Page 75 of One Breath After Another

“He’s sleeping. Happily. He just ate. Milk drunk.”

What?

Penny giggled but quickly slapped a hand over her mouth to hush the noise. “Sorry.”

Roz rolled her eyes and gave Penny a look. For just having a baby, and being home only a day, she thought Roz looked ... great. Glowing, even. She hadn’t done much with her dark hair but throw it up in a messy bun. She was even wearing one of those tracksuits she had previously told Penny was only good for being lazy.

And yet, she was beautiful.

Full of pride.

And happiness.

Like a new mother should be.

“You’re not going to wake him up,” Roz assured. “And besides, we don’t want everyone tiptoeing around every time he lays down to sleep. He’ll never learn to sleep through the noise that way. Just come here.”

Penny did.

Still hesitant, though.

At Roz’s side, she looked down to find the baby was sleeping and perfectly content wrapped in a blue blanket while he was rocked in his mother’s arm. He sucked on the side of his hand while black tufts of hair peeked out from beneath his wool cap.

It wasn’t even the tenth time Penny laid eyes on baby Cross since he was born and yet ... it still felt like it. Each time she stared down at his small features, she easily found his father and how much he took after Nazio. She found the peacefulness of a baby in his gassy grins and hazy eyes—when they were open, of course.

She found someone she loved.

“Roz?”

Both Penny and Roz glanced toward the doorway at the new voice. Naz grinned in at them, and then said, “Your mom and dad just got here. Do you want to come down for a minute? They said to let the little guy sleep for now.”

“I’ll be down in a sec.”

“All right, babe.”

After Naz disappeared, Roz turned to Penny, asking, “Do you want to rock him for a little while? If you want after you can just put him in his bassinet.”

Penny didn’t even think about it. “Sure.”

Before long, it was just Penny and the baby boy alone in the master bedroom. She wasn’t sure how long she sat rocking a sleeping Cross while she stared down at his face, imprinting every little thing about him to her memory, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing else she wanted to do more than be right there.

Staring at him.

He was kind of perfect.

Helpless.

Innocent.

The only things he wanted from the world—at the moment, anyway—was his mother, milk, and warmth when he slept. Everything else that he needed ... well, he didn’t know about those things. He didn’t know that rocking him made him fall asleep faster. Or that he was tiny and needed a whole house to keep him safe. Those were the things the rest of them did for him whether he knew it or not.

Penny didn’t mind at all.

What was he going to be like?

How would he grow?

She could only imagine who little Cross would be as he became older, started to walk and talk, and went from a baby to a toddling boy. It wasn’t lost on Penny how she felt such an instant familial connection to the baby when she barely felt anything for people who were her actual family.