5. Tyler
TYLER
The baby section at Target is fucking massive.
I'm standing at the entrance to what looks like an entire warehouse dedicated to tiny humans, and I have no idea where to start. Aisles upon aisles of products—all claiming to be essential—and I can't identify half of them.
"Move." Emma grabs a cart and shoves it at me. "You're pushing. I'm navigating. Mom and Maya are grabbing things I point at. This is a military operation, Tyler. Keep up."
I follow her down the first aisle. Diapers. What the fuck is a wetness indicator?
"Diapers, size one for now, size two for when she grows. Three boxes." Emma's already grabbing them, throwing them into the cart. "Wipes, the sensitive kind. Diaper cream."
The boxes are huge. The cart's already a quarter full, and we've been here maybe five minutes.
Diane appears with an armful of items. "Baby wash, shampoo, lotion. Fragrance-free because her skin is delicate."
"Bottles." Emma stops in front of what has to be fifty different types. "Babies are picky little shits. You won't know which ones she likes until you try them. We need several."
"How many is several?" I manage, staring at the wall.
"Eight. Different brands, different nipple shapes." She's already grabbing them rapid-fire. "Formula. Powder. Four cans."
Maya appears from another aisle with a basket already half-full. "Infant Tylenol. Gas drops. Saline spray. Rectal thermometer—"
"Why rectal?" I interrupt, horrified.
"Most accurate for babies this young. Trust me, you'll get used to it." She tosses it in. "Also, booger sucker."
"A what?"
"You'll thank me later."
I'm pushing the cart, and it's already overflowing.
We're not even close to done. Diane has commandeered the clothing section and is talking fast, about onesies and sleepers and how babies pee on everything, and I'm just nodding because that's all I have left in me.
The cart fills with items: burp cloths, swaddle blankets, pacifiers, a baby monitor, a nightlight, something called a “white noise machine,” bottle brushes, a drying rack, and dish soap that's apparently different from regular dish soap because it's "baby safe. "
"Does she really need all this?" I finally ask, somewhere in an aisle dedicated to nursery organization.
Emma stops and looks at me. "Yes. All of it. You have literally nothing, Tyler. She showed up with a diaper bag that had maybe six diapers in it and some formula. That's not enough to survive a day."
"I didn't know there was so much... stuff." I gesture at the overflowing cart.
"Babies require a lot of stuff." Diane pats my arm. "But once you have it, you're set for a while. This is the hard part."
Checkout takes a small eternity. The total climbs higher and higher as the cashier rings everything up, the total more than I've spent in one go in a while. I don't care. Hockey pays well, even if half my team hates me.
Loading the SUV takes fifteen minutes. The third row's folded down, and the back is packed solid by the time we're done.
"Buy Buy Baby next," Emma announces, climbing into the driver's seat. "Furniture."
"More?"
"Tyler, where exactly is your daughter supposed to sleep? On your floor?"
Right. Obviously.
Buy Buy Baby is even more overwhelming. The furniture section alone is the size of my house. Cribs everywhere, dozens of them, all looking identical to me, but apparently with crucial differences.
Emma decides on a white crib that converts to a toddler bed later.
Diane finds a matching changing table with drawers underneath, because “storage is important,” apparently.
Maya goes through the gliders the way someone tests mattresses, sitting in each one for thirty seconds, gliding it with her foot, and moving on.
She lands on a gray one, plants herself in it, and points.
"This one. I've rocked a lot of babies in my career. That's the one you want."
I don't argue.
We end up at checkout with a crib, changing table, glider, and a mattress specifically designed for babies because regular mattresses are "too soft and dangerous." Same-day delivery costs extra. I don't care.
"One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven dollars, sixty-two cents," the sales associate says cheerfully.
I blink at the number, hand over my card, and don't let myself think about it.
This is what being a parent costs. I tell myself it's fine—all of it is fine—and I almost mean it.
What I don't say out loud is that it’s not the number that's making my chest feel strange.
It's the word I just thought without flinching.
Parent. I used it about myself, and it didn't feel wrong.
I don't know when that happened.
We get back to the house around three. Nora's on the couch with Harper, who's awake but calm, just looking around with those unfocused blue eyes babies have.
"How'd it go?" she asks, glancing at the absolutely absurd amount of stuff we're carrying in.
"We bought out two stores," Maya says, setting down a stack of boxes. "And Tyler's wallet is significantly lighter."
"But we got everything." Emma's already organizing, sorting bags by category.
The delivery truck pulls up twenty minutes later, and two guys start hauling boxes in. The crib's in pieces, so is the changing table and the glider. They offer to assemble, but Emma waves them off.
"We've got this. Thanks."
Diane and Maya disappear into the spare bedroom that’s becoming Harper’s nursery. I can hear them arguing about whether the screws go through the rail or the headboard first, when Maya finally says, “Diane, I assemble medical equipment for a living. Give me the manual.”
Emma's in the kitchen putting away the Target run. She's creating systems: bottles in one cabinet, formula in another, medicine in a third. Everything is labeled and sorted, and it makes sense in a way my life hasn't since Tuesday morning.
I try to help, but mostly, I'm in the way.
Nora's set up at the kitchen table with Harper in the bouncer Emma bought, drawing color-coded charts on paper she found somewhere.
"What are you doing?" I ask, taking a break from being yelled at about whether I'm holding the crib rail steady enough.
"Schedules." She doesn't look up, writing in neat blue marker. "Feeding times, diaper changes, sleep windows. Babies thrive on routine, so these charts will help you track everything and stay consistent."
I move closer, looking over her shoulder. The charts are incredibly detailed. Times down the left side in thirty-minute increments, and different columns for different activities. Blue for feeding, green for diapers, purple for sleep, and then red for notes and observations.
"This is amazing." The organization, the thought, the way she's already anticipating what I'll need. "Thank you."
"It's my job," she says, but she glances up at me, and there's something soft in her expression that makes the back of my neck prickle. "But you're welcome."
By 5 p.m., Harper's nursery is done. The white crib is set up in the corner, looking sturdy, and the changing table is against the wall; all the drawers are filled with diapers, wipes, creams, anything and everything I might need.
The gray glider chair is by the window with a small side table next to it for bottles and burp cloths.
Emma's hung up all the tiny clothes in the closet, sorted by size.
There's a small bookshelf with the few baby books she grabbed, a basket of toys Harper's too young for but will grow into, and the white noise machine plugged in near the crib.
It looks like an actual nursery.
We're all standing in the doorway, staring at it when Emma turns to Nora.
"So, you're moving in officially tomorrow, right?"
Nora nods, still holding Harper, who's fallen asleep against her chest. "I need to pack my apartment tonight. I can be back first thing in the morning."
Something unknots in my chest so fast it almost winds me.
I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding onto the possibility that she might not come back, that she'd go home tonight and think better of all of this, and I'd wake up tomorrow exactly where I started.
I keep my face neutral because she doesn't need to know how close I am to asking her not to leave at all.
"I can help you pack," Diane offers. "If you need an extra set of hands."
"That would be great, actually." Nora adjusts Harper carefully. "I don't have a ton of stuff, but furniture is tricky for me by myself."
I clear my throat. "Before you go, we should talk about salary."
Nora looks at me, waiting.
"What's your normal rate?"
She says a number. It's reasonable, professional, and probably what most nannies in the area make.
"I'm tripling it."
Her eyes widen. "Tyler, that's not necessary—"
"Non-negotiable." I cross my arms. "You're live-in, which means you'll be available basically around the clock, at least at first, until I figure out what the hell I'm doing. You're teaching me how to keep a human alive. Triple rate is the minimum I'm paying you."
Emma's grinning. "Listen to him, Nora. He's got hockey money and literally no idea what to do with it. Let him overpay you."
Nora looks between us. "Okay. But I want one day off per week once you're comfortable handling Harper on your own, and I need my own space. The guest room is fine, but it needs to be my room, not just a place I'm temporarily staying."
"Deal." I'd agree to basically anything at this point. "The guest room is yours for as long as you're here. We can move your stuff in tomorrow morning."
She shifts Harper slightly, looking down at my sleeping daughter. "Then I'll see you tomorrow. Around eight?"
"Perfect."
Nora and Diane leave around six, while Emma orders pizza. Maya finds plates. We eat on the living room floor, surrounded by empty boxes and shopping bags, the nursery door open so we can see the white crib from where we're sitting.
"You did well today," Emma says quietly, bumping my shoulder with hers. "This is going to work out."
I look at Harper in her bouncer. My house is full of baby supplies, and a woman I met today agreed to move in and help me raise my daughter. My life is unrecognizable from what it was yesterday.
"I hope you're right," I say.
Because if she's not, I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do. And that's the part I haven't let myself look at directly, not really. Not the logistics of it, or the feeds, the diapers, and the schedules, but the rest of it.
The fact that there's a small person asleep in a crib upstairs who is going to need things from me that I don't know how to give yet.
The fact that I have spent the last year on this team being someone nobody trusts, and I am now responsible for keeping another human being alive.
The fact that I want to get it right in a way I haven't wanted anything in a long time, and I'm not sure that's enough.