The kid woke up within an hour of me getting him home, so I fed him and got him changed into a new diaper.
Something in which I’d never done before in my life.
“Okay,” I said as I looked at the kid, the diaper, and then the old one that was still around his body.
At least I had something to go by, I supposed.
Pulling my phone out, I did what any man would do, and YouTubed how to change a damn diaper.
“…make sure to always keep something covering the penis if it’s a baby boy. Boys tend to pee when their penis is exposed to cool air. It’s reflexive.”
I looked at the baby that was staring at me with those damn blue jean eyes exactly like his mother.
“Hang with me, my man,” I said as I propped the phone up by his head and proceeded to get the diaper on him. Poorly. But it was done.
When he was done, I picked up the clothes that she’d left out for him to be put in for ‘bed.’
“These are so boring,” I found myself saying of the red pajamas. “Boring.”
The baby kicked his feet.
“I can’t believe she named you Vlad.” I shook my head. “She should be calling you Imp or something. Short for Impaler.”
Vlad blinked.
“You’re pretty boring at this stage, aren’t you?” I wondered.
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t cry, either. So there was that.
“Let’s see if we can find you some different clothes,” I said as I picked him up.
He’d gotten a little bigger than the last time I’d held him moments after he was born—something I would never forget—but not by much. He still fit securely in the crook of my arm.
Together we walked over to the closet, and I realized that she sure the fuck didn’t have much for him.
As in, he had what amounted to three outfits in each size, and the boring red pajama set was one of the only ones there.
Weren’t baby’s closets supposed to be stuffed full?
Where was all of his stuff?
Mind whirling, I walked back to the changing table, then got him into his clothes.
An hour after that, I got him topped off, then I put him to bed just like she’d told me, making sure to fit the little sock onto his foot exactly as she’d instructed. The sock being some Owlet monitor or something that made sure the baby was breathing.
And since I had my own damn breathing issues—which were getting worse as time moved on—I could see the wisdom in a monitor that would always monitor that.
Laying him down in bed, wide awake, I started to talk to him.
Eventually, he nodded off to sleep, and I got ready for a night on her couch.
Something that I abandoned an hour into it and went in search of her bed.
Then I slept the entire night away until five when it was my normal time to wake up.
After checking my phone and contemplating answering all of the hundreds of messages that she’d sent, I instead did my business, started coffee, and checked on the still sleeping baby.
I’d just gotten into the living room, intent on turning the television on to watch quietly until the baby woke up, but before I could even make it onto the couch the front door burst open and Mavis was there.
“Why haven’t you answered any of my texts?” she bellowed.
I blinked. “Because I was sleeping. I was just about to reply.”
She looked frantic. “Where’s my baby?”
“Still asleep. Why?” I asked.
“I’m sorry…but what?” she asked, looking alarmed.
I stepped back and urged her inside. “He’s still sleeping.”
My repeated words had her staring at me in alarm.
Then she was running down the hallway toward her son’s room.
I followed behind, much more slowly than her.
I’d just checked on him about five minutes before she’d arrived home—worried that I hadn’t heard a peep out of him all night—but he’d been happily snoring away.
When I arrived in her son’s room, she was staring into the crib with her hands on her cheeks, staring at the little boy as if he was her life.
Which, I supposed, he was.
I just wished I could be a part of her life, too.
Sadly, that wasn’t meant to be.
“I just don’t get it,” she whispered. “Why is he sleeping through the night for you, but for me he’s up every hour on the dot?”
I didn’t have an answer for her.
“What did you do differently?” she requested.
I snorted. “I don’t know.”
I explained to her the entire thing that I did from the moment I walked into her house yesterday, to the moment that she walked in that morning.
She shook her head. “We do tummy time. Then we do our lavender bath to calm us. I rub lavender lotion on every single inch of available skin. I soothe him. Rock him. Feed him. Rock him some more. Then I have to go into ninja mode to get him out of my arms and in bed without waking him up. Then I have to army crawl out of the room, close the door, and make absolutely not a single sound the next two hours or he’s waking up. Two hours, Murphy. That’s all I get out of him.”
My lips twitched hard and a sense of superiority shot through me. “Maybe he just likes me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that certainly makes one of us, I guess.”
My amusement knew no bounds.
“Done with school now?” I asked.
That’s when the change happened.
I didn’t know if it was because I’d shown her kindness and love. Whatever the reason, her eyes went misty as her lower lip practically quivered.
“I have no one, Murphy,” she whispered. “No one. So you have no clue how much this day meant to me.”
My lips turned up into a small smile.
“I’m here anytime you need me,” I told her bluntly.
That’s when it happened, my slow decline into madness.
She kissed me, throwing her arms around my shoulders, and kissed the absolute hell out of me.
I wasn’t prepared.
I wasn’t ready.
I hadn’t steeled myself to be that close to her, let alone have her press her mouth to mine.
So at first, I responded.
I did exactly what I’d wanted to do to her since I’d seen her last.
But just as fast as it happened, she pulled away.
“Thank you, Murphy.”
I didn’t get my wits about me until I was at home and realized what I’d done.
What was it that I’d done?
I’d fucked up.
CHAPTER 8
Dear burpees, fuck you.
-Sincerely, Mavis
MAVIS
2 months later
“You want me to do what?”
“I want you to go to CrossFit with me,” I repeated.
Fran was already shaking her head.
“I’m not ready to start exercising again,” she admitted.
A while ago—hell, was it a year and a half? Two years? Whatever the exact date was, it felt like a lifetime.
It felt like there was a whole, complete lifetime in between now and when I’d gotten the call about my sister.
One day, around seven in the morning, I’d gotten the call no one wanted to hear—my sister was in the ER for attempted rape and assault. I had initially asked the police to check on her, but I never dreamed that the situation would have been that bad.