Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Baker
This feels right. Sloane in my arms is what I’ve been missing.
Her. She’s the missing piece. My friends—our friends—didn’t bat an eye at seeing us together.
Not that I expected them to. But I know Sloane, and she was worried about how we’re going to weave the old us into the new us with our friends, and it’s simple. We just do.
Camden starts to babble over the baby monitor, and Sloane jumps off my lap. “I’ll go grab him.” She’s already bouncing toward the steps before I can tell her that I can get him. Instead, I remain seated with a dopey smile on my face.
“I like this,” Corie says, waving her hand in my direction. “But you hurt her, and I’ll kick you in the balls.”
I chuckle. “Duly noted. I don’t plan on hurting her.”
“Baker, this is messy,” Rowan adds softly.
I shrug. “The last almost three years of my life have been messy. This is… more.” I let my admission hang in the air.
“Are you happy?” Foster asks me.
My smile grows, because how could I not be? “Euphoric.”
Foster chuckles. “Then hold on tight, brother,” he says, kicking his right leg up on his left knee and draining the sports drink in his hand.
“She just fits. Here with us. I don’t have the words to tell you what I mean, other than to say, it’s right. Everything about this is right.
All four of my best friends nod, as if they understand precisely what I’m saying.
Foster has a sad look on his face, almost like regret, but it’s gone before I can call him out on it.
One of these days, he’s going to open up about his past. Out of the five of us, he keeps to himself the most. Sure, he’s open with us.
We talk every day, he contributes, and even gives us advice, but he never makes any of those conversations about him.
The doorbell rings, and I move to answer it and collect the stack of pizzas we ordered. Singing the slip, I lay the boxes out on the kitchen counter, before heading back to the living room.
“Wow!” Camden says, and we all turn to look at him. He’s staring at everyone with wide eyes.
“Look who came to see you,” Sloane tells him. He wiggles, and she lets him down. He makes a beeline for Reid, who’s holding Coral.
“Baby.” He points to her.
“That’s right. You want to hold her?” Reid asks him.
He nods. “Cam, hold baby.”
We all get a chuckle out of that. Reid manages to lift Camden into his arms and helps transfer Coral, who immediately reaches for his face with her tiny hands, making him giggle.
“She loves you,” Bellamy tells him. My son bends down and kisses Coral on the nose, and then looks up at me with the brightest smile.
“I’m going to make him a plate,” Sloane says, smiling softly at my son, before making her way into the kitchen.
“You good with him for a minute?” I ask Reid.
He smirks. “Just a minute, huh?”
“Go.” Bellamy waves me off. “He’s fine.”
That’s all I need to hear before I’m on my feet and moving toward the kitchen. My friends are all talking to Camden about the game, and he happily chatters, answering their questions.
“I can do that,” I tell her, coming up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist.
“I was already up.”
“You don’t have to do everything for him, Sloane. If I’m here, I’ll take on some of that load.”
She turns in my arms. Our bodies are now aligned, but my girl is short, so I lift her onto the island, exactly where I had her earlier, and step between her thighs. She wraps her legs around my hips and her arms around my neck.
“I like taking care of him. Of both of you,” she confesses. “None of this feels like work to me, Baker.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re paying me.”
“Semantics. You’re here with us, where you’re supposed to be. Everything else is just noise, and we’ll figure it out.”
She nods and smiles. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yep, now I need those lips,” I tell her.
“Oh, these lips?” She lifts an arm and points at her mouth.
“Sloane,” I growl, and she tosses her head back in laughter.
That sound, it’s one I come home to often, one that used to be so foreign in this house, outside of the joy of my son.
It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying life. I love my son, and he makes me happy.
He did make me laugh, but with Sloane here, everything feels lighter, as if I’m taking my first breath after years of holding it tight in my chest.
“If I must,” she says dramatically, before pressing her lips to mine. I take my time tasting her, letting my tongue lazily slide against hers. I don’t know how long we stand here locked in this embrace, mouths fused, but she eventually pulls back. “Cam’s hungry.”
“So is his daddy.” I wink at her, and she blushes. “You’re beautiful.”
“I’m a sure thing. We already talked about this. I don’t need all the pretty words.”
“You are for sure mine. We talked about that, and my words might be pretty, but that’s because they’re about you. This is me, Sloane. It’s who I am with you. It’s a version of me no one else has ever had, just you, so you might as well get used to it.”
A slow smile that’s sexy as fuck tugs at her lips. “I think I like you, Baker Sinclair.”
“Good, because I’m keeping you.” It’s too soon to say those words, but I feel it deep inside my chest, where my heart no longer only beats for my son, but for her, too.
“Now, sit your pretty ass there while I make Cam a plate.” I kiss her one more time before grabbing a plate and dropping a slice of meat lovers on it.
Reaching into the drawer, I grab the kitchen shears and cut it up into tiny pieces.
“Go ahead and take that in, and I’ll grab him a sippy cup of milk.”
“Fine,” I agree, because I love that she wants to be this entwined in our lives. “Thank you.” I kiss her once more before helping her off the island. I grab a handful of napkins, along with Camden’s plate, and make my way back to the living room.
“Come and eat, bud,” I tell my son, who’s sitting on the floor playing with his blocks.
He comes rushing over and immediately grabs a bite, which is why I didn’t warm it in the microwave.
It’s still room temperature, and I didn’t want him to burn his mouth.
“Sit up here with Daddy,” I tell him, placing his plate beside me on the table.
He reaches for another bite as Sloane comes back into the room.
He climbs on my lap and reaches for another bite as Sloane comes back into the room. She places his sippy cup and a pack of wipes on the table next to us.
“Good thinking,” I tell her.
“Swoan, sit.” My son pats my other leg, and I grin. “You heard the boy. Sloane sits.”
“Cam, my man, are you trying to be daddy’s wingman?” Landry laughs.
“Cam man.” He taps his chest, smearing pizza sauce all over, and I make a mental note to spray it down and put it in the sink to soak at bedtime. Everyone laughs at his reaction, and Sloane takes her rightful spot on my other knee.
The rest of the night, that’s where she remains, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A few hours later, the house is quiet. Camden’s finally asleep after a much-needed bath to rid him of the pizza he had for dinner and three bedtime stories.
Sloane insisted she would clean up the kitchen while I took care of Camden, and while I wanted to tell her to leave it, I knew she wouldn’t listen.
Instead, I kissed her, told her thank you, and carried my son upstairs.
The lights are low, and the kitchen is dark, which means Sloane must be in the living room. Sure enough, I find her on the couch, snuggled under a blanket that was never there until she moved in, reading a book.
“Hey,” she says when she spots me. She puts her book aside and gives me her full attention. “Did he have trouble going to sleep?”
“He fought it, but by the end of the third story, he was out like a light,” I say, sitting on the couch and pulling her feet onto my lap.
“Good. I know his nap was late, so I was worried he’d want to stay up and party all night.” She chuckles.
“What about you? Are you ready for bed?” I ask, rubbing her feet.
“Yeah, I was just waiting to see if you needed an assist. If he was going to struggle to go down, I was going to offer to stay up with him. I know you have to be tired after playing a game today.”
“Come on, let’s go to bed.” Standing, I offer her my hand and help her stand. “Is the door locked?”
“Yeah, everything’s locked.”
With her hand in mine, I turn off the lamp she was using, bathing us in darkness, and lead us up the stairs.
I take each step slowly, knowing that I’m leading her in the darkness.
When we reach the landing, I turn right to head to the room that I’ve been staying in up here, instead of left, where her room is next to Camden’s.
Inside my room, I close the door and guide her to the bed, where I turn on the lamp on the nightstand. The room has a warm, soft glow, which will be all I need to see every inch of her. I glance down at the video baby monitor, and my son is sound asleep, which is good for what I have planned.
“Finally,” I say, turning to face her. I grip the hem of her jersey. “Lift for me.” She lifts her arms in the air without hesitation, and I remove the jersey she’s wearing.
“We’re not throwing that away,” she warns me.
“As long as you never wear it again,” I tell her.
She shrugs. “We’ll see.”
Gripping her around the waist, I pull her close. “It drives me crazy that you wore his number today and not mine.”
“I didn’t think it would matter,” she says, looking up at me under long lashes.
“It matters,” I say, bending to press my lips to hers. I want to devour her, but instead, I take my time, savoring the feel of her mouth pressed to mine. By the time I break the kiss, we’re both breathing heavily.
“Kissing you could become my addiction,” she confesses, smiling up at me.