AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glanced between the two, feeling as if I’d been shut out of an inside joke, as Aspen set her hand on Noel’s shoulder and grinned teasingly. “I don’t know if I’d say you ever ranked that well, to begin with.”
“Oh…ho.” Her husband chuckled and went back to taking care of Ava’s needs. “I see how it is. Alright. Okay. Be that way. I know you don’t mean it, though.”
“Did you take her class at the library, too?” I asked curiously.
Both of Ava’s grandparents glanced at me in surprise as if they couldn’t believe I would ask such a question before Noel cleared his throat and said, “Something like that. But yes, little girl here got the black shit out of her system last night. So it should be like sweet tapioca pudding for us today. Now… Have you ever done this before?”
I shook my head and said, “I watched a video on YouTube; that’s about it.”
Noel blinked at me. “You watched a video?”
Wincing, I lifted one shoulder. “I didn’t know anything about newborns. I was just—I don’t know—I was trying to study up before she got here.”
“Well, I say the best way to learn is with a little experience. Here.” He moved the baby, shifting her around on the couch until her legs were pointing my way, and then he tugged at her diaper. “You see these little tags?”
“Yeah.” Heart beating a little faster, I shifted closer as he talked me through the steps.
“Typically, you should have a new diaper already opened and ready for a quick transfer before you start, but with Grandma here to do that for us, we can get straight to the main event.”
I listened closely and followed every instruction, appreciating the little tips he threw in about how to uniquely clean a girl. Most of what he said, I hadn’t read anywhere before.
By the time I finished and was snapping her onesie back together, I felt accomplished and pretty damn proud of myself.
“You’re a natural,” Noel congratulated, patting my shoulder and nodding in respect.
I grinned and glanced toward Aspen, the warmth in my chest expanding as she smiled back with a motherly pleasure.
It reminded me of just how many years it’d been since I’d seen my own parents. Yearning filled my chest, along with a bone-deep weariness. It’d been so long. I’d been taking care of Duke, shouldering all the responsibilities and worrying my way through each day without even a parental nod of encouragement to keep me going for nearly a full decade now.
And I don’t think I quite realized how much it had worn me out until this very moment.
“Now, time to pick her up and reap the benefits of a newly cleaned baby,” Noel instructed, motioning between me and Ava.
My smile dropped flat. “P-pick her up?”
“What?” Noel shrugged. “I thought they said you held her the other day at the hospital.”
“Yeah, but, uh, they picked her up and set her in my lap for me.”
Noel just blinked at me. “Do you wan
t to hold her or not?”
I panicked a little and looked down at the helpless human who couldn’t do anything for herself. She was so reliant on everyone else for her survival. And I figured, if she could put that kind of trust in the rest of the world, I could figure out how to pick her up off a couch without breaking her. I reached out and gently scooped her into my arms.
“Gah,” I murmured as soon as she was settled. “She’s like cradling a bag of marshmallows.”
The Gambles chuckled, and Aspen picked up the dirty diaper. “Well…” She sighed. “I told Lucy I’d make her some breakfast while she was in the shower, so I better get started on that.” And she left the room, taking the diaper with her.
On the other side of the couch, Noel relaxed into the cushions and rested one arm along the back as he set one ankle on the opposite knee.
“So…” he started. “I remember Aspen telling me a little about your situation back when she was teaching that free class you took at the library from her.”
I swallowed thickly, not remembering everything I’d told her, but it probably wasn’t good. That had been a fairly hard, traumatizing time of my life.
Nodding, I focused my attention on Ava’s face, not in the mood to think about that era of misery, and I murmured a vague, “Yeah?”
“Yep. Raising a younger brother from the age of nineteen couldn’t have been easy.” Noel heaved out a breath. “I know; I took over full custody of my three younger siblings when I was twenty-one.”
