Page 29 of The Big Puck

A quiet voice behind me says, “You’re on the right track. Did you check her diaper?”

I startle and wheel around, tightening my hold instinctively. The sight of Lainey in her T-shirt, barely covering her panties, both calms me and disturbs me, for the right and wrong reasons. I look away.

“What the—do you have supersonic hearing?”

“Yes. What about her diaper? Did you check?” She stands there in her bare feet, not moving to help me.

“No. I was about to.” Of course, I was. As soon as Krissy quieted, I would have put her down to check on her. But somehow, holding her while she calms feels best. I face Lainey.

She nods, an expectant look on her sleepy face. Struggling against the chickenshit urge I have to hand Krissy over to her, I move to the changing table and lay her down.

Even though I’ve changed Krissy’s diaper before…a handful of times—okay, three times—my lack of confidence is pitiful. I feel entirely inadequate and like this task is urgently important, a litmus test. Maybe it’s because the responsibilities of childrearing have been pounded into me, with the repercussions of what can go wrong if it’s not done right. Witness my brother, Krissy’s father, and what my father did to him. What he almost did to me if it weren’t for my mother.

Lainey stands at my shoulder, and without me asking, she guides me when I need it, like an air traffic controller or an expert gamer with a joystick directing the avatar—which would be me.

“Do you think she’s hungry?” I ask. I have no idea, and I should know. How often do babies need to eat? I keep the question to myself.

“You have good instincts, Boss-man. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” I wonder how she knows so much and how she’s so confident and fearless.

With her assured directive, I’m wondering who the boss really is here. Lainey leaves the room and my tension releases. The hint that maybe I got something right, that I have good instincts, relieves me. The positive reinforcement that I can do this parenting gives my tired bones energy.

Or at least I can do the baby part of parenting. Shit. I put the brakes on my thoughts as they attempt to spin out of control, thinking about the teenage Krissy and what the hell I’ll do with her ass when she grows up.

Krissy smiles and clutches at my shirt as I carry her down the back stairs to the kitchen, and the feel of that grasping hand sends all kinds of emotions flooding through me, mostly an overwhelming sense of responsibility, followed quickly by a need to be there for her, to solve her every problem.

“Let’s start with feeding you, little girl,” I whisper in her ear and breathe in her freshly diapered scent. How did I miss the not-so-fresh scent earlier? Maybe it was the couple of beers I had. I shouldn’t have had the second one, not that it affected me, but I need to set an example of restraint. Plus, I need to be here for Krissy. Guilt at my irresponsibility sucker punches me. There’s no such thing as downtime when you’re a parent. It’s like I’m on call twenty-four/seven. For the rest of my life.

The enormity of this new visceral level of understanding of the responsibility reverberates through me, freezing me as Lainey pads down the stairs behind me into the kitchen and flicks on the light.

Circling the kitchen with the comfort of Krissy in my arms, I watch Lainey zero in on the fridge and the stove as she preps the bottle.

“I’ll heat water on the stove to warm the bottle even though the microwave would be a lot faster.” She turns to me with a lock of her sleep-mussed hair in her face, and I stifle the urge to go to her and brush it aside. So inappropriate.

Her blue eyes stare at me, half-lidded from sleepiness and making her look sexy as fuck. I barely stifle a groan and force myself to look away and concentrate on Krissy.

“You’re a really good father; you know that?”

My head snaps around to look at her. The way she spoke, with such sincerity, almost admiration in her voice, grabs my attention, causing a confusing mixture of pride and alarm to swirl in me. I want to ignore her, but she steps closer and caresses Krissy’s face.

But she’s looking at me. And I imagine she’s touching me. Fuck. My fucking dick stirs with no subtle pretense, flat-out jealous of that caress.

“She’s a lucky girl.” Her voice is soft and her stare intense. I don’t want to think that she’s flirting or wants to be the lucky girl in my arms, but my mind goes there. Fuck.

I shift. “The bottle.” It’s all I have the sense to say.

She gives me a Mona Lisa look, a knowing twinkle in her eyes, unoffended as usual, not put off in the least. She nods and finishes prepping the bottle, testing the temp of the formula on her wrist like my aunt showed me. Except when Lainey does it, she’s confident.

The way she holds her long slender wrist, the way she stands at the sink with her back to me and her panty line showing under her T-shirt, the perfect curve of where her thigh meets her ass—they all taunt me. Taunt my dick good and hard. Fuck.

I clear my throat. She turns and comes back to me, and blood pounds in my veins.

She touches my arm as she hands me the bottle, her eyes glassy, her long lashes fluttering low, and sensuality oozing from her every pore. Her plump young breasts are outlined through her tee, and I could swear her nipples grew hard in the last two seconds since she touched my arm.

“You want to…” She licks her lips, and I don’t know if she’s trying to tease me or if she has no idea how sexy and provocative her behavior is. “To feed Krissy?” she finishes.

With a monumental effort, an act of rational sanity, I step away from Lainey and turn away. Cradling Krissy, I let her clutch the bottle as I hold it, and she drinks. I automatically begin pacing and expect Lainey to go back to bed.

But she doesn’t. She leans against the counter and watches me. Shit.