Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
MEMPHIS
The numbers on the microwave’s clock taunted me as I paced the length of the loft. With every turn, the green glow caught my eye and earned a sigh of despair.
Three nineteen.
Drake had been crying since one.
I’d been crying since two.
“Baby.” A tear dripped down my cheek. “I don’t know what to do for you.”
He wailed, his face red and his nose scrunched. He looked as miserable as I felt.
I’d fed him a bottle. I’d changed his diaper. I’d swaddled him. I’d unswaddled him. I’d rocked him in my arms. I’d propped him against a shoulder.
Nothing had worked. Nothing I was doing would make him stop crying.
Nothing I was doing was . . . right.
Did all new mothers feel this helpless?
“Shh. Shh. Shh.” I walked toward an open window, needing some fresh air. “It’s okay. It will be okay.”
Before I’d left New York, his pediatrician had told me that colic typically peaked at six weeks old, then began to decline. But Drake’s seemed to be getting worse.
His legs stiffened. His eyes were squeezed shut. He squirmed, like the last person on earth he wanted to be stuck with was me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered as my chin quivered. This would pass. Eventually, this would pass. He’d never know how he’d tormented me as an infant. He’d never know that I was hovering above rock bottom. He’d never know that being a mother was so damn hard.
He’d simply know that I loved him.
“I love you, baby.” I kissed his forehead and closed my eyes.
God, I was tired. I’d stopped nursing because he’d been so fussy. Maybe that had been a mistake. The expensive, sensitive-tummy formula that was supposed to help only drained my bank account.
My feet hurt. My arms hurt. My back hurt.
My heart hurt.
Maybe I was in over my head. Maybe this move had been a horrible idea. But the alternative . . .
There hadn’t been an alternative. And since I’d been here less than a week, I wasn’t ready to call this a mistake. Not yet.
Don’t give up.
“One more day, right? We’ll make it one more day, then rest this weekend.”
Tomorrow—or today—I’d be splurging on a triple-shot latte before going to the hotel. Caffeine would get me through my Friday. And this weekend, we’d recharge.
I only had to survive one more day.
My first four days at The Eloise Inn had flown by. Monday, I’d spent doing paperwork and orientation. Tuesday, I’d jumped into cleaning. After three days of scrubbing, dusting, vacuuming and making beds, every muscle in my body ached. Muscles I hadn’t even known existed were screaming.
But it had been a good week. Granted, the bar for good days wasn’t all that high, but we’d made it to Thursday—or Friday—and that was a win.
Drake had been an angel at daycare. Every evening when I’d picked him up, I’d braced for news of an expulsion. But Drake seemed to save these fits for the night. For the dark hours when the only person around to hear him cry was me.
Drying the last of my tears, I stepped away from the window and resumed pacing. His crying didn’t seem as loud when I was moving.
“Shh.” I bounced him softly, cradling him in one arm as my other hand rubbed his belly. Maybe it was gas. I’d tried the drops before I’d put him in his crib at eight. Should I give him more?
Motherhood, I’d learned in the past two months, was nothing more than a ritual of second-guessing yourself.
I yawned, dragging in a long breath. The energy to cry was waning. I’d let my son carry that torch for the rest of the night.
“Want to try your binky again?” I asked, walking to the kitchen counter where I’d left it earlier. I’d tried it around two thirty. He’d spit it out.
“Here, baby.” I ran the plastic across his mouth, hoping he’d take it.
He sucked on it for a second, and for that second, the loft was so quiet I could actually hear my own thoughts.
Then the binky went sailing to the floor and if babies could talk, he would have told me to shove that plastic nipple imposter up my ass.
His cries had this staccato rhythm with a hitch each time he needed to breathe.
“Oh, baby.” My eyes flooded. Apparently, my tears hadn’t vanished after all. “What am I doing wrong?”
A pounding shook the door, cutting through Drake’s noise.
I yelped. Shit. The light from outside was brighter. I’d been so focused on the baby I hadn’t noticed when Knox’s bedroom light had turned on. I swiped at my face, doing my best to dry it with just one hand, then I rushed to the door, seeing Knox through the small, square window in its face.
Oh, he did not look happy.
I flipped the deadbolt and whipped the door open. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I opened the windows for some air because it was stuffy and didn’t even think you might hear him.”
Knox’s dark hair was disheveled. The sleeves of his gray T-shirt had been cut off, revealing his sculpted arms. In the moonlight, the black ink of tattoos blended almost invisibly with his tanned skin. The sweatpants he wore hung low on his narrow waist, draping to his bare feet.
He’d crossed the gravel driveway without shoes.
I gulped. Either he had really tough feet or he was really pissed. Given the tension in his jaw, probably the latter.
“Sorry.” I glanced down at Drake, willing him to stop. Please stop. Five minutes. Then you can scream until dawn. Just stop for five minutes.
“Is he sick?” Knox fisted his hands on his hips.
“He has colic.”
Knox’s broad chest rose as he drew in a long breath. He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw before crossing his arms over his chest. God, he had a lot of muscles. The scowl on his face only added to his appeal.
Old Memphis always wanted to come out and play dirty when Knox was around. She wanted to tug at the long strands of hair that curled at his nape.
Please stop. That one was for me, not Drake. There’d be time to fantasize about Knox later, like when Drake was eighteen and headed off to college. I’d lock this mental image away for a time when my kid wasn’t screaming and I hadn’t been crying. When I’d slept for more than two hours in a row.
“Does he always cry?” Knox asked.
“Yes.” The truth was as depressing as it would have been to lie. “I’ll shut my windows.”
Knox dropped his gaze to my son and the expression of pain that crossed his face made me want to climb in my car and drive far, far away.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
To Knox. To Drake.
Another depressing truth. That apology was all I had to give.
Knox didn’t say another word as he descended the stairs, then crossed the space between the garage and the house, wincing at a few steps on the gravel, before disappearing into his house.
Apartment hunting just got bumped up the to-do list.
“Damn.” I stepped onto the landing, letting the cool air soothe the flush of my face. “Baby, we need to get this under control. We can’t get kicked out. Not yet.”
Drake let out another cry and then, like he could sense my desperation, sucked in a hitched breath and closed his mouth.
I froze, letting the night air slip past us into the apartment. I held my breath and counted seconds, wondering how long it would last.
Drake squirmed and let out a whimper, but then his eyes drifted shut.
Sleep. Please, sleep.
His chest shook with the aftershocks of such a massive fit. The hitches racked his tiny body, but he snuggled deeper into my arms and gave up the fight.
“Thank you.” I tipped my head to the stars. Each was a jewel scattered on black silk coated in diamond dust. There were so many out here, more than I’d ever seen in my life. “Wow.”
The light in Knox’s bedroom turned off.
Was this karma’s doing, putting me next door to a man so fine? Was this her test to see if I truly had changed?
A year ago, I would have batted my eyelashes and donned my sexiest dress with six-inch heels. I would have flirted and teased until he paid me the attention I craved. Then, when I’d tired of the game, I would have worn my ruby-red lipstick and left streaks over his entire body.
That lipstick tube was somewhere in New York, in a box with my sexiest dresses and six-inch heels. Maybe my parents had tossed that box in the trash. Maybe one of their assistants had stowed it in a storage room where it would collect dust for years.
None of it mattered.
I had no need for lipstick, not here.
And I suspected that Knox wasn’t your typical man. He probably would have laughed at an attempt to turn him into my personal toy. I liked that about him.
A yawn forced my eyes away from the heavens and I retreated inside. Rather than risk laying Drake in his crib and waking him up, I took him to my bed, blocking him in with some pillows. Then I curled up at his side with my hand on his belly.
There’d only be one man in my bed.
My little man.
When my alarm rang at six, I jolted awake, groggier than I had been in years. Drake was still asleep, so I left him on the bed and hurried through a shower. We had no coffee pot in the loft, probably because any of Knox’s guests would simply walk to his gigantic kitchen for a morning cup.
If I had enough cash after rent and daycare and gas and food and formula and diapers and a few new outfits for Drake because he was growing out of his others, I’d buy a maker with my first paycheck. Or I’d just drink the free coffee at the hotel because I already knew there wouldn’t be money.
That word had changed in two short months. Once, money had been a concept. An afterthought. Now, it was a luxury lost.
I’d traded it for my son.
Drake woke as I swapped out his pajamas for clothes and I yawned so many times as I got him ready for daycare that my jaw hurt. Not even the bright morning sun could chase away the brain fog as I stepped outside and rushed to my car.
Knox’s truck was gone already. At first, I’d assumed he parked in the garage, but I’d since learned he parked outside, closer to the house.
“Ooo-ooh,” Drake cooed as his car seat clicked into the base.
“Friday, baby. Let’s make it through our Friday, okay?”