Locke looks to me, but it’s not unkind. “It’s okay,” he says. “Don’t let their rough and tumble ‘tudes scare you.”
I walk forward and gently pass Lily to Ben as if she’s a one-month-old and not eleven months, but I’m ready to scoop Lily and run at the first sign of a fumble.
But these men are athletes, and Ben hooks Lily with the ease of a football and sits back down on the couch, Asher’s elbow practically in his hip. But Asher bends forward, sticking his tongue out at Lily and bringing his fingers to her stomach before darting back, inducing a belly laugh from Lily, her lips thinned by a smile, gums out, tongue dancing with her giggles. She reaches for Asher’s hand but misses.
“Can’t believe she’s yours, man,” Ben says, and he’s staring at Lily with the same astonishment. He starts bouncing Lily on his knee, and when he realizes she likes the action, he smiles and goes faster.
“Neither can I,” Locke says, then spreads his hands. “But there you have it. I make great looking kids.”
The guys laugh but then are quickly drawn back to Lily. Even Easton leans in close, squeezing Lily’s bare foot.
I wonder if the spirit of Paige stands beside me, looking upon these four large bears and thinking what I’m thinking: all it takes is a baby to turn macho men into fluff balls.
Lily, unused to such undivided attention by so many people, thrives. I swear she flirts with each and every one of them.
“Uh-oh,” Asher says, his indigo eyes landing on Locke. “You may have a problem later in life, bud.”
“Nope. I’ll buy a handgun,” Locke responds, and laughably, he’s adopted my previous stony expression. His arms seem to itch to hold Lily again. “Or a shotgun. Outfit the place with booby traps.”
“Not to worry,” Asher says. “We’ll be your muscle. No guy’ll get near her.”
Guys, I want to say. She’s eleven months old. No need to worry about prom night yet. But I don’t know them enough to joke or how they’ll react. I haven’t been acting like myself since…well, since I said good-bye to Paige. And it isn’t until now I realize I’m tired of putting on a brave face.
I just want to go back to how I was. Happy, fulfilled, with my best friend beside me.
“Well, it’s been real.” Easton slaps his knees and stands. I guess he’s satisfied with a foot-squeeze and now wants to go find his drum set.
Can’t blame him. Some people are baby people, others aren’t. I was in the latter until Lily showed me otherwise.
“And he’s my ride,” Asher says. He makes a blowfish face at Lily and rises. “It’s nice to meet you, Carter. Maybe next time we’ll actually talk. Considering you’re, you know, living here for a while.”
Ben doesn’t look happy with that statement. I’m not used to so much bluntness, both in words and expression, and I’m a little thrown. “Sure. Yes, okay.”
“Man, congratulations,” Ben says while handing Lily back to Locke. He smacks Locke on the shoulder. “Wish we could have said it a lot earlier.”
Ah. There it is. Ben probably assumes I deliberately kept Lily a secret from Locke. Well, he can shove his theories up his ass.
Asher squeezes my shoulder as he passes, and I take it as a form of understanding. Definitely not solidarity, as it’s clear where his loyalty lies, but at least he might be willing to listen one day.
“Have fun, kids,” Asher says as they depart. Easton gives a wave, and Ben leaves with a salute. None of them look at me. Nobody says they’re sorry to hear about Paige.
It’s not like they should. She was a nobody to them in college. She may as well be a nobody to them now. A nameless mother who gave them a cute kid to protect on prom night.
“That was warm and fluffy,” I say once the apartment door is shut.
“I know, right? I’ve never seen the guys like that.” Locke chuckles as he bounces in place with Lily. He’s so absorbed, he has no idea I’m being sarcastic and simmering beside him.
A childish part of me wants to burst his bubble. “How long has she been up for?”
“Uh…” Locke looks to the ceiling. “Four hours?”
I make a show out of peering around him to see the oven clock. “And you changed her diaper how many times?”
“Oh, yeah.” Locke pales at the memory. “No childcare class could properly warn me about that. She pooped, dude. Like real, terrible poop. Singed my nostrils.”
I try not to smile.
“First time, I put the diaper on backwards. Second time, Lily ripped out of it because I didn’t do it right. Third time, I wanted to wake you up and have you do it,” he admits. “Fourth time…I don’t want to talk about it.”
I can’t help but ask, “What happened?”
“That’s between me and this tiny volcano,” Locke says, then spins Lily. “What should we have for dinner, little sputnik?”
I have to cover my mouth to stifle the laugh once I spot it. A huge streak of brown, right on the bottom of his previously snow-white tee. “What’s the state of the nursery like?”
“Again,” he says in an overly bright, singsong voice, “We’re not talking about it.”
“Fine. How about I get dinner ready for her, and you can change?”
“Change?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say while gently extricating Lily from his—hopefully sanitary—hold. “You need a new outfit.”
“Goddammit.” He pulls at his shirt. “I thought I got all of it.”
“A piece of advice, you’ll never get all of it,” I say in an equally singsong voice as I stride into the kitchen with Lily, then can’t resist adding, “Won’t that go down nicely with the ladies.”
I don’t need to turn to predict his glare.
When he returns, in a navy tee this time, I have Lily set up with a quick dinner of premade food packs I brought with me. I don’t trust Locke’s fridge enough to believe in freshness. He narrows his eyes at Lily’s food but doesn’t say anything as he pulls out a Coke, offering me one.
We drink, with Lily as our centerpiece, and barely say a word to each other. When Lily’s done, I clean up her mess and say, “Definitely time for bed, pumpkin.”
I hold out my arms, and she claps gleefully. Before I can grab her, Locke gently lays a hand on the top of her head.
“I’d like to try this time,” he says.
My hands are still spread out like an idiot’s. “Oh.”
“I watched you,” he said in a kinder tone. “When you put her down for a nap.”
I nod. “Of course. Let me know if you need anything.”
Locke smiles, and it reaches his eyes. It’s that expression which halts me from opening my mouth and saying she needs a bath first, then some lotion, definitely a diaper change. It would sound so witch-like, considering all Locke wants to do is hold his new daughter a while longer. And Lily can go one night without a bath. Hell, I don’t even know how often the foster family washed her.
All I can go on is my own experience, and I gave that child a bath every night because of how much she loves splashing and playing with her water toys.
I don’t know if Locke has bath toys.
Tomorrow, I think as Locke walks past me into Lily’s room. He’s given me a tomorrow with her.
I sit down on the couch and, short of literally twiddling my thumbs, I chew on my lower lip as I listen to the sounds of Locke changing Lily, putting her in a onesie that maybe came from the suitcase the caseworker and I brought, or from his own purchases.
She’s cooing, making baby sounds, likely kicking her legs up in the changing station and giving Locke a hell of a time—shit, does Locke know to wipe front to back with a baby girl?
“Stop it,” I say to myself. I refuse to jump up and check. Locke knows. I’m not a handmaiden assigned to Lily. Nor am I a nag.
Patience. Locke will tell me all about it when he’s done.
In about the time I figured it would take, the babbling turns to crying, then to screams. After ten minutes, I can’t take it anymore and run t
o the nursery.
I crack the door open enough to see Locke practically jumping in place, trying for Mary Had a Little Lamb again, jerkier in tone this time because of all his leaping.
The light’s still on, so bright compared to the lamps in the main room, and when Locke spins, Lily’s bright red face and gaping maw of a mouth greet me.
“Oh, boy,” I say, and somehow, Locke hears me over the cries.
“Carter! Fuck, what am I doing wrong?”
The face he gives me is laced with such desperation, I dial down the lecture I’m about to give and step all the way in.
“She’s overtired. Overstimulated from the day and the company. This is pretty normal,” I explain.
“Normal?” he echoes, except with a lot more screech. “Is she hurting? It sounds like she’s in pain. Is her tummy okay?” He bounces in place, and when that only sends her into hysterics, he stops and looks at Lily like he’s broken her.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
My heart cracks just a little.
“I don’t know what to do to help her,” Locke says. He’s stricken.
“It’s okay,” I say “This is the only way she knows how to communicate right now. You’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Then…how…?”
I’ve come close enough to take her, but Locke doesn’t give her to me. He keeps holding on, displaying an unexpected willingness to keep trying.
“So…bring her close to your chest,” I say loud enough for him to hear me over the cries. “That’s it. Good. Now sway, back and forth, like this.”
I show him a simple side to side, as smooth as could be, and I’m holding my arms as if I’m holding her. “Just sway, like that. Yes.”
It’s doing nothing to bank Lily’s cries.
“Is she hungry?” Locke’s face is white over hers, his eyes the size of a badger’s. “I just changed her. It can’t be dirty already, can it? Is it?”
I shake my head. “She’s just not used to you. Let me…” But then I stop. Think. The last thing I want to do is tear Lily away from him because I know what kind of emptiness that causes. “I’m going to come closer.”
I flick off the light and step up to them, wrapping one arm around Lily and weaving the other around Locke’s neck. “Follow my movements,” I say to him. “Just like that.”
We get into a rhythm, and then I start singing. It’s a folk song, one my grandmother used to sing to me when I was sick, and I couldn’t tell you where it came from. But it worked for Lily at three months, and it works for her now.
Her cries turn to whimpers, then murmurs, as I keep going.
I’m surprised how easy it is to pull Locke close, to let him listen to me sing. I’m even more taken aback by the wash of chills I feel on his neck and the reciprocating tingles in the pads of my fingers that grow, trailing down my arm, onto my shoulder, through my breast until my nipple starts feeling the electricity, too.
Locke’s eyes fall shut at the touch, but he’s awake, still swaying. Lily’s are drooping, her forehead falling against Locke’s chest.
I don’t tell Locke it’s okay to put Lily down now. I bring my own forehead into Locke’s chest too, and I feel his grip around my waist tighten, a hold I hadn’t known he’d maintained.
Soon, with only the streetlights from outside painting the room in golden lowlights, the three of us grow silent, my and Locke’s light foot taps the only sound in the room.
It wakes me up.
I push off Locke. “I’m sorry.”
There’s a moment of quiet, and then he says, “We say that a lot to each other, don’t we?”
His voice is husky but soft.
It’s too easy to fall into the lure of his tone, the dim light of this room, the soft snores of Lily.
“I should go,” I whisper, backing up. “I-I mean, I know this is my room, but I should go for now. Make sure Lily’s really asleep, before coming back in—”
“Carter.”
“I’m going to leave you alone. Give you time.”
“Car—”
But he doesn’t finish. I’ve shut the door and left him and Lily in the nursery.
12
Locke
I am merely a speed bump in Carter Jameson’s quest for Lily.
That’s what I’ve come to terms with as the days go by and she greets me politely after a full five hours of disappearing, then beelines for Lily. It’s what I’ve come to accept as we become more passersby on the sidewalk than roommates.
I can’t blame her. When I offered for Carter to stay, it wasn’t with the goal of sleeping with her. It came from the very real picture she painted in front of me, the reality of taking Lily out of her arms and leaving Carter to deal with the aftermath alone.
No child deserves to grow up without a mother, and Carter is the closest Lily has to one. Even I, more asshole than brain, know that much.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise when, during each evening that passes, Carter grows more and more distant from our conversations, goes to bed practically when Lily does and falls into a routine that, for the most part, doesn’t involve Locke Hayes.
We haven’t really discussed her terms or how long she’ll stay—a cardinal mistake in any other circumstance—but in a roommate way, Carter doesn’t bother me. She’s clean, quiet, washes bottles and dishes without a word from yours truly, doesn’t drink—as far as I can tell—cooks, and definitely doesn’t party.
A few evenings, I’ve had to leave, prior commitments and promises forcing me out of the apartment while I have a live-in babysitter to continue to do so. Before I’d asked Carter to stay a while, I’d been attempting to figure out how to watch Lily while I went out. Get Ben over? Hell no. Asher would scare Lily on sight, and Easton’s too distracted right now to learn how to keep a baby alive for a few hours.
I promised my sister I’d keep doing this, though—and Ben. All of them. I couldn’t renege on my deal, so on Tuesday evening, then Thursday, I asked Carter to watch Lily.
Carter, expectedly, figured I was out sleeping around. Frowned at my fresh shower and spritz of cologne. Judged my button-down and didn’t return my waves good-bye.
Let her think it.
Most of me is carved from stubbornness. I have my dad to thank for that. If Carter wants to believe I’m busy fucking my brains out while leaving my responsibilities behind, let her goddamned think it.
Truth is, I shouldn’t be complaining. In a perfect world, I’d keep my mouth shut and let this continue to play out since it’s going so calmly and full of polite gestures. We could blind each other with our teeth.
But this isn’t my perfect world. In that one, I’d be fucking Carter Jameson.
No woman has ignored me so effortlessly. She’s put me in a box and labeled it PRIVATE—DO NOT TOUCH. I can’t read her expressions or figure out what’s going on behind those champagne-colored eyes. She’s not using me for my body, not trying to get closer to feel a touch of Hayes fame. She isn’t affected one way or another if I’m in the room or not…
It’s fucking infuriating.
And it’s never made me want a woman more.
I want to think she’s playing a game, doing the whole “hard to get” ploy that most men dig. With Carter, though, I don’t think that’s it. It doesn’t seem like her to premeditate how to get me shirtless and panting at her feet, because that’s the problem—I’ve been shirtless in front of her, many times, and she doesn’t give a fuck.
At this point, I’m more than annoyed. I’m beyond blue balls. I’m pissed at myself because, in the midst of getting to know my baby daughter, I shouldn’t be thinking about how to screw her substitute mother.
Another day passes, and a small box of Carter’s stuff comes. I offer to help, but she pertly says “no, thanks,” then goes into her and Lily’s room. Then another day goes by, and I’m ready to grab her and crush my mouth on those pillow lips made for blow jobs, but then she goes and decides to shock the
shit out of me instead.
The three of us are in the living room, Carter and I doing our own thing despite being within feet of each other, as usual, when she pauses in stacking blocks with Lily on the floor to say, “I should get a job.”
“What? Why?”
“I should. I’m not going to squat here. I’ll pay my way.”
I’m stupid enough to suggest, “Why don’t you just be her nanny?”
The Death Star stares at me in the form of a face. “You’re not going to pay me to be Lily’s babysitter. Like I said, I’ll earn my keep.”
I shrug over my mistake, pretending I don’t give a rat’s ass what she does, when, in reality, it kills me that she doesn’t think she’s doing enough, then I go back to my laptop. “Your choice.”
“What do you do, anyway?”
I glance up at my screen, and I’m amused to see her flustered.
“What I mean is,” she says, “do we need to figure out some form of day care for Lily?”
“No, we don’t. I work from home for the most part.”
Silence fills our space as she waits for me to elaborate. I stop typing and say to her, “I’m freelance.”
She angles her head. “Freelance what?”
I make my tone uncaring with a touch of flirt and my killer smile. “Freelance bachelor.”
She frowns, but I don’t fill in the creases. After my injury on the field, my contract with the football league still paid in full. It was a rookie contract, but in professional football, it was more of a salary than most college grads on the fast track to corporate success could put together. I’d been living off that for the past year—that, and beer. Then it was beer and pain killers, which was a scary few months the boys and I don’t talk about.
It’d been fine. Comfortable, even. And since learning Lily was a part of me, I hadn’t touched either. Been going back to the gym, working on physical therapy for my leg. Thinking about what kind of career I should go for.
Except, now that Carter’s on her knees in front of me, and not in the way I’m used to, I feel weird about my past and current situation. Like a thick syrup has painted my gut. Like there’s something I need to be ashamed of.
Trusting You Page 8
