Chapter Four
Paisley
* * *
Mikah. Angelo.
The bundle in my arms squirms but I can’t pull my eyes off the guy on the couch who looks approximately point three seconds away from passing out right where he’s sitting. He’s gone from looking at me like I’m crazy to gaping at me like I’m an alien.
“Angelo,” I murmur and the bundle in my arms kicks his legs. He’s so sweet and easily takes to the bottle. When Mikah took off to his bedroom to get dressed, a visual I am intently trying to forget I ever saw otherwise I won’t be responsible for my actions because good Lord… wow… that was a pretty sight, I dug through the bag I’d dragged in and found bottles with a note typed and taped to them saying he drinks four ounces of formula every four hours. I filled the bottle with water, dumped in two scoops of formula and while I shook it, the baby stopped crying, like he already recognized the sound.
He took to it easily, but now he’s shoving the nipple out of his mouth, so I pull it back and hold him for a moment.
“Do you want to hold him?” Mikah is frozen on the couch like he’s turned into a statue and who can blame him.
A birth certificate is in his hands and while the note he read is crumpled into a ball and on the floor, he clearly must believe whatever it said.
I’m dying of curiosity, but it’s not my place.
“I don’t know how.” He sounds so tortured my heart hurts for him.
I don’t know this man at all and I’ve fantasized about him more than neighborly appropriate. But can I leave him alone with this baby? Does he want to be alone with his baby?
“I can show you,” I say and my voice is almost a whisper. In my arms, Angelo lets out a low grunt and I remember what I was doing with him. Lifting him, I gently hold him so he’s upright, chest to my shoulder. I rub his back from his bottom toward his shoulders, pressing lightly in the middle. He needs to burp, and Mikah hasn’t moved to help.
“I don’t…” Mikah shakes his head and then laughs. It’s an airless sound that sounds like he’s choking. “I don’t know you. I don’t know him. I didn’t know… I know… I know nothing.”
“Hey, hey,” I repeat to get his attention. At my shoulder, Angelo burps and I hold him there, patting his bottom. There are diapers in the bag and he should be changed. The man on the edge of a possible panic attack in front of me is more important.
Why I feel so invested is the weirdest thing. Perhaps because I can’t just leave a baby with a stranger who has admitted to knowing nothing.
How did this bizarreness become my life? All I wanted for tonight was a bubble bath and a romance novel. For a moment I question why I bothered checking out my peephole, but then I imagine what could have happened had I not and I shiver. No, I’m glad I found him, and I’ll go home soon, once Mikah is calmer and able to think of a game plan.
“Is there anyone you can call? Someone who can help, I don’t know… get you settled?”
My knowledge of babies is vast, and I’m suddenly no longer tired. I blame the adrenaline and fear and craziness of the last twenty minutes for the energy burst, but I can’t leave him looking so lost. For a moment, awareness brightens his brown eyes that are closer to gold than brown and he falls back into the couch. He rattles off a few guys’ names, lets out a word I don’t think is English which makes me more curious. He has an accent, not heavy, but it’s obvious and the more he mutters in what I’m certain is another language, the more attractive he becomes.
A man with a great body and an accent? I’m done for.
He pushes off the couch. “Maddox. He’s supposed to be here soon, anyway. He has a kid. He will know what to do. My other teammates… not so much.”
“Teammates?”
Mikah stops moving like I’ve paralyzed him with my question and then he blinks like he’s forgotten I’m standing here, holding his son… the same son he hasn’t looked at, or reached for, or touched yet.
“Teammates,” he confirms and steps away grabbing for his phone on the kitchen bar. His apartment is not surprisingly an exact replica of my uncle’s, only flipped in reverse so it’s strangely odd standing in his living room filled with black leather furniture, feeling so at home and yet in a strange land compared to my uncle’s creams and browns and more lavish, formal furniture.
He says nothing else but grabs his phone. As if his son and I are a last-minute thought, he turns to me. “Can you stay here? Hold him until I make a call?”
He seems so uncertain. With his pulled in thick, blond brows and those sparkling blue eyes, I’m a sucker for him already. “Sure, Mikah.”
He grins then and nods, takes a step toward me. His hand raises and for a moment, he moves to touch Angelo and pauses. “I know nothing of babies. Nothing.”
“You won’t hurt him by touching him.” Since I’ve already burped him, I resettle him in my arms and move the blanket from his face. He’s probably warm in there, so I gently unwrap the blanket and give Mikah a better view. “He’s really cute.”
And he is. Chubby cheeks. Cutely pursed lips. He’s making that sucking motion with his mouth even though he has nothing to suck on. His eyes are closed and he’s sleeping, probably a milk coma from the bottle. He becomes even cuter when he lifts his fist, turns toward it and sucks on the edge of his thumb.
“Angelo,” Mikah mutters. “Good name. Strong.”
He comes forward and soon he’s so close to me, peering down at his baby for the first time with such rapture on his face it makes my eyes turn wet.
He brushes a thumb over his cheek and the guy looks so young and so scared. Angelo shifts toward him and Mikah jerks his hand back, grinning at what appears to be an embarrassed little smile at the surprised motion.
“He’s my son.” He swallows thickly and I drag my gaze to his eyes. He sounds so surprised. So scared. My heart squeezes in my chest. “Angelo.”
He clears his throat and returns to focusing on his phone. “I need to make a call. You will stay?”
It comes across more like a command than a question. “Sure, Mikah. I can stay.”
“Good.” He presses a button on his phone, hurries toward the hallway and at the last moment turns back. “Thank you, Paisley.”
I grin and then Angelo squawks in my arms, dragging my focus back to him.
“Hey little guy,” I say to him. Mikah vanishes down the hall and Angelo’s noise-making becomes louder. I go to the diaper bag and take it to the kitchen bar, jostling and bouncing him to keep him quiet. While he fusses, eyes still closed, I dig through the monstrous bag, setting out everything I can find.
It appears whoever dropped him off came prepared because on many of the items, there are typed notes taped to them. I lay out stacks of burp cloths with a warning He doesn’t spit much but when he does, have several nearby. It would make me smile if it didn’t make me think of a woman who could abandon her baby while cracking jokes.
Fury rolls through me. How can someone do this? How can someone be so callous to not even have the guts to hand a baby off personally and explain herself? She births a baby and leaves a note? What would have happened had I not been home? Or if Mikah had been gone?