Son, I’m here if you need me. Your father and I are coming tomorrow.
Instead of responding,I turned the phone off. I shot a sideways glance at Ezra, who was happily eating his fist, and picked him up.
“Come on, lil man.”
He smacked my face, stuck his tongue out, and blew spit at me.
“Aw, man.” I wiped my cheeks. “Don’t do me like that. You know I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
I knew how to change a diaper, but it took a few minutes to figure out how to make a damn bottle. After hours of crying, he finally fell asleep—on my chest—sometime after two in the morning. Then, I spent an hour searching for baby shit.
Things to do when a baby sounds like he’s drowning in his own spit up.
Should I feed a baby more than once an hour?
Buy pacifiers near me.
What happens if a baby eats a piece of lint?
Symptoms of an ear infection.
Why did the baby scream at the top of his lungs?
How do you put a baby to sleep?
If I ignore the baby, will it be okay?
Exiting my room, I scanned the living space. The kitchen looked like a disaster area, powdered formula everywhere, a crusty bib on the counter, one sock on the floor and an empty distilled water container in the sink.
The living room wasn’t much better—toys littering the floor, a bouncy thing near the couch, clothes scattered on a chair, and the pack-n-play box in the corner, throw pillows on the treadmill. Bringing it with me was a waste of time though, because Ezra cried every single time I set him in there.
I thought Gemma was being overly dramatic when she told me he wouldn’t sleep away from her. Now I understood what she meant. That boy was like Velcro. When he was awake, he followed my movements like a hawk. When he was eating, his hand gripped my finger like a lifeline. When he slept, he wrapped his arm around my neck like he never wanted to let me go. And every time he looked at me, he smiled.
Almost like he knew who I was.
After I made his bottle, I propped him up on a pillow and let him have at it while I cleaned up.
A few minutes later, I gave up and plopped on the couch. “What the hell am I doing?”
Ezra gurgled and milk spilled from his mouth.
“Shit.” I looked around for something to wipe him off, but in the end, I used my sleeve. Once I cleared the spit up from his chin, I handed him the bottle again and ordered more bibs and burp cloths.
Resting my head against the couch, I closed my eyes. “This isn’t going to work.”
Ezra needed his mother.
Ineeded his mother, too.
The situation was complicated, which made Ezra’s future uncertain. Jax and Ana wanted him, but even Ana thought it would be difficult to chase a toddler at their age. Besides, they were living their best retirement lives. They’d raised their son and helped to raise Gemma. What the hell would they do with a six-month-old baby?
What wouldIdo? My job was where my clients were. I traveled more than half of the month. My life wasn’t set up for a kid. There were two sets of steep ass stairs in my condo. Recently, I’d renovated my house and transformed my second bedroom into a home gym. I had no yard.
CouldI do anything? I’d signed my rights away a long time ago. The contract was clear. I had no legal authority to make decisions for him.
But . . . Gemma devoted her life to Ezra. The thought of him going to a foster home while they sorted out custody wasn’t going to work for me.
Grabbing my phone, I scrolled my contacts until I saw Demi’s name. She practiced family law like Dallas, but unlike my sister, Demi was familiar with California law. No doubt, she would know what to do. Knowing her, she would develop contingency plans for every worst-case scenario. After all, they called her The Divorce Whisperer because she won nearly impossible cases for her clients.
