“A new baby is exciting,” he said finally, sidestepping Isaac’s question. He’d give Amber a heads-up that they needed to figure out how to explain the biology and legalities of the impending new dynamic in very simple terms. “Are you excited?”
They both shrugged, but Julia did the talking. “It’ll be weird. Babies cry a lot.”
“They’re cute, though,” Isaac mumbled. “Everybody loves babies.”
“Everybody loves both of you, too,” Derek said, ruffling his son’s hair. “Loving a baby doesn’t mean less love for you.”
“Will you love the new baby, too?”
“The baby is going to be your little brother or sister, so yes, I will care about the new baby. But I will never love anybody more than I love the two of you. I promise.” They both smiled at him. “And your mom and Jason will give the baby a lot of attention because little babiesneeda lot of attention because they can’t do anything, but your mom loves you like crazy, too.”
“I’m glad you don’t have a girlfriend, Daddy,” Julia said. “I don’t want you to get married and have new babies, too.”
Ouch.
“Can we play video games now?” Isaac asked.
Even though he usually held out a little longer because he liked hearing about all the stuff he missed, today he nodded his approval on the first ask. He wanted out of this conversation. “For one hour, then we’ll start getting ready for bowling.”
As he watched them powering on the video game console and arguing over who got to be player one, he thought about Amber and how the new baby was going to change everything. Especially for Julia and Isaac.
Jason was a good guy and he genuinely loved his stepchildren, so Derek didn’t think they’d get pushed aside for his own child. It was still going to be a huge adjustment for the entire family, though, and especially for the kids.
I’m glad you don’t have a girlfriend, Daddy.
Obviously now wasn’t the time to bring up the subject of Daddy having a new girlfriend. He leaned his head back with a sigh and closed his eyes. If the kids were feeling insecure after the news of Amber’s pregnancy, he’d wait a while before talking to them about Olivia, he decided.
It didn’t feel right, almost like living two separate lives. But he’d make it work for now and hope that, when the time was right, Olivia and the kids would meet and hit it off because his kids were his entire life, but he was really starting to like having Olivia in it, too.
* * *
The restaurant could have been burning down around them and Olivia wasn’t sure she’d be able to tear her gaze away from the man sitting across the table from her.
For the last hour, they’d talked and laughed, taking their time with the meal. They’d had a drink first, and then picked at an appetizer before ordering their dinners. And he’d told the server they’d like a few minutes to relax before looking at the dessert menu.
Olivia didn’t care if they stayed all night. At some point in the evening, he’d unbuttoned the cuffs of the light blue button-down shirt he was wearing and folded them back.
She’d long ago admitted to herself she couldn’t resist the combination of heat and humor in his expression whenever they were together, but she was surprised by how much the sight of his hands and the tanned skin of his forearms against the pale fabric turned her on. His hands were rough and callused, and he’d recently scraped a couple of knuckles on something. And all she could think about right now was how much she wanted those hands on her.
“Tell me how you got your scar,” she said, trying to distract herself. “I mean, if you don’t mind. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. I was just curious.”
“I don’t mind talking about it, but you’ll probably be disappointed. Most people expect it to be from some kind of line-of-duty act of heroism.”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t make that assumption. Not that it was an act of heroism, necessarily, but that you got hurt while working.”
“When I was twelve, I was helping my dad lay new sheathing and shingles on our roof and I slipped. I managed not to fall off, but I caught the edge of the nail I’d been pounding on the way down to the edge.”
She winced, trying not to imagine what that had looked—or felt—like. Especially when it was so pronounced this many years later. Of course, he didn’t strike her as the kind of guy who was big on creams and sunscreens. “Ouch.”
“It was the first time I ever swore in front of my mother.”
“I bet she didn’t mind.”
He laughed. “I don’t think she even heard me. She was too busy yelling those same words at my old man for having me up there in the first place.”
“I gather she’d told him so?”
He grinned. “Oh, she’d definitely told him so.”
