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The doorbell rang right that moment, and Will almost had to peel himself off the ceiling. No shouting though. Shouting made Beau cry, even when it had been Grant reacting to the news that they’d lost Beth. It was hard to hear what the YouTuber was saying about changing diapers while she was making the grumpy sound. The grumpy sound set Will’s teeth on edge.
“Fuuuuck.” Konstantin walked into the room shaking his head. The man might look like Satan’s slightly eviller brother, but he did have a baby and another on the way. He knew how to do this.
“No swearing,” Will grumbled. “She’s not going to be here long, but in the meantime I’d prefer we didn’t teach her any profanity.”
“She’s what? About four months? She’s not going to pick up on swearing for a while yet. So what are you trying to do that’s pissing her off so bad?”
“Diaper change.”
“Okay.” He looked around the room, then beckoned for the diaper bag and started rolling up his sleeves. “First things first. If you’re going to change her on a raised surface, you have to make sure she can’t roll off of it. Don’t leave her unattended.” Konstantin changed her diaper, explaining each step as he went. Grant started gagging and had to leave when things got messy, but Will followed Kon’s advice to breathe through his mouth, not his nose, and managed to power through it.
When Kon was done, he put her pajama things back on and picked her up, holding her like she was a football or something. Will’s first instinct was to take her back before Kon dropped her, but in moments she’d settled and was quiet.
“So I didn’t catch much other than crying on the phone,” Konstantin said, chuckling. “Are you running a day care while the club is closed for renos? Who the hell would hand you a baby with no training?”
“CPS. They dropped her off this morning.”
Kon’s mouth dropped open. “Oh man. I didn’t know you hooked up with anyone after Bethany. So where’s the mother?”
“This is Beth’s daughter, Beau,” he said, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear himself. “Beth is . . . dead.”
“What?” Konstantin paled and he turned Beau back over to look at her more closely. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” The baby’s eyes were red-rimmed, and her nose matched. Will had done a pretty shitty job of trying to comfort her. “How on earth did she end up here?”
“Apparently, Beth listed me as her father on her birth certificate.”
Konstantin nodded, as though it made sense. “She never did find the guy? She trusted you to take care of Beau if anything ever happened.”
“I need to find someone to adopt her. I don’t know shit about kids.”
“Most guys don’t know shit about kids until they knock someone up.” Konstantin grimaced. “Not that I speak from experience or anything.”
He handed Beau back and showed Will how to hold her cradled to his chest.
“I need to find a nanny or something, at least. Do you know anyone?” How was he going to work or get anything done? “Or do you know anyone who’s trying to adopt a baby? Maybe Banner or Ambrose?”
Konstantin shrugged. “I’d say you could ask Varushka to watch h
er sometimes, but she’s so tired lately, between chasing Ruslan all day and the new one on the way. I wish she’d let me hire help.”
Will grunted and realized that when the baby wasn’t crying, she was pretty freakin’ cute. And tiny. Fragile, especially compared to his big, scarred hands.
He sighed, feeling like a fraud. “I have no business raising anybody. I’m doing a shitty enough job with Grant, and he can wipe his own ass.”
Kon chuckled. Grant flipped him off.
The baby actually settled against Will’s chest and watched him, blinking intermittently but not losing interest. It was so weird to be holding her—the child that could have been his. Should have. It was even weirder to think that by putting his name on her birth certificate, Beth had trusted him to protect her, even though they both knew the truth.
“I guess if you don’t want to raise her, you’re not doing her any favors by keeping her,” Konstantin said, running a distracted hand through his hair. “Fuck . . . I can’t believe Beth’s just . . . gone.”
Yeah.
Just like that.
Grant swallowed hard and busied himself with cleaning up the living room. He was taking it almost as badly as Will was.
Part of him kept thinking she was going to show up any minute and ask where Beau was—that it had all been a mistake. That someone had borrowed or stolen her car and the person who’d died wasn’t actually her.
The lure of denial was strong, but there was no time for it. Konstantin was talking about bathing a baby, and that required his attention more than his grief did.
