Being an adult with huge hands made holding a baby a very different and scary experience. Especially when the baby fit perfectly in both hands because she was that small.
“Can you hold her now?” I muttered out the corner of my mouth to Dahlia who was standing beside me looking down at a sleeping Jamie.
Luna hadn’t listened when I’d said that I’d hold her later, like in five years when she wasn’t as breakable, and had plonked her in my arms and told me to sit down. I’d walked like a kid carrying a glass of water, every step measured and careful with one foot directly in front of the other – heel to toe, heel to toe, heel to toe – the whole way until I got to a chair. Then, it had been like I was diffusing a bomb as I’d sat down, lowering my ass onto the chair one inch at a time.
Not one person was taking her from me when I offered, even though they were all looking at her with that crazy baby addiction look. Well, apart from Levi whose first question had been, “What does she do?”
They were all assholes. Oh, and I couldn’t swear. I didn’t want to be responsible for my niece’s first words being a cuss word.
“When do babies start talking?” I asked the room.
“At like two months old, isn’t it?” Tate replied from where he was tapping on his phone. He’d held Jamie briefly when he’d first come in and had then passed her back to his mom with an almost sad look on his face which had come and gone quickly.
“Don’t be a dick,” Noah snapped, getting a slap to the arm from his mom. “Sorry, don’t be a penis,” he amended, still getting a slap. “She needs to be able to cogitate and then she can verbalize.”
“I bet she talks before any other baby, ever,” Erica cooed, taking to the role of proud grandmother like a pro as she leaned over my shoulder. This put her boobs roughly an inch away from my face, which was only slightly awkward.
“Please take her,” I begged Dahlia, trying not to show my relief when Erica moved her tits out of my personal space.
“I don’t do babies,” she replied quietly, a similar expression to the one that had crossed Tate’s face, now crossing hers.
Now this was something I’d be exploring, and soon.
Dahlia
As we were driving back to Madix’s house, where we’d dropped the dogs off after hearing the news about Luna, I poured over the memory of Jamie’s little face. Her tiny nose, her blue eyes as she’d stared up at her huge uncle, her teeny little fingers with their impossibly small nails…
I’d never have that.
It was probably a cliché, but I couldn’t care less – I had issues. My own mother hadn’t wanted me. If your parent didn’t want you and had actually said those words – wouldn’t you have issues? Even ones you hid and refused to acknowledge, you’d always have the doubt over your self-worth and abilities as a parent running around your mind. I knew it was her weakness not my own, but still. I was also worried sick that the baby would get hurt because of me. Stupid shit happened all the time, and just because I had a baby, it didn’t mean that it would stop happening!
So, I’d never have that. I’d never be able to give that to Madix.
Holy shit, I was being unfair to him then, wasn’t I? The longer this relationship went on, the more unfair I was being by depriving him of the ability to meet a woman who would and could give him a family.
Just thinking about not having him had tears building in my eyes, making the headlights and streetlights burst into halos as we drove past them in the dark.
I didn’t want to give him up, I wanted to be selfish and keep him…
Oh, fuck me with a cactus and stick my nipples in a hornet’s nest – I was in love with Madix Blue.
There was a fact about me, I was a snotty crier. Not an ugly crier, but my nose seemed to build up snot more than anyone I knew. That meant that even with tears building and not actually falling, my snot glands (or whatever they were called) had already gone into over-production mode. This also meant that the gasp of breath I took when I realized how deeply I felt for the man beside me was accentuated by a loud snort through the now full bags of snot in my face. There was no disguising it, no excusing it, no pretending it didn’t happen because it was so freaking loud, which meant that Madix knew immediately that I was crying.
I was just taking a shuddery breath in – through my mouth this time – when his hand landed on my thigh and rubbed it gently.