The Boss Baby Daddy (A Secret Baby Romance)

by Claire Adams

  "Excuse me, ma'am?" She turned and smiled up at me.

  "Good afternoon, sir, what can I help you with?" she asked.

  "I need some advice," I told her. "I live alone, but that's about to change. What do I need to get my place ready for a kid?"

  "Baby on the way?" she beamed. "Congratulations."

  "Thanks. I know I need diapers, and a crib, but I'm stuck on what else."

  "Don't you worry," she said, motioning for me to follow her. She started with the bottles, little sippy cups, plastic plates, and spoons. She never stopped talking the whole time, asking me question after question about how soon the kid was going to be coming and how me and my wife were feeling about becoming new parents. She got it out of me eventually that the arrangement was a little different than what she expected, but she didn't seem judgmental about it, professionally walking me through the store, putting a list together of everything I would need.

  She worked for the store, she obviously wanted to sell as much as possible, but this was one time that I wasn't worried about getting a deal. He'd need a playpen: a space where I could leave him and be sure he was safe, even if I wasn't in the room. A high chair, the woman said, would ease him into sitting up while he ate, the way he would when he would eventually sit at a normal dining table with Shel and me. Since I was getting a highchair, of course, I needed baby food. Shelby had told me that he was only having a few spoonfuls of the baby rice stuff, a couple times a day, but sure, the next step was most likely apple sauce and creamed peas.

  The woman got me to cave on a foldaway changing table, changing mat for when I was on the go, something called a Boppy pillow, and an array of toys that were meant to be stimulating and jump-start his early cognition. A car seat was obvious, and so was a good stock of diapers and wipes. Paying the bill, I wondered why the fuck those tiny mini items cost so damn much. It was worth it, of course. I had spent a hell of a lot more on myself in the past, and I would spend a hell of a lot more on Damien in the future. He wasn't going to know what if felt like to go without. I had been lucky; my childhood had been right out of a storybook. Supportive, present parents, vacations camping and hiking, holidays surrounded with people who loved me: I wanted that for him.

  We had a ways to go before we got there, but I felt like we were on the right track. It was getting close to three-thirty when I finished at the store, so I decided to go straight to Shelby's station to pick Damien up before heading back to the apartment.

  The bigger items I paid extra to deliver to the apartment but kept the car seat so I could pick Damien up. Parking at the station, I followed the car seat instructions and installed it before calling Shelby and telling her I was downstairs. Since the daycare was onsite, she got to go down and see Damien whenever he needed her. Sounded like a good idea; I didn't know how many other offices had that option for parents. Didn't think mine did.

  Instead of waiting outside, I went inside to the daycare. It was an area on the ground floor, sectioned off with a short gate. It had colorful decals on the walls, paintings, charts, and carpet on the ground. Through there, a few people in uniforms were engaging groups of kids in different activities. I looked around for Damien, not seeing him. A lot of the kids were bigger than him, walking already. I told the closest uniformed woman to me that I was there to pick Damien up.

  "Damien?" she asked, looking at me.

  "Damien. Damien Aster," I clarified, remembering that Shel had given him her last name. I was cool with that as long as he could have mine too. I told her who I was and she got it, telling me that Shelby had let her know that Damien's dad was going to be picking him up.

  "Just a security thing, we have to be careful. Wait here," she said, disappearing into a room. She came out holding Damien. I smiled seeing him, taking him from her.

  "Hey, buddy," I said, kissing his cheek. I could swear that he got cuter every day. I was thanking Shelby for that. He had her nose and mouth, and whenever we were out with him, people liked to tell us he was cute. Shit, my kid? A masterpiece.

  "You're already here," I heard someone say behind me. I turned and saw Shelby walking up to us. There was a smile on her face. She came up, kissing Damien on the cheek, then me.

  "I'll be earlier tomorrow. I had to pick a few things up before coming here."

  "Like what?" she asked. I shrugged.

  "Why don't you come see?" I said casually. She smiled, rolling her eyes, but followed me outside. I guessed that it wasn't a secret anymore that Damien was mine. Some people were looking at us walking out of the building. I hated that she had ever felt that way about us, about me. I was doing everything I could to fix it.

  "Wow," she said as we came up to the car. "This is yours?"

  "For the remainder of the lease, yup," I said proudly. "And look at this," I said, opening the door to the back seat, showing her the car seat. "All ready to go for Damien."

  "I’m impressed," she said, crossing her arms. "Good start. You're going to have about three hours with him. Are you ready?"

  "I've been waiting for this all day," I said, lowering Damien into the seat and buckling him in.

  "You can call me if anything happens. If you need anything. Otherwise, I'll be there once I'm off work."

  "Take your time. We'll be okay," I said, opening the driver's side. She smiled, opening the door to kiss Damien bye, then wished me good luck, and walked back into the building. I got into the car and started it, turning to look back at Damien. It was just the two of us now. He was calm the whole way to the apartment, making those little sounds he did. The store that I had been to had said the deliveries would come before the end of the day, but they weren't there when we got to my unit. No problem, I thought, they still had time. We went inside with everything else.

  The changing table hadn't been delivered, but I had brought the changing mat home in my car. I unfolded it on the bed, laid Damien down then changed his diaper. I threw it out, and when I came back to the bed, he had rolled over onto his stomach.

  "What are you going to do if I put you on the floor?" I asked him, picking him up and placing him carefully on his stomach. He immediately pushed up on his arms and tried to scoot around the floor. Carpet, I realized. That was what I had forgotten. It was okay. I'd get it tomorrow. Place an order or something. I heard a knock at the door suddenly. Keeping an eye on him, I went to the door; it was the delivery from the baby store.

  "Look what Daddy got you, buddy," I said, closing the door when everything was in the house. I was glad suddenly that I hadn't bought anything but a couch and table. I might have overestimated the amount of space that was available in the apartment. "What do you think?" Damien just smiled and tried to scoot over to me. I leaned down and picked him up. "You want to help me put some of this stuff together? Where should we start?" I was talking to myself, but Shelby always did it to him. He wasn't going to say anything back, but I liked it. They didn’t learn to talk unless someone spoke to them anyway. "How about this so you can play with your new toys?" I said, touching the box where the playpen was. It would require minor assembly, and I had brought up the new toys already.

  When I had been a kid, I'd watch my dad, sometimes grandfather, putting things together. From pretty early on, my dad was all about his kids getting college educations but always insisted that it was important to know how to work with your hands. Watching him go under the hood of the car, or fixing something for my mom had always been like bonding time for us. Damien couldn’t use his hands for anything much at the moment, but maybe one day. I put him down on the ground near me and got to work.

  I was in the kitchen when I heard the knock on the door. I went up and opened it, letting Shelby in. She smiled at me, coming inside.

  "Hey, how’d it go?" she asked.

  "Good. How was work?"

  "It was all right; what happened in here?" she asked, noticing the new furniture. The playpen was near the couch; since I had no TV, that had become Damien's designated play area. The highchair was next to the table and t
he changing table, since it folded down, was against the wall next to the playpen.

  "I went out for a couple things. He's in there." I pointed to the playpen. She looked at me then walked over. Its raised sides had translucent netting so I could see into it at all times. He was napping, asleep on his stomach. She put her hands on the raised sides looking in.

  "When did you put him down?"

  "Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. I wasn't sure of his schedule, but he was getting fussy so I laid him down, and he fell asleep."

  "Hm. I don't like him napping too late in the day because he won't fall asleep at night."

  "Yeah, I think I read something like that."

  "Read?" she asked. I pointed over at the table, at the pile of books that had grown since last Friday. She went over and looked at them, picking one up.

  "The Baby Owner's Manual," she said, reading one cover. "The New Dad's Survival Guide?"

  "You said nobody ever just knows how to do this stuff. I wanted to learn," I said, walking up to her.

  "How many do you have?" she asked, skimming the pile.

  "I might have bought the store out," I said, shrugging sheepishly. "I really want to be good at this. Good for Damien, I mean. He got me for a dad; I want to make up for that."

  "Stop," she said. "You're already so good with him."

  "I wasn't there three whole months. I feel left behind. I don't want to miss out on any more of his life."

  "That was my fault, Jason."

  "If I hadn't been such an asshole, you wouldn't have felt like you had to keep him safe from me." She came up to me, putting her arms around my neck. I pulled her in so she was flush against me.

  "You're a good dad, Jason," she said.

  "I hope he thinks so too." She leaned in and kissed me. We had turned a corner lately, gotten a little closer. I liked it. I preferred when she wasn't pushing me away. I kissed her, happy I got to see her again. I was glad it was her, it was good to feel like she didn't regret having Damien with me.

  "In all this stuff you got, did you get a monitor too?" she asked.

  "Wouldn't need one. Not enough space."

  "Hm." She kissed me again, this time letting her hands slide down my shoulders, over my chest and abs, stopping right at the waist of my jeans.

  "Too bad. We'll just have to be quiet then."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Shelby

  My eyes fluttered shut. I bit my lip so I didn't moan out loud. Jason's teeth bit down on my nipple. I sighed, running my hand through his hair as he sucked and kissed my sensitive flesh. He was already naked, but my slacks were still on, stopping me from being able to feel his skin against me. My panties were a sopping mess underneath; I ached as he kissed his way down my stomach, unfastening my pants.

  "Please," I whispered. I didn't know whether he had heard me; I had hardly heard myself. He pulled my slacks and panties off together and took his time teasing me, running his hands over my inner thighs, coming close to touching me where I was wet and waiting for him, then cruelly retreating.

  He moved up over my body, settling himself between my legs. He kissed me, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, desperate to draw him into me. I moaned his name, feeling him stiff and ready between us. I thrashed my hips in vain, hungry for the contact. Finally, he thrust into me. Breathy moans came from my lips, mounting as we pleasured each other. Fast, then slow, he drove me crazy. He shushed me gently, lips and teeth against my neck. The restraint we both had to have made it even hotter.

  Closing my eyes, I gasped, reaching my climax. I smothered my cry against his shoulder convulsing under him as he continued fucking me, questing for his own. He went faster. Growls and grunts escaped him as he came undone.

  "Shel," he whispered. "I'm-I'm going to come." He pulled out quickly, shooting his load over my stomach. He kissed me, slow and deep as he came back down. He got up and walked to the kitchen, coming back with a kitchen towel for me to clean off. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about him since he had left the station. We had stood together, all three of us for the first time for anyone who was curious to see. Everything he did, his obvious effort and hard work made me want him more. I wanted him to know that I saw it and I knew how hard he was trying. I appreciated everything.

  I turned my head to look at him; we had been lying there a few minutes, quiet. He was on his back, looking at the ceiling. I followed the line of his profile, from his hairline, over his forehead, the straight bridge of his nose, over his lips, chin, and jaw. I wondered just how much more of that face would show up on Damien's as he got older. I had thought about it before, more when I had still been pregnant. Back then, it had been more of a fear that he would have been born and the resemblance to Jason would have been so strong, someone would have caught on to my secret immediately. Looking back, I didn't know what I had been thinking. None of the outcomes I had thought of had been this one, the two of us finding a way back into bed together and Jason actually wanting to be an active parent.

  He turned and looked at me, noticing me staring at him.

  "Did you ever want kids?" I asked. The answer hardly mattered now since he had one, but I was curious suddenly. Of all the things that had changed in his life, had he ever seen this one happening for himself?

  "I don't know," he said. "I didn't think about it a lot, but I guess I would have done something about it if I got to forty or older and still didn't have any."

  "Huh. You guys don't have a cap on your fertility," I reflected.

  "Yeah, but still, who wants to be the oldest dad at the parent-teacher conference? My siblings already have kids; my parents wouldn't be on my back about giving them grandkids... I probably could have gone my whole life and never done it."

  "You really never wanted a family of your own?"

  "I didn't do a lot of thinking past what I wanted, where I wanted to be. Me, myself. I was an egocentric dickhead, Shel. You know that."

  "Yeah, but even when you were younger? You never thought about what you wanted your life to look like when you grew up?"

  "I always really admired what my parents have," he said. His parents in upstate New York. They were still together and had given him and his siblings rich, fulfilling childhoods. "But it's easier to find something easy than something real, you know?" I nodded. I had wanted a family, eventually. I had wanted to start my family with the person who wanted the same things I did. I guess I had kind of gotten that, in a roundabout way.

  "What about you?" he asked.

  "I'm glad our son looks like you," I said. He looked at me.

  "Come here," he said. I scooted closer, burying my face in his chest. He drew me to him and kissed the top of my head. All it had taken had been that first time to set us off; now we couldn't get enough of each other. I closed my eyes and just let myself feel good with him. He wasn't perfect, but who was? He was doing his best, and even when he frustrated me, I wanted him. Some time passed, I didn't know how much, but I spent it dozing in Jason's arms.

  My eyes opened when I heard Damien. I sat up and looked around the room, remembering where I was. Jason's apartment. I got out of the bed and was searching for my underwear on the ground when the crying stopped. I looked up over the bed, over to the living space. Jason was already there, in his underwear, holding Damien. He was walking around the small space, giving Damien his bottle. I grabbed for the closest article of clothing I could find, Jason's t-shirt, and threw it on. It was big on me, almost as long as a very short dress. I went over to them. Jason saw me and stopped.

  "I hope you don't mind me feeding him formula. I didn't want to wake you." Right then. That was the moment I fell, totally and completely, for Jason Bowman. I swallowed and shook my head. This wasn't new; he had shown me already how much he wanted to be part of Damien's life. I loved seeing them together, it made me so hopeful that there was enough there to make the two of us work. It wasn't that simple though. I knew that. His relationship with Damien and his with me were two separate things. I knew he'd be
Damien's dad no matter what happened between us, but what about us? I didn't know whether taking the risk would be worth it. Nobody knew what the future held when they started new relationships, but his track record hadn't been the best so far. What if we tried something and it turned out to be a mistake?

  "N-no, it's fine. I don't mind. I'll just pump a little more next time," I said, going over to them. Damien had finished drinking. I held my arms out to take him while Jason took the bottle to the kitchen. I patted Damien's back, sitting on the couch with him. He wriggled, happy and full.

  "Did you have a fun afternoon with your daddy, bub?" I asked him. Jason came back in, sitting on the couch, next to me.

  "Thirsty?" he asked, holding out a glass of orange juice. I thanked him, taking it gratefully. I took a long sip and put the glass on the ground by my feet; he didn't have any end tables. He threw his arm over the back of the couch, and I scooted closer, resting my head on his chest. He wrapped his arm around me. I had no idea what time it was, but the sun was going down outside. Eventually, I'd have to leave. Both of us had work the next day. I couldn't get Damien or myself ready from here. Five more minutes. Ten. Twenty minutes and we'd leave.

  "So, what do you think? Did I pass?" he asked quietly.

  "You did okay. Not bad for a first day. The baby's still in one piece." He laughed a little.

  "It's incredible. He's his own little person. I never thought... every time I see him, I don't know what to expect. There's something new every day."

  "Hm," I sighed, looking down at Damien. At first, it had been a little comforting that I had known a little more about taking care of an infant than Jason did; not that we were competing, it was just different seeing Jason like that, taking on something totally foreign to him. Vulnerable and a little unsure for once. I was looking forward to learning with him. Damien was changing every day; he'd need different things from us as he got older. "Thank you for trying so hard. I never thought we'd get here."