6. Vivi
Vivi
The storm raging outside has me wondering if we’ll hear the baby. There isn’t any other noise in the house but with the way the rain and wind are lashing the house it isn’t silent in here.
“Should we go eat in the bedroom?” I ponder aloud as I calculate how hard it would be to move everything to Easton’s room. “Or should we bring the baby out here?”
“Why?”
I peel my eyes off the window and face Easton. “In case he wakes up and we don’t hear him over the storm. He hasn’t really cried since we found him and the ones he has made haven’t been very loud.”
“I’ll grab the food, you get our drinks.”
Before I can protest, Easton has piled everything onto one plate and headed for the bedroom. He moved so quickly I’m left alone in the kitchen not even a minute after I voiced my thoughts and he made the decision.
“Huh.” I look around to be sure we haven’t forgotten anything before taking two bottles of water from the fridge. “Guess we’re eating in the bedroom.”
By the time I arrive in Easton’s room, he’s moved the drawer from the floor to the middle of his bed and set our plate of food on the mattress above it where a pillow would normally be.
“I didn’t like the idea of him being on the floor. Up here we won’t trip over him in the middle of the night.”
I frown at the floor where I put the baby down earlier. He’s right. It would be too easy for either of us to trip over the drawer and land on the baby. And Easton’s bed is definitely big enough to hold the drawer and a person on either side of it.
I’d go as far as saying there’s space for two people each side of the drawer. And now I’m thinking about sleeping in Easton’s bed.
With Easton.
Even the thought of a baby between us doesn’t stop my body from reacting to the idea of sharing a bed with the man I’ve lusted after for months.
“Come and eat.” He tips his chin in the direction of the baby. “He was stirring when I came in. Had to pat his back for a bit after I moved him.”
I take in the man I’ve tried my hardest to keep at arm’s length. He’s got his back to the headboard, his long legs stretched toward the bottom of the mattress, and the reason for the super-sized bed is obvious.
Anything smaller and he wouldn’t fit.
“I think we should sleep in here. You on that side, me on this one. That way we’ll be on hand when he wakes. If one of us does the diaper and the other gets his bottle ready, we should be able to get him back to sleep quickly,” he explains.
Sleeping in bed with Easton, regardless of the baby in a drawer between us, might not be the best idea. Not with the way I’m incapable of not reacting to his presence. It’s been like this since I first laid eyes on him, dripping wet, pulling himself out of Vail’s indoor pool last Christmas.
But the thought of leaving him in here—alone—to deal with the baby doesn’t sit right either.
And not because he asked for my help.
I want to help.
I’ve never thought about kids of my own. I’m barely twenty-five, and there has never been a man to inspire thoughts of babies and happily ever afters. Add in parents who weren’t—aren’t—the best role models and parenthood has been the furthest thing from my mind.
Don’t get me wrong, my childhood wasn’t bad. It was average for the first half. I think. Everything changed when my teachers noticed how smart I am. After that my parents noticed me in a way they never had before.
Once it was determined I was a child prodigy, the only thing I did was school work—study. Not that I hated it. I have this need to learn about things. Doesn’t matter what it is, if it piques my interest I’m off, down a rabbit hole until I know everything there is to know about the subject that has snagged my attention.
“Vivian?”
“Hmm…” My gaze meets Easton’s.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I know I asked, hell, I told you I’d beg on my knees, but if you don’t want to help me, I won’t hold it against you.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to help?”
“This isn’t what you agreed to when you said yes to going on a date.”
“No. But you didn’t plan for this either.”
“No, I didn’t.” His gaze leaves mine and finds the baby. “But this is what the plan is now.”
“I’m okay with that.” And surprisingly I am.
I haven’t had much to do with Hadley’s baby but I have enjoyed spending time with Bennett. He’s a cutie. “Bennett and this guy will be the best of friends when they get older.”
“Come sit down and eat something.” Worry hasn’t left his eyes. “Please.”
His concern makes me uncomfortable, has me wanting to look away, and I search for a subject to divert his attention.
“Can I set my gear up in your office or one of the other rooms?”
I need to get my fingers on a keyboard. Do what I can to find out who Lisa is. Find a way to make sure Easton and Lisa get what they want.
“I see your brain ticking.” Easton pushes off the bed and heads in my direction. “We can’t do anything tonight. Your things are at Vail’s anyway, but the second the storm lifts, I promise, I’ll drive over there and bring everything here and you can put it wherever you want.”
“We need to make sure this guy is all right.”
“We will. And if that means putting him back in his mother’s care, we’ll do it.”
“But you don’t want to do that.”
“No.” He reaches for my hand. “Strange as it seems, this, you and me and him, feels right. I can’t explain it. All I know is we’re meant to be together here. Now. Whether we stay together in the future or not doesn’t matter. Right now. This is all we really have. And I want it with you.”
“We barely know each other.”
“I think we know the important things. And what we don’t know, we can learn.” He shoots me a grin as he tugs on my hand. “I hear you’re good at that. Learning.”
An answering smile pulls at my mouth. “I am.”
“Will you learn how to take care of the little man with me?”
“Is that what you want? Neither of us agreed to this when you asked me out and I said yes.”
“And yet, I’m not sorry this is how things turned out. You, in my house, sharing my space, and the little boy someone I don’t remember entrusted me with.”
“How will this work?”
“You’ll move in. We’ll look after him, find his mother and make sure this is really what she wants and if it isn’t we’ll find a way to support her so she can take him back.”
“You’d do that?”
“Yes. Like you said, I’m rich. I can hire nannies so she can work or go to school or whatever. Hell, I could just pay her to stay home with him.”
“You need to remember who Lisa is.”
“I will.” He gives my hand another tug. “Now come eat something. And while we still have power let’s research what a newborn needs.”
“Hadley and Laney said they’d email me a list.”
“Good. Vail has already been bombarding my phone with things. Links to furniture and accessories online I can have delivered.”
“First is a bed.” I nod in the baby’s direction. “He can’t sleep in that for long.”
“No. We need furniture. Which room should we set him up in?”
“This one for now. That means a cradle. Once he’s bigger we can get a cot and pick a room.”
“Probably the one next to this one.”
“Maybe.”
“Until then, the three of us will stay in here.”
I don’t know how I feel about that. I want to, or my body does. There isn’t a single part of me that doesn’t want to be physically close to Easton. Except my brain. It’s screaming with warning bells.
The last time I let a guy into my life, he ended up betraying me in the worst way. Lucky I’m smart. And once I worked out what he was doing, it was easy enough to unwind what he’d done and leave.
And if he found himself the recipient of identity theft, I can’t confirm or deny involvement.
“Hey.”
I look at Easton. “Huh?”
“You keep disappearing into that head of yours.”
I shrug. “Can’t help it. My brain is always spinning.”
“Well, spin it to moving your legs and get on the bed so we can eat before little man wakes or the power goes out.” He nudges me toward the bed. “And let’s not forget we’re going to be up with him a few times during the night. We should rest when we can.”
A smile pulls at my lips. “Look at you with all your baby knowledge.”
“It’s not me. Vail keeps reminding me to sleep when the baby sleeps.” When I look at him in question he shrugs and says, “I guess Van wasn’t a good sleeper or something.”
“You don’t remember?” I ask as I finally move to the bed and climb on, being extra careful not to disturb the drawer holding our precious charge.
“No. I spent a lot of time on the west coast. Vail and Quade stayed here or Charleston or New York while we built the business.”
His words have me curious. “You didn’t all work together?”
“Oh, we did. But I ran the LA office while Vail and Quade headed things up in Charleston and New York.”
“You didn’t want to be with them?” It seems strange, but then what do I know? I don’t even know what it is they do, until now I hadn’t been curious other than to search how successful QVE is.
“In the beginning it made sense to split ourselves between the three places most of our business was.”
“And what exactly is that? Your business? I don’t really know what you do.”
“Many, many things. But we started buying old buildings and refurbishing them. Then we moved into doing it with companies we thought had unrealized potential.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your fingers in many pies.”
“We do.” His gaze moves to the baby. “But recently, Quade and Vail have had other priorities.”
“Ones you think you’ll now share.”