For as much as the instructions that came with this thing make sense to me, they might be written in Swahili… not one of the three languages I know.
I need help.
I need to go to the team’s doctor and have my head examined. How big of a fool am I for thinking I might be able to do this? And this is all I’ve been thinking of this weekend. Can I do this with Angelo? Alone?
His mother couldn’t.
What makes me think I can? Especially once the season begins.
Hannah has already called me with the name of a babysitting service she hired when her babies were little before she stayed home full time. She said they’re highly reputable. Some nannies live-in, some don’t. Some have flexible schedules and can stay while I travel.
I have no idea what it comes to needing to do what’s best for Angelo. The only needs I have in front of me are getting him to stop crying, take a shower, and figure out this damn carrier.
I fling it off my shoulders and slam my hands to my hips. In his swing, Angelo is settling and as I move closer to him, hesitantly because my mere presence seems to piss him off, he hiccups. It’s followed by a smile.
Everything around me melts to the floor.
When he’s not screaming, he’s cute.
“Mine,” I grit my teeth. He’s mine. I point at him, although his eyes are quickly closing. “I will figure this out, Angelo. Swear it to you. And I will not be a giant jackass like my fer is to me.”
Shit. I haven’t called them to let them know what’s going on. Which isn’t surprising. I don’t speak to them much at all these days. I send them money every year. I don’t know if they spend it or invest it and I don’t care. My relationship with my father ended the day I signed my contract and boarded a plane for America.
He never said congratulations. He didn’t slap me on the back. He stood next to me in the airport, holding one of my bags before dropping it off at my feet and said, “Do not screw this up. We have worked too hard.”
As if him screaming at me, punishing me after losing a game by forcing me to spend another two hours once I got home practicing wrist shots in our indoor hockey net area made me who I am.
Perhaps it is. I like to think it’s my constant hard work, my love of the game, and talent I didn’t get from him because he could never play past the eleven-year-old travel leagues that makes me who I am, but perhaps there is a part of me that owes something to my father.
That doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to call them and tell them they might now be grandparents.
My father will be angrier than a volcano preparing to erupt.
My mom will take her cues from him.
“It’s you and I, Angelo,” I say, as that settles on my shoulders. I have friends. Teammates who feel like family, but when it comes to blood family… “It’s me and you. I will figure this out. I promise you.”
With that, I grab the carrier thing from the couch where I threw it and I stomp back to him, gently unbuckling him and lifting him into my arms, careful to support his head like Hannah and Paisley taught me so he doesn’t smack it on the animals hanging on the machine. I leave my keys on the counter and head for the hall.
I need help and Paisley said she will. Anytime.
That time is now.
Hopefully I can take her help and forget all about how pretty she is and how much I still want to kiss her lips and see if they’re as soft as they appear.
Angelo squirms in my arms and I hold him tighter, adjusting him so his cheek is on my shoulder.
He burps and it reeks like formula, but I’m getting used to the smell. It’s the smile he always gives after that makes my chest warm in a strange way.
Angelo’s smiles are better than scoring a goal in a game and it’s odd I feel so much for him when he does this.
Maybe it means I like him enough to make sure I don’t mess this up.
“Be good, okay?” I whisper, holding his cheek to my shoulder and whispering in his ear. “We don’t want to scare Paisley away again, right?”
He burps again and smiles. It looks so freaking weird to see a toothless smile.
It makes me laugh too.
“All right, flirt. Do your thing then.”
I knock on her door and drop my hand to the side. I’m holding the carrier in my hand that’s resting beneath Angelo’s bottom. He’s as light as a bag of flour and every time I hold him I get a fear of him flopping backward and me dropping him. Or breaking him from holding him too tight.
When I said something like this to Byron the other night, he’d sighed and ran one of his fat fingers across Angelo’s forehead in a gentle way. Didn’t know he had in him.
Then he’d said, “Yeah. Man, I get it. Good news is they’re stronger than you think.”
But I don’t think he was thinking about me or Angelo then. His face went soft and Hannah had sniffed. I knew then he was remembering his own two kids, a girl and boy who are so loud and always moving and in school now. I’m pretty sure he was imagining them when they were as small as Angelo, wondering where the time went.
I want to hurt Angela and scream at her and make her pay for doing this to me so abruptly. Mostly, I think I’m more pissed she didn’t tell me right away. That I’ve already missed so much.
But I will not miss another moment.
“I swear it,” I whisper and kiss his cheek. His weight settles on my chest and mine warms again. How strange, that holding him seems to calm me when he usually hates it.
I knock again, louder this time. Angelo is starting to get fussy again, squirming and whimpering which tells me he’s getting closer to a full-blown wail at any moment when the lock clicks.
The door opens a few inches and this time, it’s my turn to be surprised at what I see.
“What is on your face?”
Paisley is wearing something pink. On her face. It wrinkles at the edge of her nose. It looks like she took a sheet of hot pink paper and glued it to her face.
For a moment, I swear her eyes seem even more green with the pink goo all over her and she glances at Angelo, smiles, and it falls when she meets my gaze. “It’s a face mask.”
It doesn’t look like any face mask I’ve ever seen. Or worn.
“Mikah. Are you okay?”
She steps back, opening the door, and I’m struck by a déjà vu moment from Friday. Except this time it’s Paisley fresh out of the shower and she’s not holding a towel with her fist at her waist like I was, but she’s in a fluffy, light green robe that covers her from her chin to the tips of her toes.
And I want to strip her out of it so I can see the shape of her curves I’ve thought about so much.
If only she would accidentally drop it to the floor like I did to her. I’m not even embarrassed about it. I liked the way she blushed when I saw her glance down at me.
“I’m fine. Angelo is fine.”
As if he disagrees with me, because he disagrees with everything I do, he lets out a loud squawk sound that grabs both of our attention. She smiles at him.
It’s a smile that hits me in the place that caused this mess in my arms to begin with.
“I think he hates me,” I admit and I mean it as a joke but there’s truth in it. It comes out in the gravel in my throat and Paisley catches it.
“Mikah.” Her shoulders slump and her smile reappears. “He doesn’t hate you.”