Eight
ADAM
I sighed with relief as we headed up the driveway to my friend’s house for the first time in nearly a month. The last time had been harrowing. Yet, today, Naomi strolled next to me and I carried our healthy baby in his carrier. We’d been lucky, and I knew that.
Cormac and Keelie had changed out their decorations, which were all elves, Santa’s workshop, and little forest animals peeking out from their flowerbeds and behind trees.
The small Rudolph with its red nose was adorable—I made a mental note to ask Cormac where he’d found that guy so I could get one for my yard.
I liked the pinecone wreath with the festive ribbons in red and silver that sat on the door, bidding us all Happy Holidays.
The Bouchards’ Halloween party seemed like eons ago, but it was only a few weeks.
Something about having a kid warped my sense of time.
Clearly, the continued lack of sleep from Felix’s midnight raves was getting to me.
Naomi glanced over at me as I rang the bell, askance in her eyes.
Her gaze flitted toward Ashley, then back toward me, her eyebrow slightly raised.
Yeah, I felt it, the rightness of his being there with us, but that didn’t mean I was going to offer him the job yet.
At this moment, I couldn’t say that was the smartest option.
Felix was too important to agree to anything without a good amount of study and thought.
How the fuck did Cormac leave his defenseless, adorable kid with someone else?
I just…wasn’t sure I had it in me to cede that kind of control to another person—not with someone so precious.
But if I refused to hire someone to help us with Felix, then what? Was I really considering giving up my position with the Wildcatters? I loved working for the organization, and I was a great strength coach—an even better goalie coach, which was something I was just learning about myself.
I didn’t want to quit the work and I sure as hell would not ask Naomi to give up her hard-earned position at the lingerie boutique. Especially not when the perks were too fantastic, and they were fucking fabulous.
My wife tested all the new products before they ever went on sale. That meant I got to see her in fantastically sexy getups on a near daily basis. Hmmm, I’d missed those shows the last few months, but I was definitely looking forward to their return.
Keelie answered the door, her cat, Slippers, gliding around her feet, meowing piteously. Slippers slipped outside and Ashley bent down, no doubt to stop Slippers’ very fake escape attempt. The rest of us knew that cat had too good a life to leave this house.
“Watch out,” Keelie said. “She’s a bit of a diva. And, sadly, she’d been known to scratch.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you, sweetheart?” Ashley crooned.
Keelie offered a soft gasp and her gaze hit mine, questioning.
I raised an eyebrow and offered her a smirk of acknowledgment.
Because Ashley’s voice was melted chocolate to my ears, which meant I knew both Keelie and Naomi were inwardly squealing and fan-girling over him, wanting to make him talk more.
Slippers seemed to think so, too, because she slithered into Ashley’s arms and purred.
Keelie’s eyebrows reached her hairline even as she welcomed us inside. She hugged me, offering her cheek for a kiss. Then, peered down at Felix, who’d remained asleep. She smiled tenderly at him, but kept one eye on Ashley, even as she greeted Naomi.
“This is Ashley Simmons,” I said. “He’s considering the…” Should I call him a nanny? Was that term copacetic, especially for a man? Well, hell. I’d shoved myself into a meadow filled with social landmines.
“I’m interested in caregiving for Felix,” he said. He rubbed his cheek against Slippers, who closed her eyes and upped her purr.
“Oh. Well. That would be fantastic,” Keelie said.
Wouldn’t it, though?
We trooped inside and the rest of the people in the living room trickled our way; the guys shaking hands and thumping my shoulder and noting how cute Felix was while the ladies oohed equally over our son and our potential nanny.
Naomi shot me a partial smile as she dragged Ashley into the living room, still holding Slippers, and grilled about his coursework, his favorite children’s books, and his ideas on teaching self-soothing.
Naomi wanted the rest of the CATS help to interview Ashley.
She, like me, felt too overwhelmed to make the right choice.
But the rest of our teammates didn’t have the pressure of picking the nanny on their shoulders, so they’d give us their uncensored opinions, which would help us make an educated decision.
Sneaky, smart woman. I wanted to kiss her, but I settled Felix’s carrier next to the brightly colored mat where Brooks was resting between baby pushups and accepted the flavored water Cormac offered me.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. “We weren’t sure how to invite you and keep it a surprise.”
“What surprise?” I asked.
Cormac chuckled and tipped his head toward the enormous pile of wrapped and beribboned gifts in the corner. “This is your baby shower.”
I sputtered. “No way, man. You guys already did so much at the house—”
Cormac waved away my comments. Stolly clapped me on the back—hard, the fucker—and said, “You needed more stuff. Babies need a surprising number of things just to be moved around.”
“I’ve noticed that,” I said darkly. We had the huge diaper bag that seemed to have enough shit in it for a multi-night moon mission, and I was sure we’d forgotten something essential, even though Naomi started packing it last evening and triple-checked it before we left… after I added more formula and bottles.
I wheeled toward Stolly, who was, though one of the younger guys on the team, the proud papa of the oldest infant. “Tell me raising a kid gets easier. Lie. I don’t care. Just tell me we’ll get a hang of all this and be able to leave the house in, say, an hour before Felix goes off to college.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Stolly said. He nodded to emphasize his statement.
“I timed them,” Cruz said, coming up on the other side.
He held Stolly’s daughter, Bree, with an ease I hadn’t yet mustered.
The little girl was cradled between his free arm and chest, playing with Cruz’s hoodie strings.
She gurgled happily, spit running down her chin to a cute bib that seemed completely saturated.
Cruz didn’t seem to mind the idea of baby saliva, so I didn’t mention it, but I wondered if that amount of drool was normal.
It couldn’t be, could it? How much did kids leak?
“They made it out the door today in fourteen minutes,” Cruz said.
“Did you help?” I asked, suspiciously. Because I couldn’t imagine the possibility of Stolly letting Cruz help…but I couldn’t fathom getting out of the house in under an hour now either. We’d gone back inside three time because of all the shit we’d forgotten the first two time we tried to leave.
“Nope.”
“Keelie and I have got a system,” Cormac said.
Of course he did. I sighed. Cormac made no secret that he’d wanted a family, and the man was a “prince charming”—at least according to Naomi.
Whatever the hell that meant. I’d thought Prince Charming was the dead dude in one of the Disney movies, but Naomi just frowned and shook her head when I said that.
So, yeah, Cormac would have a system, and it was probably color-coded and laminated.
“Yeah?” Stol asked, interest animating his expression.
“Yeah,” Cormac said. “We’re down to ten minutes, but that’s because Keelie always restocks the diaper bags—we have two—the minute she gets in the house.”
Stolly whistled. “That’s impressive. Give me more details.”
“Right, well, see Slippers likes to climb in the bag,” he started.
“Oh, man, I see where this is going,” Stolly said with a shake of his head.
“Good thing I wasn’t holding Brooks when I picked that one up—Slippers came out hissing, claws out…I was sure she’d blind me.”
Stolly clucked in sympathy. “I’m never having a pet.”
“You said you’d never settle down,” Cruz said. He glanced up at Stolly from where he was crooning at Bree. Stolly shot him the finger and Cruz went back to singing.
He had a great voice, but he refused to perform. In fact, I’d only learned about his golden pipes when he’d sung to Bree at Stolly and Millie’s wedding.
“So you check the bag to make sure it’s cat-free,” Stolly said, clearly planning to ignore Cruz.
“Damn straight,” Cormac said seriously. “She’s a menace.”
Cruz chuckled. “You’re the one who buys her tuna.”
Cormac took a sip of his drink. “It’s good for her coat. Makes her fur softer.”
“And her purr for you is louder than Keelie,” I said. “Don’t think we don’t know that you’ve turned Slippers’ affection into a competition.”
Cormac’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “I did not!”
“Totally busted,” Stol guffawed.
“So, do you have the same exact items in each bag?” I asked. “Did you just double up?” I could see the merits of that—always having one go-bag ready in case we needed to leave the house in under thirty minutes. Who was I kidding? We barely managed to leave the house these days.
I shuffled forward with Stolly while Cruz hung back, clearly not as interested in the ins and outs of infant rearing. That was okay. He could sing to Bree while Stolly and I hung on Cormac’s every word like they were the secrets of the universe. Because, honestly, they were.
I pulled out my phone and made some notes, pleased to have better ideas to share with Naomi later.
I glanced around at the crowd. Ashley was expounding on the merits of rhyming books and how reading aloud helped grow baby brains while Naomi was laughing with her friends as she sat on the edge of the sofa, one hand on Felix’s carrier.