the rocking motion to sleep, but beyond that, most people use them pretty much interchangeably.”
“Even with Nathaniel moving out, space is still a consideration,” Srikkanth mused aloud. “I think we’d be better off with a bouncer.”
“My favorite is the aquarium one,” Tricia confided. “You can turn it on and leave it on, or you can set it so her movements activate the lights and music. It’s great for encouraging kids to start moving their legs around. Come on; I’ll show you where it is.”
Tricia led them over to the bouncers and showed them the one she recommended. The blue seat was bright and decorated with marine life. A fish and a seahorse hung from the aquarium bar above the footrest. “This looks perfect,” Srikkanth said. “We should just ask for you as soon as we walk in the door instead of trying to figure things out ourselves.”
Tricia laughed. “I’m here to help if that’s easier for you, but really, anyone at the store can help you with whatever you need. Let me help you get all this to the register and out to your car.”
They got everything stowed in the back of the pickup truck Jaime had borrowed from a friend so they could take everything home. Right before Tricia turned back to the store, she gave them a big smile. “I’m glad I could see you all together as a family.”
Srikkanth and Jaime both stared at her retreating back in stunned silence. A family?
Chapter 8
A full week before Nathaniel moved out, Jaime already had his room packed and ready to move downstairs. He started moving his boxes in almost as soon as Nathaniel began moving his belongings out. Srikkanth watched the entire process with a bemused smile, amazed at how determined Jaime was to speed up the process of arranging Sophie’s nursery. By the time Srikkanth started making dinner, Sophie’s nursery was empty, ready for them to move her furniture in.
“Not tonight,” Srikkanth insisted after dinner when Jaime started toward the storage shed outside where they’d put the boxes with Sophie’s furniture. “We’ll move her in tomorrow. It’ll take too long to set up now.”
“Are you sure?” Jaime asked. “I don’t mind staying up to work on it so she can have her own space tonight.”
“She’ll be asleep long before we can get it done, and I don’t want to wake her to move her later,” Srikkanth demurred. “We’ll work on it tomorrow. You’re off again, right?”
Jaime nodded. “I managed to get two days off in a row this week. I knew we’d have a lot to do with moving everything around. Get her settled for the night then while I do the dishes. I guess it’ll be every night chores now that there’s just two of us.”
“We can keep looking for a third roommate,” Srikkanth offered.
“I wasn’t complaining,” Jaime replied quickly. “Just commenting.” He bent to kiss Sophie where she was ensconced in Srikkanth’s arms. “Good night, angel.”
Jaime took his time doing the dishes. With all Sophie’s bottles, they filled the dishwasher enough these days to make it worth using instead of simply washing their few dishes by hand. He loaded the dishwasher and set it to run before taking care of the pans from dinner. There was no reason to rush while Srikkanth was taking care of the baby. Eventually he got her settled and came back into the kitchen. “I’ve been thinking,” Jaime began.
“Always dangerous,” Srikkanth quipped.
Jaime scowled. “I’ve been in my room upstairs for over three years. I think we should paint the walls before we move Sophie in. They’re white, so we can probably get away with just one coat, maybe the pale green that’s in her comforter set. We can do that in the morning and then set everything up in the afternoon while it dries. We’ll have to see how the fumes are, but even if she can’t sleep in there tomorrow night, the room will be ready and she can move in the night after.”
Srikkanth laughed. “The next thing you know, you’ll want to put wallpaper up too.”
“Not wallpaper,” Jaime promised, “although I did see a really cute border with animals on it that would go with her sheets.”
“No,” Srikkanth replied emphatically. “No wallpaper, no border. We can paint the room—you’re probably right about it needing a fresh coat—but that’s plenty for now. When she’s a little older, she can decide if she wants something else.”
“All right, fine,” Jaime agreed with a joking huff. “Can we at least agree on a color of paint?”
“I like the yellow in her quilt,” Srikkanth said. “We can go by Home Depot in the morning and get them to match it, and we’ll have the room painted by noon. If it needs a second coat, we could probably even do that tomorrow night and then move her in on Sunday.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Jaime got up from the table and headed into the living room, Srikkanth trailing behind him. He flopped down on the couch, staring blindly at the blank TV screen.
“Tired?” Jaime asked.
“Yeah,” Srikkanth admitted.
“You need to relax,” Jaime decided. “Let’s watch a movie. Even if you fall asleep in the middle of it, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” Srikkanth insisted. “If I fall asleep down here, I won’t hear Sophie during the night.”
He wouldn’t be getting up with Sophie tonight one way or another, Jaime decided, looking at Srikkanth’s drawn face. Jaime would take bottle duty tonight. “So I’ll sleep upstairs and you can actually get a full night’s sleep,” he proposed.
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“Yes, you could,” Jaime interrupted. “Now, what do you want to watch? We’ve got sci-fi thrillers, stupid comedies, or war epics.”
“Stupid comedies,” Srikkanth said. “Definitely stupid comedies. I don’t have any brain cells left to spare on anything more complicated than Jim Carrey or Robin Williams.”
“Robin Williams it is then,” Jaime declared. “Not even for you will I watch Jim Carrey. Unless it’s in The Truman Show. Maybe.”
Srikkanth chuckled. “Sophisticate. Just put on a movie. I’ll be asleep in ten minutes anyway.”
Jaime pulled out Night at the Museum and popped it in the DVD player. As he’d predicted, Srikkanth was asleep almost before the film itself started.
Jaime leaned back against the arm of the couch, his feet stretched out almost
to Srikkanth’s side, and marveled at the changes in his life over the past two months. His days of going out cruising every Friday night, with or without a date, seemed eons ago, even if he knew it was only a matter of weeks. He could still go. Srikkanth hadn’t asked him to stay at the condo every night he didn’t have to work, but Jaime found the club scene had suddenly lost its attraction. He wanted to be right where he was: at home watching Srikkanth sleep.
And if that wasn’t a bitch of a realization, he didn’t know what was. When they’d first decided to move in together, they’d made a pact not to date each other or any of their other roommates so they wouldn’t bring that kind of drama into their home. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time. Sure, Srikkanth was attractive, but there were plenty of other attractive gay guys who didn’t come with the added tension of living together. It had been easy, for three years, to pretend he hadn’t noticed Sri. He might have continued like that forever if Sophie hadn’t come into their lives. He could pretend not to notice Sri, but he couldn’t pretend where Sophie was concerned.
The next day, they went to Home Depot, Sophie’s quilt in hand, and found a salesperson willing to help them match the color. He also armed them with rollers and brushes and pans and drop cloths, everything they would need, he said, to paint the nursery for their baby.
Once again, the reference caught Srikkanth off guard, but he didn’t want to embarrass Jaime by saying anything about it in front of the employee, and bringing it up later felt far too awkward, even between friends. He decided letting it go was easier. After all, it didn’t matter if Tricia or the Home Depot employee thought they were together. He’d had it happen multiple times when he was out places with Jill, even before she got pregnant. Once she was showing, it happened even more frequently. They’d gotten a good laugh out of it more than once. Except Srikkanth didn’t want to get a laugh out of it this time, he realized as they paid and started home. He wanted it to be real. That wasn’t going to happen, though, so he pushed the thought aside and focused on navigating the busy traffic. The last thing he wanted was to get in an accident because he was distracted by thoughts of Jaime and have Sophie or Jaime get hurt.
Sophie gurgled and kicked her little feet in her bouncer as Jaime and Srikkanth painted her room. They laughed as they worked, music playing as they teased each other and tickled the baby. Srikkanth could almost believe they were a family at moments like this. He knew Jaime wasn’t thinking in those terms. His friend had always avoided entanglements, preferring not to make promises he didn’t know if he could keep. Srikkanth respected that forthright attitude, so he knew not to expect more from Jaime than he already had. A best friend and help with the baby was already a pretty good deal. He’d be greedy to ask for more.
They had worked for an hour, getting the room almost done, when Sophie got fussy. “I’ll get her if you want,” Jaime offered. “I’m done with the walls. All that’s left is the edging.”
“Thanks,” Srikkanth said, trying to keep his hand steady as he painted along the baseboards. “Leave the roller. I’ll wash it out when I’m done here. I don’t think the room will need a second coat.”
“I think you’re right,” Jaime agreed, wiping his hands on a damp rag so he wouldn’t get paint on Sophie’s clothes. Glancing down, he realized he had paint blobs on the front of his sweatshirt. He stripped it off and tossed it aside before picking Sophie up, cooing to her as he left the room.
“Shit,” Srikkanth muttered under his breath as he watched Jaime and Sophie disappear down the stairs. “Get yourself under control, Bhattacharya,” he scolded. “Jaime is not interested in you.”
That didn’t make Srikkanth less interested in Jaime, his body’s reaction to the sight of that golden back undeniable as he shifted so the seam of his jeans wouldn’t cut quite so deeply. “Good roommates are even harder to find than a good lay,” he reminded himself firmly. “Don’t screw up the best thing that ever happened to you by bringing sex into the equation. It isn’t worth it.”
Downstairs, Jaime mixed Sophie’s bottle and set it in the warmer to heat, rocking her against him to distract her while he waited. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. Is that what you’re going to call Sri?” he asked Sophie. “Is he going to be Papa or Daddy, or do Indian children call their fathers something else entirely?”
Obviously, Sophie didn’t reply, but it did stop her crying at least, and that was far more important to Jaime than any response. He could ask Srikkanth about it later. He hadn’t ever heard Sri refer to himself by any particular name. He ought to remind him to do that so she’d learn how to address him. The warmer clicked off, signaling the bottle was hot, and Jaime let everything else go as he sat at the table and rocked her while she ate. When she was done, he burped her gently and smiled as her eyes started to close. “And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.”
He carried her up the stairs to the playpen where she would sleep for another few hours until they could get her crib set up and her room aired out. Shutting the door behind him once he knew she was settled, he went back into the nursery.
“I know it’s cold outside, but we really ought to open the windows so the paint fumes can clear out before we have Sophie sleep in here,” he commented.
“You’ll freeze to death if we open the windows and you don’t have shirt on,” Srikkanth teased.
Jaime chuckled. “I wasn’t planning on standing around shirtless all day. Unless you’d prefer it that way.”
He would, but Srikkanth wasn’t about to tell Jaime that. “Just put some clothes on and I’ll open the windows. We’ll probably work up a sweat carrying in and setting up all her furniture anyway.”
Jaime nodded. “Let me get a clean sweatshirt and I’ll meet you downstairs. We can clean up the paintbrushes and then start moving furniture.”
“Sounds good.”
Jaime walked back downstairs to his new room, wondering about the fact that Srikkanth had noticed he was shirtless and cared enough to say something about it, even teasingly. He knew what he wanted the observation to mean, but he didn’t figure it was terribly realistic. They’d been very clear about their boundaries when they’d moved in together. Still, a man could hope, couldn’t he? Pulling a clean sweatshirt over his head, he went out into the kitchen to help Sri clean up.
“Damn, this armoire is heavy,” Jaime grunted as they maneuvered the piece of furniture up the stairs.
“It’s solid cherry,” Srikkanth reminded him, his voice strained as they pushed and pulled on the box, trying to get it up to Sophie’s nursery. “Maybe we should’ve bought something cheaper.”
With a final heave, they pushed the chest into the upstairs hallway. “If we had, we’d only end up replacing it in a couple of years,” Jaime reminded him. “Yes, it’s heavy, but it’s good quality. And it’s the biggest piece. The rest should be easier.”
Srikkanth wasn’t sure about that, but they’d see how it went. He grabbed his utility knife and cut away the cardboard box around the armoire so they could position it in one corner of Sophie’s bedroom. Another trip brought up the chest of drawers that also doubled as a changing table. They brought up the bed on the final trip, setting out all the pieces so they could assemble it.
“This is going to be one of those projects that takes forever, isn’t it?” Jaime groused.
“It might be,” Srikkanth shrugged, “but Sophie will be far more comfortable here than in that little napper. I can’t believe she’s almost outgrown it already. She’s only two months old.”
“Babies grow fast,” Jaime said. “And she’s eating well, so there’s no reason she shouldn’t. I think I remember reading that most babies double their weight by the time they’re six months old.”
Srikkanth shook his head. “We’ll have to get new clothes for her before long.”
“Let’s see if the ones she has will last until it warms up a little more. That way we can buy spring and summer
things in the next size. They’ll last longer that way.”
“Makes sense.”
They spread the directions out on the floor and started assembling the bed, attaching the side rails to the headboard and footboard with long screws and then positioning the bedsprings at the highest level so they could reach her easily while still supporting her head. Finally, they got the bed together and the sheets on the mattress. “I think everything’s ready,” Jaime declared. “Now she just needs to wake up so we can show her her new room.”
As if on cue, Sophie started fussing in the other room. Laughing, the two men went into Srikkanth’s bedroom. “You do the honors,” Jaime said. “She’s your daughter.”
“Come here, Sophie,” Srikkanth said with a smile, picking her up. “Do you want to see the room Uncle Jaime and I made for you?”
“What’s she going to call you?” Jaime interrupted.
