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Lori abandoned the display she’d been perusing and kept walking, bouncing Seb and cooing at him constantly, eliciting rounds of sweet little laughs. She was a natural, all maternal instinct and easy confidence, and an uncomfortable lick of inadequacy flickered in my gut. Were some women born with a baby gene and others weren’t, or had I spent so many years telling everyone I didn’t want to be a mother that I’d erased that particular evolutionary program from my system? It never bothered me before, but now I wondered if something about me was broken.
Lori paused and shifted Seb to her other side. “Oh, my. You’re getting heavy, little guy.” She lifted him under the arms and offered him to Will. “You take him for a while, honey, and I’ll push the cart with Abbie.”
Will wrapped his large, tanned hands around Seb’s tiny torso and settled the baby in the crook of his arm. Seb looked so small and safe tucked in against Will’s muscular frame that I froze mid-step before remembering how to walk. One foot in front of the other and ignoring how Will with a baby did something to my dusty ovaries—things that made other parts of my body tingle in more familiar ways. My stomach fluttered, my nipples tightened, and I had to remind myself to breathe.
Without meaning to, I flashed back to the way Will looked at me when I’d called him daddy at his loft. He’d been surprised.Pleased. Aroused. The memory wasn’t helping me keep cool now.
Lori took Will’s place beside me, and we followed him down the aisle. Without a word, Lori pulled a baby monitoring system from the shelf and transferred it to the trolley.
I poked at the growing collection of linens, electronics, bottles, creams, and toys. “Babies really need a lot of crap, don’t they?”
“They need less as they grow older,” Lori agreed. “It’s just one of those things.”
She stalled at a discount bin full of baby socks, and I waited while she sorted through the pairs to find half a dozen in sizes that would fit Sebastian. It took long enough that by the time we started moving again, Will had wandered out of earshot.
“I’m glad he has your support,” Lori said, one eye on her son to make sure he couldn’t overhear as we followed him towards the back of the store.
I grimaced and shook my head. “I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. I know as much as Will does about babies. Maybe even less.”
“Oh, none of us know what we’re doing when we become parents. They send us home from the hospital with this tiny, helpless thing in our arms, and you walk out of there wondering who on Earth decided you were capable of keeping a child alive. It’s terrifying.”
I chuckled. “That’s good to know, I suppose. I guess the Universe had a plan when it burst a pipe at my apartment. I’ll be around to get Will through the first few days of fatherhood, at least.”
“You— What? You’re moving into Will’s place?”
Shit. Lori loved me, but she loved the idea of me and Will together even more. Luckily, I didn’t need to wrap her in cotton wool the way I did with my parents. Lori was the kind of woman who could handle the truth—and I’d told her the truthabout a lot of things over the years, including the way I felt about Will and why the chances of us being together were non-existent. Growing up so close to Will, I’d come to think of Lori as something like a cool aunt. She was accepting of everyone—there wasn’t a judgmental bone in her body, and I’d always done my best to emulate that—and I’d never been so honest with anyone, even my best girlfriends or big brother. Lori had never betrayed my trust, and she insisted she understood, but it didn’t stop the smug twinkle in her eye.
“Yep,” I confirmed. “I tried to crash with Mama and Dad, but they’re of the opinion that it’s time for me and Will to take our relationship to the next level. They practically shoved me out the door.”
Lori gave me a loaded sideways look.
“What?”
“Oh, I just find it amusing that this little pact you two concocted to keep yourselves free of commitment and kids for the rest of your lives is the only reason you’re now living together with a six-month-old baby to care for.”
Holy fuck, she was right.
Lori laughed at whatever she saw on my face. “I think it’ll be a good experience for both of you. And who knows? Maybe you’ll enjoy it.”
I dropped my chin and gave her a sceptical look. “What’s there to enjoy? A crying baby? Sleepless nights? Early mornings and dirty nappies and spit-up? No, thanks. A few days of this—a week max—and I’m out of there.”
Lori smirked. “We’ll see.”
“Lori—”
“Forget I said anything.” Lori raised a placating hand. “I know how you both feel about these things. I’ll keep my opinions to myself from now on.”
She mimed zipping her lips, and I huffed out a laugh.
“And Abbie, I know he was worried about how I would react to finding out he had a child he never knew about—and I won’t lie, this is not the way I’d have chosen to become a grandmother—but I’m happy for William. Parenthood will be good for him.” She gave my hand a quick squeeze. “It’s time he grew up a little, and that boy has a lot of love to give.”
I knew the meaning Lori wanted me to take from her words. Maybe Seb would be the reason Will moved on from his thoughtless, bedhopping lifestyle, but I wasn’t so sure. Willdidhave a history of irresponsibility, and yes, he had a lot of love to give, but the problem was where these two facts intersected. He’d never been shy about sharing the love whenever and with whoever caught his eye, and there was no guarantee a baby would change anything. It was just as likely to have the opposite effect and make Will’s allergy to commitment permanent.
And let’s face it—it wasn’t as if I’d ever had a long-term relationship either. That’s what made the pact so perfect. That’s why it made sense for party girl Abbie Ellison. And that’s what made re-thinking it so freaking terrifying.
9
Will
