Liars (Licking Thicket 2)

“Something… sunshine. Only sunshine. You make me happy. Something gray? Christ.” He heaved a frustrated sigh. “Marigold, you’ve got to stop now. You’ve made your point. Be reasonable, baby girl.”

Oh. Oh, good gravy. That changed everything.

I caught my breath and stared. The man looked like he’d been torn off the stage at a rock concert, transported to Nowhere, Tennessee, and stuffed into the outfit I once wore to a middle school dance. There was no other explanation for a guy with overlong brown-blond hair, graceful black inked scrolls emerging from the collar of his wrinkled, blue button-down shirt, shiny Dockers that clung to his tree-trunk thighs, and black steel-toed boots to have appeared in this stairwell. I sure as heck hadn’t seen any other guys in this neck of the woods who were so unapologetically themselves.

And if that weren’t enough to pierce my heart, the kidlet in his arms was gorgeous, despite her tears and wiggling. She had a head full of dark curls, way more than should have been possible for a baby her age, which I’d peg at somewhere around nine months—somewhere past the shriveled-potato stage of early infancy but not nearly at the terrifying walking age.

The baby wailed again, and the giant looked genuinely panicked. He held her flat across his outstretched forearms, like he was carrying a box of pizza or helping her learn the backstroke, and he bent his knees in a kind of next-level Oompa Loompa jig in time to his stammered singing. A pink-and-white striped tote bag sat on the floor next to the wall.

“Work with me, Marigold, okay? You’re not hungry, ’cause you just drank ten gallons of formula. You’re not stinky…” He lifted the kid gingerly. “Not stinky,” he confirmed in a deep, raspy voice that did things to me. “Are you having an existential crisis? Is that a thing kids do? Do you need alone time? Are your lips chapped? Do you hate my cologne?”

The baby fussed harder, flailing her tiny feet. The man groaned, and I belatedly noticed one of those pacifier stuffed animal things lying on the floor by the giant’s boot.

I scurried down the stairs and picked it up. “I think she might be looking for this,” I said, holding it aloft. It was a gray-and-white polka-dotted chicken with a green sucker on the end.

The guy shut his eyes and shook his head. “Ah, shit.”

His eyes popped open in shock as he realized what he’d said, and he looked from me to the kid guiltily. “Fuck, forget I said that,” he muttered.

His eyes widened further. “Goddamn it all.”

I snickered. “Maybe quit while you’re ahead?”

“Yeah.” He sighed again and reached for the pacifier, only to do an awkward shuffle when he realized he couldn’t hold it and the baby simultaneously.

“You could hold her up,” I suggested. “Babies that age like to see stuff, and it’ll help her digest if she’s just eaten. Also maybe chill out on the squats.” I motioned toward his knees. “Your thighs are plenty shapely already.”

He lifted one eyebrow but ignored my comment—thank the stars, since I couldn’t think of a single logical reason why I’d said that aloud. “You need to support the baby’s head,” he recited. “That’s, like, the one thing I know.”

“She’s old enough to be held up,” I promised. “Try.”

He tilted her upright, clasping her to his chest with two hands, and the baby’s cries calmed to hiccups almost immediately.

“Ha! Sweet.” His eyes met mine over the baby’s head. “Worked.”

I smiled back because his smile was so infectious I couldn’t help it. “It did.”

“Thanks, man. Could you, uh, pop that thing back in her mouth? Then we’ll be good to go, I think.”

“This?” I stared down at the pacifier in horror. “It was on the floor. Don’t you have another?”

“What? No! She only came with the one!” He looked sideways at the pink tote bag like it had betrayed him.

“Ah. Well, the trouble with kids is that some accessories are sold separately,” I said sympathetically.

The guy was back to panicked again, and the baby reacted, fussing more loudly.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I soothed. “We’ll go into the washroom and I’ll clean this off for you. Alright?”

“Yeah. Yes. That would be amazing. Thank you. Then we’ll be…”

The baby coughed once, hardly any warning at all, then erupted like a volcano spewing ten gallons of formula right down the center of the man’s shirt.

“…all set,” the guy finished weakly.

I didn’t bother asking if he had a change of shirt. “Bathroom,” I instructed, grabbing the tote bag and taking charge of the situation. “Now.”

We emerged from the stairwell into the lobby by the courtrooms, and a red-faced guy with a beer gut and a too-tight suit rushed over. “Took you long enough. It’s almost time for… oh, sweet Fanny Adams.” His eyes widened. “What’d you do to your shirt?”