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Melissa nods as she yawns with a wide-open mouth and arms outstretched. “I’m going to take you up on that. Come, husband. Snuggle with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says as he gets up from the couch and follows his wife upstairs, but not before giving his daughter a kiss on the forehead.
With the new mom and dad upstairs, I lean back on the couch and look at Olivia. “She’s so peaceful right now.”
Olivia’s tiny head smells like powder and lotion. Rob takes a seat beside me.
I ask him while keeping my gaze on her, “Were your kids good babies?”
Rob puts an arm on the back of the couch, inching close to me. “Jesse was a nightmare. Molly was an angel.”
“Their temperaments have been the same since birth then?”
“Pretty much.”
I giggle. “Did you ever consider having a bigger family, like the one you came from?”
“Maybe if we had our kids back-to-back, but by the time Molly was born, Jesse was already in school. I knew she’d be the last.” Rob pulls me closer and looks down at Olivia. “She’s a pretty baby. Hopefully, she’s sweet, too, because parenting is a nightmare.”
“Nightmare is a bit dramatic.”
“I’m not just talking about the baby stage. The toddler years are exhausting. School age is no better with sports, the endless driving and laundry, and dealing with the homework and drama. Jesse is almost in college, and I can see a new set of worries on the horizon. It’s a lot of worry. No one prepares you for that. I’m forty and on the tail end of raising my kids, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“You were a young dad.”
“Melissa and Will are gonna be in their fifties with a high schooler while I’ll be on my porch, listening to music, because mine will be out of the house and grown. I’ll still worry, but it will be with a glass of bourbon in my hand.”
He makes a good point. Melissa is going to have a long road ahead of her. When Izzy goes to college, she’ll be getting Olivia ready for preschool. She’ll be starting the cycle all over again.
I laugh to myself. He nudges me, as if wondering what is on my mind.
“Melissa and I once talked about traveling the world together when the kids were in college. We’d be two single ladies, roaming the greatest destinations on earth. Visiting the pyramids of Egypt and walking the Great Wall of China. Looks like I lost my travel buddy.”
“You know, I wouldn’t mind going on a trip or two with you. I’m in no means up for the pyramids, but I think it’s time I find some balance in my life. My kids are getting bigger, so I can spare some time.”
“You’d really travel with me?”
“I would. Slow at first. Maybe the Caribbean.”
I moan at the idea of Rob on a beach, running through the sand and then splashing around with me in crystal-blue waters. “You know, they serve daiquiris in the Caribbean. You’re going to have to drink one. It’s a rule.”
“I was thinking more of a peach margarita.”
I settle into his side and sigh. “Peach margaritas, canopy beds, and my handsome man on a beach. What more could I ask for?”
His chest rumbles with a laugh. I settle into the hum of him on my back and a heavily breathing babe in my arms. I could fall asleep like this.
My gaze falls back to Olivia.
“Look how precious she is, Rob,” I say as I coo at the tiny, fragile bundle. “Olivia is only days old and a masterpiece of life. She has the softest skin against my fingertips and these minuscule fingers and toes. It’s a wonder how this tiny life was created and will continue to grow up before our eyes. It’s gonna go by so fast. You know, sometimes, I look at Izzy and see how grown up she is and wonder where the time went. She used to stay at my place and play dress-up with my things and called my high heelsup shoes.”
“You really love your friends’ kids,” he surmises, his head brushing against the side of mine with his stubble rubbing against my hair.
I lift my brows because this is a known thing about me that we established long ago. “They’re my babies too. It feels like only a second ago when Hunter was a toddler, crawling up onto my lap and giving me endless kisses. And he had the chubbiest little hand that was always so warm when I held it. I loved going for our walks. He was so inquisitive while Izzy was so insightful. I have all of these memories of her as a baby, who was replaced by a toddler, then this adorable kid, and then the funny preteen, and now, she’s this beautiful teenager, who I can talk to. I’ve loved every stage of watching them grow up.”
He gives a harrumph sound behind me.
It makes me twist my body to look at him.
