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“Came to see my girl,” he says softly and lifts his eyes up to me.
“I don’t think —”
The rest of his response is drowned out because this chubby little bundle on my chest explodes with coos and gurgles as if she’s found a treasure. I guess Ledger’s touch got her attention and now she’s going crazy in my arms. Kicking with her chubby feet, flailing her fists, hitting me in the ribs and boobs.
And it’s painful.
She’s five months old but she’s strong, my baby boo.
If not for the fact that the guy in front of me is also acting like he’s found a treasure.
Because his mouth pulls into the biggest smile that I’ve seen from him.
Usually all he does is smirk or chuckle with condescension. But this is a full-fledged smile and it’s a smile of joy. Pure and simple, making my heart race and my gaze all fascinated with it.
I’m even memorizing all the specifics.
The way his lips stretch up, making perfect half-moons. How the lines around his mouth relax. How his cheekbones look less sharp and severe, and his dark eyes shine not with harshness but with something pretty and light.
“And she’s happy to see me,” he murmurs.
As if I need any further proof, Halo babbles with joy. “Gah, gah, paaaaah.”
His eyes on her, he goes, “Hey, Little Berry.”
She claps her hands. “Pah. Pah. Da.”
“Missed me?”
She kicks me in the ribs again, going, gah, gah, gah. But I barely notice it.
Because I’m witnessing something else that’s happening in front of me. Something even more fascinating than him smiling like he’s discovered gold.
He’s melting. Dissolving. Softening up.
Like a lump of sugar in water.
Just because a five-month-old is cooing up at him and holding onto his long finger.
And that’s not even the end of it.
What’s even more fascinating is that he’s cooing back. Or rather, the voice that he’s using with her is not his usual voice, rough and scrape-y, coated with sand. It’s smooth and deep and rich.
Coo-ey.
The Angry Thorn that everyone is scared of is cooing because he’s in love with a five-month-old girl. And that five-month-old girl seems equally in love with him.
I don’t know how to handle that.
I don’t know what to do with this knowledge.
I mean, I knew he loved his niece. Of course I knew that. But I’d never seen it before. The change that comes over him when he’s with Halo. Because while he may have seen me with Halo before, I haven’t seen him. This is the first time I’m seeing him interacting with her. Probably because she has so many uncles who are always waiting for their turn to play with her. Plus she has a clingy aunt — me, a clingy mommy and a very possessive daddy.
So maybe in all of that I missed seeing them together.
Which I think is a good thing.
Because if I had, I’d be crippled with longing.
I’d be crippled with pain. For wanting what I could never have.
As it is, it’s so hard to stand here and watch him with her. So hard to not just break down and sob and beg.
Beg to know why he didn’t love me.
Why didn’t he think that I could be more?
Why couldn’t he have seen me as more than a pawn?
Why is it that my dream of a family, a baby with him can’t come true?
“You wanna give her to me?” he says, lifting his eyes.
I don’t know what I look like right now but whatever it is makes him frown a little. And he goes, “What’s —”
“Yeah, here,” I say, stepping back from him.
I hold her with one arm and with the other, I undo the Velcro in the front before reaching behind my back to work on the straps. Which is when I notice him stepping toward me, his arm in the process of being raised for some reason, and I jerk back.
He wasn’t going to touch me, was he?
Whatever he planned to do, my abrupt retreat makes him clench his jaw and he lowers his arm.
I feel a slight pinch in my heart at rejecting him, or most probably the help he was about to offer. But then I tell myself that I have nothing to feel sorry for.
Quickly, I get the straps loosened and very carefully gather my squirmy bundle and transfer it to the guy in front of me. But I probably didn’t gauge the exact amount of intimacy that’s bound to erupt when you do something like this. Because I’m left with shallow breaths and a pounding heart as we both lean toward each other, the back of my hand grazing his palms, the coarse hairs on his forearms rubbing up against mine.
Making it known how heated he is.
How his skin is charged with electricity.
It takes only a couple of seconds to make the transfer but it feels longer.
