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Cutting me a look, Beau shifts, holding the plastic leg and brown plastic tub together so I can get a better angle. “Rhett, it’s a water table. If this makes you lose your shit, just wait until we put together the crib.”
I grunt again, giving the screw one last turn until it stops. “Kill me now.”
“Not funny.”
“Nothing about this is funny.” I fall back on my ass and wipe my forehead. My hamstrings sing, and my pulse works double. Feels like I just crushed my record for the 40-yard dash (4.52 seconds, boom).
But instead, I’m on my family room floor, surrounded by boxes, manuals, and Allen wrenches of various sizes. So far, Beau and I have assembled a high chair (not terrible), installed a car seat (pretty terrible), and started on something called a water table (so terrible I want to chuck the thing through a window). It’s shaped like a pirate ship, about waist high, with a big tub in the middle you’re supposed to fill with water for kids to play in.
Beau really came through on the list I asked him to put together of stuff I’ll need for Liam. This morning we took the world’s worst field trip to a hellish place called BuyBuyBaby, where we knocked out the majority of the list. The two of us filled the bed of Beau’s pickup with enough baby gear to set my AmEx on fire. Monitors. A crib mattress. A horrifying torture device called a snot sucker. Sippy cups and bath mats and gates for the stairs and toddler toothpaste. Actual, honest-to-God butt paste.
And diapers. Boxes and boxes of diapers.
I bought diapers.
I stare at the box of Pampers, Beau’s preferred brand. Size 6, Swaddlers “for on-the-go toddlers weighing over thirty-five pounds.”
Have I ever changed a diaper? What do you do with the poop ones? When do I potty train this kid? How do I potty train him?
For years now, I’ve wanted a dog. But I never got one for exactly that reason—I didn’t want to potty train him. I didn’t want to train him, period. The responsibility of keeping another living thing alive seemed too daunting. Too distracting.
Now here I am, about to be responsible for another human life. A life that literally shits itself several times a day.
My pulse takes off at a sprint. For a second, I worry I’m going to be sick again.
It’s exactly how I felt when I told my family about Liam. Not only am I freaking out about what my life is going to be like with a kid. But I also worried that my family would judge me. Criticize me, even, for knocking up a girl without even knowing.
But as shocked as they’d been, they all hugged me and promised to help out as much as they could. Mom was actually pretty stoked about getting another grandbaby, and Beau and Annabel were obviously thrilled Maisie was not only getting a cousin but one her age too.
Me, though? I’m still stressed as fuck.
I’m going to be raising a little boy. Me.
“How’d the conversation with Elle go?”
After I hung up with Melissa the other day, I reached out to Elle via my agent, Miguel, and got her number. I called her this morning. I asked about Jennifer. What her relationship with Liam was like. Any tips or tricks Elle had for me. I also asked for some pictures of Liam and Jennifer together. The woman raised him on her own for more than two years. I think it’s important she’s still a part of his life.
“Hey,” Beau says, cutting me a look. “Let’s take a break. Want something to drink? I could go for a beer.”
I spear a hand through my hair. “No beer. I’m supposed to work out this afternoon.”
“If you’re overwhelmed, you can skip a workout, Rhett. You won’t lose the Super Bowl because you didn’t work out one day.”
“I don’t want to skip a workout,” I growl. “Sweat is my medicine.” Or was, before I started hating the gym.
Beau frowns. Nods at the mess around us. “If this stuff freaks you out, we can return it. Nothing’s set in stone yet.”
“You and I both know the paternity test is going to come back positive.”
“We don’t know that, actually.”
“I have this feeling, Beau.” I shake my head. “Kid’s mine, and I need to come to terms with that fact ASAP. I’m not gonna be some deadbeat dad. I thought shopping for this shit might get me excited or whatever. At the very least, I thought it’d help me focus on the task at hand—focus on getting my son settled into his new home. But instead, it just freaked me out even more.”
Beau flips off his hat and runs a hand through his hair. His is much longer than mine, long enough to curl out from under the baseball hat he perpetually wears. He puts it back on his head, backward this time, and pulls his legs into his chest, resting his elbows on his knees. “Have you seen a picture?”
