Home > Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(2)

Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(2)
Author: Abby Jimenez

She stood there, still holding the baby like she’d decided to let me in but hadn’t yet committed to actually letting me help her. I put my hands out, but she shook her head. “You need to wash your hands first.”

Right. I’d heard that before. Babies had weaker immune systems. I went to her kitchen and washed my hands over the stack of dirty dishes. “You weren’t pregnant,” I said, over my shoulder, raising my voice so she could hear me above the screaming. “Where’d you get her?”

“Target,” she deadpanned. “She was on sale and you know how you can never leave with just one thing,” she mumbled.

The corners of my lips quirked.

The paper towel roll was empty and based on the state of the rest of the place, I didn’t trust the towel hanging off the stove. There was a rogue Chipotle napkin by an empty fruit bowl, so I dried my hands with that. It disintegrated into spitballs, and I dropped them into the overflowing trash can.

“I’m fostering her,” she said over the crying, answering my question. She eyeballed me as I cleared the space between us and put my hands out again to take the baby. She turned her body sideways away from me. “Have you ever held a baby before?”

“No. But I can’t imagine there’s much to it.”

“You have to support her neck. Like this.” She showed me her hand on the back of the little kiwi-looking head.

“Okay. Got it.”

“And you need to bounce her. She likes that.”

“As evidenced by the earth-shattering wailing,” I said dryly.

She narrowed her brown eyes at me.

“I’m kidding. I’m very capable of this, I promise you.”

She still didn’t move. I waited patiently.

She finally nodded. “Okay.” She got closer to hand the baby over. Close enough that I could smell her hair as she leaned in to put the baby in my arms. Vanilla—and a touch of spoiled milk.

I cradled the tiny angry bundle. She was red faced and furious. She couldn’t be more than ten, eleven pounds, tops.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, eyeing me.

“Go. I got this. And take your time.”

She paused for another moment. “I’ll be right on the other side of that door if you need anything.”

“Okay.”

“That’s Grace. My name is Vanessa.”

“Nice to meet you, Vanessa. Now go. Take. A shower.”

She stood another few beats, then finally turned and rummaged clothes from the dresser and headed to the bathroom. She closed the door slowly, looking at me through the crack until it shut.

A higher-pitched cry came from the wiggling pink blanket in my arms. I peered down again at the baby.

Not much made me nervous. Actually, outside of flying, nothing made me nervous. I was a criminal defense attorney. I looked pure evil in the eye daily. But it surprised me when a sudden sense of—I don’t know what it was. Anxiety?—overcame me looking down at that little person. She was so fragile. Thinner than the forearm she nestled in.

It felt safer to sit than stand, so I moved to the couch.

The screaming continued as the water turned on in the shower. It was amazing how long something so small could cry.

“What’s wrong with you?” I mumbled.

I tried to think of what might be causing this distress. There was a finite number of issues that could be bothering someone who didn’t yet know about things like taxes and existential dread.

Vanessa had said she’d fed her, so she wasn’t hungry. She was dry. No gas, no pain. She had to be tired, but something was keeping her from sleeping.

What kept me from sleeping?

And then I had a thought.

I laid her down on the couch cushion, opened the blanket, and started to feel around her little footie pajamas. I ran my fingers along the seams and about mid-belly I found it. A clear T-shaped plastic tag fastener, still stuck to the outfit. Totally invisible.

“No wonder you’re pissed. I’d be pissed too,” I said. I looked around for scissors. Didn’t see any. So I leaned down and pulled the thing off with my teeth. Then I unzipped her little pj’s and took out the rest of the offending object and rubbed the red spot on her belly with a knuckle. “Shhhhhhh…”

She stopped crying almost immediately.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

 

HOT GUY TAMES MY BABY!

 


VANESSA

I wasn’t entirely truthful when I said I didn’t know him. Adrian Copeland was the hottest guy in my building, so of course I knew him. Or, rather, I knew of him. Everyone did. He was sort of this bachelor legend around here.

He probably didn’t know me. And when I finally met him, it was 4:00 in the morning, my poor parenting skills had woken him up, and I had barf in my hair—because of course I did.

I was honestly too tired to care. This had been the worst night of the worst two weeks of my entire year. I’d been thrust into instant motherhood, I’d gotten into a huge fight with my sister, and now Grace was having some sort of epic meltdown that I couldn’t figure out.

I just didn’t understand it. Grace was a mythically good baby. Like, ridiculously good. If I was going to have a surprise infant dropped on my doorstep, I couldn’t have asked for an easier one. She wasn’t a crier, she slept well, we’d gotten our routine down over the last two weeks—and then all of a sudden right after her bath she lost her ever-loving shit.

I’d tried it all. I even did a video call with her pediatrician who seemed wholly unconcerned and suggested I bring her in tomorrow if she was still “fussy.”

Adrian’s offer was too good to refuse.

One, his reasoning made sense. What I was doing—or not doing—was not working. And I was extremely open to suggestions at this point. I would have tried an exorcism if the person who had knocked had been a priest instead of a hotshot attorney.

Two, the man had too much to lose to do something stupid.

This was a guy who made it into the Star Tribune at least once a month for his legal prowess. I knew this because every time he did, Yoga Lady in 303 sent me a link along with twenty heart-eye emojis. I think she had a Google Alert set up. She was practically his stalker.

Adrian was like me. He had a reputation and a public persona to safeguard. Murdering Grace and me would be highly out of character and really bad for business. Plus, he thought he was in an apartment full of cameras—which he wasn’t—but he didn’t know that.

And lastly? Nobody was coming to rescue me. No one else was banging my door down to help me in my seventh level of hell. And I needed that shower. Bad. I just needed to wash off the barf and the sweat and change out of pants that didn’t have baby pee on them. And Grace needed someone to hold her while I did it. Every time I tried putting her down she started crying so hard she looked like she was going to explode.

All I needed was five minutes. Just five short minutes. Maybe it would help—and if it didn’t, at least I’d be in a better headspace to keep dealing with the screaming because as it stood, I was two seconds away from a complete mental breakdown.

I stripped and washed myself like I was being timed for speed. Approximately four minutes after I’d gotten in the shower—which was by far the best, if not the shortest, one of my life—I turned off the water to get out, and I was met by eerie, cold silence.

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