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Baby.
Yeah. A baby. On my doorstep.
Maybe I’m still drunk, because this makes no goddamn sense. I look down one side of the street, and then the other. I do the process again, but it’s still not adding up.
Because I don’t have a baby.
I’ve never had a baby. As far as I know, no one on this street has a baby, either. If it’s not rich retirees, it’s oil execs whose kids have already flown the coop or workaholics who have no intention of having kids, ever.
I fall into the latter category.
The wailing gets louder, if such a thing is even possible. I have no idea how no one else has come out to see what the commotion is.
I look back down at… him? Her? How do you tell with babies? They’re just chunky loaves of bread with no hair and barely any facial features. I make a mental note to never again listen to those parents who fawn about how much their kids look like them when they pop out, because this thing looks like a half-mashed potato with fingers, not a human being.
What do I do? I can’t just leave a baby outside. It’s got a blanket, but it’s cool out, and Dallas autumn weather is notoriously unpredictable. If I bring it in and the parents come around, can I get in trouble for, like, kidnapping or some shit? If I run upstairs to look up the laws, will I be abandoning it?
Fuck, where is Paula when I need her?
Arms wrap around me from behind. I almost forgot about Andi. I hear the traces of her music drifting from her headphones as she leans close and nibbles at my ear.
“Hey, baby. Why are you outside where it’s so cold, when you could be warming me up in here?”
What a miracle those earbuds are. She obviously has no idea what she’s oblivious to right now. As tempting as it is to give into that soft press of her body against mine, to just melt into that heat of breast and the sweet flame between her legs…
I disentangle her from me. To protect just a little bit of the modesty she definitely doesn’t have, I nudge her from the door before someone can see her standing there in her birthday suit.
Although, granted, it is a very fine birthday suit.
She looks put out by the rejection. Can’t blame her; I was all over her last night. But then her eyes fall on the baby in the car seat. Her mouth pops open in a wide O—which would be a nice sight, if the context was different.
Wasting no time, she yanks the earbuds out. “Is that yours?” she asks, incredulous.
“Hell no. I don’t have a kid. And don’t go telling people I do.”
She eyes me, suspicious. “Then why do you have a baby outside in a car seat?”
Fair question. “I dunno. It was just… there?”
She rolls her eyes, like it’s the dumbest thing that she’s ever heard. “Well, don’t just leave the poor thing out there! C’mere, sunshine.”
She uses those perfect hips of hers to bump me out of the way. Not caring that someone might see her, she stoops down, picking up the car seat in one arm. Then, with a bit of expertise I wouldn’t expect from a bare naked puck bunny, she hip-bumps my door closed without even jostling the car seat.
Randi catches my surprised look. “What?” she says. “I have younger siblings.”
I follow her back inside, dumbfounded. The baby’s wailing continues as she comes into the kitchen with the car seat. She coos at the little alien, but it doesn’t soothe the screams.
“What does it want?” I ask, exasperated.
She scoffs. “She, not it.”
It’s my turn to scoff. “How can you even tell?”
“If you know, you know.”
I roll my eyes. I can tell I’m not getting laid again, and I’m sure as shit not getting any more sleep. “I’m gonna get something to drink.”
“You sure she’s not yours?” my puck bunny asks. I roll my eyes.
