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I pursed my lips to keep from smiling and stared over at Ford as he plucked the car seat up and held it like it weighed nothing. She was right. He was a keeper. I just wasn’t sure whether he was mine to keep.
Chapter Eleven
FORD
It had been five days since I slept in my own bed, but I didn’t care one bit because it meant I was here whenever Belle needed me, which wasn’t often because she was handling Leo like a pro. Every night, as soon as he made a noise, she was awake and tending to him. The problem was she was trying to do it all herself, which meant it was starting to take its toll on her. We were all aware of the dark circles under her eyes, but she was trying to power through on her own. She didn’t get the concept that I was here to help.
So as soon as I heard him on the fifth night, I shot up off the sofa in Lola and Brody’s living room and darted up the stairs as quietly as I could. It was still pitch-black darkness outside even though it was nearing 5 a.m. I tiptoed down the hallway toward Belle’s room and slowly pushed the handle down. A small light on her bedside table illuminated the room, and next to her bed was the bassinet with a crying Leo inside it.
His body wriggled, his eyes squeezed shut as he made as much noise as he could. “Hey there, little man,” I greeted, moving closer to him. Belle rolled over in bed and groaned, but didn’t open her eyes. I paused, waiting to see if she’d wake up, and when she didn’t, I reached inside and picked Leo up. He blinked, and his mouth opened and closed as if he was trying to find his milk. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know he was hungry.
I wrapped him up in his blanket and cradled him against my chest and tiptoed out of Belle’s bedroom. Leo cooed as I walked down the hallway, but by the time I got into the kitchen, he was full-on crying again. I had no idea how I was meant to warm up the breast milk Belle had pumped earlier and hold Leo at the same time. I was an expert in shooting a gun and hitting my target every single time. I could read someone’s body language in seconds. But trying to balance precious cargo as he was screaming the house down felt like a mission I wouldn’t be able to complete.
“Need some help?” a new voice asked, and I turned around with Leo in one hand and the small bottle of breastmilk in the other. Lola stood in the doorway to the kitchen as she tied her robe around her waist.
“Sorry,” I murmured, closing the refrigerator with my leg. “Did we wake you?”
Lola shook her head and stepped forward. “I was already awake.” She turned on the bottle warmer on the counter and took the bottle out of my hand. “I was about to go in to Leo, but you beat me to it.” She smiled as she turned to face me, and when the light flashed green on the bottle warmer, she placed the bottle inside it.
“Yeah,” I murmured, pacing the length of the kitchen with Leo in my arms. It was soothing him a little, but I knew it would only be a matter of seconds until he was screaming again. “She hasn’t been letting me help her at night.”
Lola nodded like she knew, and plucked the bottle out of the warmer, shook it, then tested it on her wrist. “Hold your arm out.” I did as she said and she sprayed some milk onto my wrist. “That’s the temperature it needs to be.”
“Got it.” I hadn’t even thought about how much I needed to warm the milk up, and I was starting to realize how out of my depth I was. I’d tried reading all the baby books I could at the hospital, but nothing compared to the real thing.
“Sit,” Lola demanded, pointing at the dining table.
I backed up and placed Leo in the crook of my arm, then took the bottle off Lola. He accepted it greedily. His little eyes closed, and his body relaxed in my arms as he finally got what he wanted so much.
“She thinks she’s alone,” Lola said as she pulled the chair out opposite to me. “She’s forgetting she has people to help.”
I nodded because I agreed, but I understood why she was acting the way she was. “She’s trying to adjust.” I let out a breath. “She was on her own for most of the pregnancy and was preparing to be alone and then…” I met her gaze. “She came home, and we were all here ready to help her in any way she needed. It’s gonna take some time.”
Lola made a noise in the back of her throat. “Speaking of time.” She paused and waited for me to look back at her. “How much time are you going to waste, Ford?”
“What?” I frowned, having no idea what she was talking about. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Listen, I’m not saying I’m fully on board with the idea of you and my daughter being together. You’re twice her age, but…I can’t judge either of you.” She leaned back in her seat, her gaze flicking from me to Leo and back again. “I followed my heart with Brody. And I couldn’t for one second imagine my life without him in it.”
“I—”
“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is”—she pulled in a breath and let it back out slowly—“you have my blessing.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Your blessing?”
“Yeah, Ford. My blessing.” She stood and walked around the table to me as Leo spat his empty bottle out. Lola reached for him, and I handed him over willingly, staring up at her as she placed him on her shoulder and start
ed to burp him. “I can see you love my daughter, Ford. And more than that, she loves you back.” Leo let out a burp and then followed it with a smaller one. “So stop wasting time.” She handed Leo back to me, and as soon as he was cradled in my arms, his eyes closed and he fell back to sleep. “Tell her how you feel. Date again. Feel each other out.”
Lola backed away, and I stared at her, frowning. “We never dated,” I blurted out. Because we hadn’t. I hadn’t taken her for dinner or to the movies. We’d jumped in headfirst with everything, and we hadn’t slowed down at all.
“What did you do—” Lola swiped her hand in the air, her face screwing up. “Never mind. I don’t want to know what you did.” She pointed at Leo. “I think it’s pretty obvious.” I chuckled because she was right. He was proof of what we’d done, but there was so much more to it than that. She smiled at me. “Ask her out on a date, then. Start over. It’s as good a time as any.”
She spun around and left me with her parting words and a sleeping Leo. And I didn’t move from the spot I was in until the sun came up and everyone else started to come downstairs. And when Belle finally appeared, all it took was one look at her to know I couldn’t let her go again.
This was my opportunity to do things right. We may have done it backward, but it didn’t matter because I’d prove to her how much she meant to me, even if it took me my entire lifetime. She was it for me.
She just didn’t know it yet.
