Sterling
“CAN YOU GET dressed real quick for me?”
I looked down at what I was wearing and then back up at Aldrich, trying to understand what was wrong with what I had on.
“Um, is there something the matter with how I’m dressed?
” There hadn’t been any direction inside of the hiring packet as far as clothing went but I assumed that the athletic clothing I was wearing wasn’t inappropriate.
I made sure that my shorts weren’t too short or too tight and that the zip-up jacket that I wore wasn’t gripping tight.
I never wore super tight clothing anyway so this wasn’t a big deal but now I was second guessing myself.
He looked me up and down again before he met my eyes. “Nah, you're pretty as always but you look comfortable. Just in case we run into people, I didn’t know if you wanted to change your clothes.”
Stuff between us had been different since we had that talk.
Not bad, but a shift that made me more aware of him.
He’d been spending a lot more time at home when he wasn’t training and although I’d attempted to take a step back from him he’d taken such a big step forward.
Aldrich had spent more time with Ami and demanded I take at a minimum a few hours off every day.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that because I needed to keep my mind busy and Ami had been that for me.
She gave me a job and a purpose and without that distraction I was now sinking back into my old habits and old thought patterns.
Which irritated me since I’d talked all this shit to him about doing better but I wasn’t there myself.
But wait, did he call me pretty?
I quickly skipped my ass from that thought to the next because it wasn’t going to do anything but cause confusion. “Run into people? What are you talking about?”
He nodded toward the other side of the house as if that completely answered my question. “We’re about to go out.”
“For what? I’m not sure it’s a good idea for her to be out.” Ami had her first round of shots so that wasn’t an issue, but I still wasn’t trying to have her around a bunch of folks
“Her six weeks are way past up—”
“She spent time in the hospital, she’s still a newborn, Aldrich.”
He rolled his eyes at me like he was exasperated, “I keep telling you to call me Money or something other than that old ass name.”
I cocked my head to the side thinking about how Miss Sonya was gonna get on him for talking shit about his name.
She and I spoke often normally about Ami but she was more than happy to converse with me about me.
Which made me feel weird but in a good way.
“Your mama know you think your name is old?”
“She sure does, who you think started calling me Richie?” He crossed his arms over the white t-shirt he was wearing with the confidence of a man who knew he was telling the truth.
I took my eyes off him because he was distracting and went back to folding the rest of Ami’s clothes. “I don’t believe you.”
“She’ll be here soon so you’ll get to ask her yourself.”
I whipped my head around to face him because this was news to me. “What do you mean?”
“School about to be out for my siblings so she’s gone pull up to see her grand.” He nodded toward Ami and I had to swallow down the nervousness that I felt thinking there would be people here to judge the fairly unusual situation we had going on.
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” I vaguely remembered him saying something about her visit but I’d forgotten about it.
“Your people must not be close.” Aldrich made the statement but I could hear the underlying question in his tone.
The desire to prod but the knowledge that we weren’t there yet.
Or were we? I’d only been here for a month but we’d been in close proximity the entire time.
At least when he wasn’t hiding out. His asking to go somewhere was technically an improvement from how he’d been.
“That’s putting it really lightly but also really wrong at once.”
“Complicated?” Aldrich’s face was filled with sympathy but I didn’t feel like explaining the foolishness that was the extent of my family drama.
That would lead into more family history that I didn’t want him to be privy to.
I didn’t know why, but I was worried that he would feel some type of way about my money.
Probably because most people did. The few families that I’d worked for before that found out, had started rumors ours was going broke simply because I worked.
That, of course, led to embarrassment that everyone blamed on me and Dalton.
It took forever for them to stop fussing about it.
If my mother found out about my being here, I was sure it would stir up old wounds on their part.
“That would be far more accurate.” I hated to even think about them within the confines of this house so I switched the subject. “Back to what we were discussing.”
“We need to get you a car.”
My eyes narrowed as his smile widened and I wondered if this was some slick way he was going about apologizing with a gift he felt like I couldn’t refuse.
I’d seen the jewelry bag and had flashbacks to how my parents and the rest of my family used gifts instead of words to express themselves.
It sucked not to have a genuine connection. “A car? Why would I need a car?”
“Because I only have the one everyday car and I’m not going to be here day in and day out like normal. She might be small now but I can recognize that she’s going to be more mobile soon and so will you.”
“Okay, well, they have a bunch of delivery services so if I need something on short notice I can just contact a U-Shopper and have them get whatever is needed.” I shrugged it off because I didn’t want him to go out of his way to buy something.
There was no way I was going to be out and about with a baby this little.
And he was making plans like I would be here years down the line…
“Just gotta make sure it’s a woman, right?” He was making light of the situation but he needed to get schooled real quick.
“Do you know how terrible y’all are at picking items from the store even with a legitimate picture in your face?”
“Yeah, that’s an upbringing problem. I don’t think that it’s just men.
My mama could send me to the store and just tell me what she wanted to make and my ass knew exactly what to come back with.
Even if I thought we had it at the house I grabbed extra anyway because I wanted my dinner right and I didn’t want her fussing me out. ”
I slow-blinked at him, trying to understand what it was he was saying. When he kept looking at me like I was wrong I just chuckled and stood up.
“Grab her and come with me real quick.” I pointed toward Ami in her swing and then turned headed to the kitchen.
I knew he was going to follow me but halfway down the hall I felt like he was watching my ass.
I refused to turn around and check because that would then put us in a weirder space than we were already in.
When I got to the kitchen I opened the spice cabinet and pulled out two products.
I waited until he turned the corner with Ami up on his shoulder before I said anything.
Pointing to them I said, “Tell me what’s wrong with these. ”
He rolled his eyes and bounced Ami softly in his arms. “Are we doing this again?”
“Yes, we are. So explain, since it’s an upbringing thing and not just a gender thing.” I motioned between the two items on the counter with my finger and waited for him to say something.
“I got the wrong thing one time—”
“And what were you supposed to get?” I don’t know why I was teasing him. Maybe to distract him from this ridiculous car desire he had or that I was happy that he was back in a better headspace. Either reason seemed good enough to justify my actions.
“I was supposed to get allulose.”
With my brow quirked, I tried to hide my smile. “And what did you get?”
“I got aspartame.”
“You’re right. So again, what generation are you?”
Subconsciously, he leaned over to kiss Ami on her forehead as he held her to his chest like it was the most normal thing in the world. “You’ve made your point.”
I had to swallow because the way he looked comfortable holding her made my heart flutter. “Well, look at that! A man admitting when he was wrong.”
He rolled his eyes but he had that big, handsome grin on his face, showing off the dimple in his cheek. “Stop it.”
“I’m just saying. You’re trying to say that men are good and shopping and I’m not disagreeing with you.
But you have to understand that more often than not there are issues with male shoppers.
I clearly haven’t put the fear of God in you to come back with the right stuff the way your mother did.
So, do I need to kill you or get back to feeding you? ”
He blinked twice like he was clearing some random thought out of his head as he cleared his throat.
“Facts, that lady is about the only person I fear in this world but with this one I thought you just needed some zero-calorie sweetener. But that still has nothing to do with what we need to do today.” Ami was snuggled against his chest but it was almost like she was listening in to what we were talking about and trying to make sense of our conversation.
I’d dressed her in a little cream short-sleeved romper that had pink button bows going down the front of it and matching pink socks.
Her hair seemed to be the thing on her that grew the most because she had full-on curls like a little doll despite how young she was.