And I’m smiling. I can’t help it.
Jada Miller looks like a natural with my baby niece in her arms.
19
Jada
Adele is back from the bathroom. She asks for one more minute while she gets things organized. I have no problem with this. Her little baby girl is snuggled into me and I’m in baby love. I love babies and they love me, too.
Adele and Austin get into a debate about where she and the kids will sleep, so I offer to leave for the night, which is stupid because I have no place to go, and she calls me out on that – obviously knowing I have no place to go but saying so in a sweet way that doesn’t make me feel like less.
She says she’ll sleep on the couch and make a bed up for Braeden on the floor, but then Austin announces that Adele and the kids are taking the master bedroom and he’s sleeping on the couch.
I’ve met her twice and really liked her both times. Once, she visited Aiden for a weekend and I met her just briefly. She invited me to go to dinner with them. Aiden talked her out of it, much to my dismay at the time. I think she was trying to set me and Aiden up.
The second time, Adele and her husband came for a romantic weekend while Aiden was away at a convention and stayed here. It was their anniversary, so I helped her set up a romantic weekend via an exchange of emails and a few phone calls. She sent me a lovely card and a $500 gift certificate to a high-end department store as a thank you gift a week later. I still have that leather purse I bought with it. It was one of the cheapest items there but is still the most expensive accessory I own.
I happily hold the warm, cuddly, sleeping baby while Adele proceeds to unpack a bunch of things for the fridge. Baby food. Baby bottles. Juice boxes. Other snacks for Braeden. She then takes the rest of the massive suitcase and her diaper bag to the master bedroom. She calls me to come in and I gently lay the baby in the center of the bed and cover her up with a quilt Adele has passed me. The baby stirs and her eyes open, so I keep my hand on her back to fool her into thinking she’s still being held. She’s got a pacifier dangling from a strap on her fuzzy footed pink monkey pajamas, so I place the nipple against her lips.
It works. She takes it in and lazily sucks on the pacifier as her eyes drift shut again.
“Ooh, you’re good at that. You got nieces or nephews?”
I shake my head. “No, but I did a lot of babysitting neighbors’ kids during high school.”
“You want kids?” she asks.
“Definitely,” I breathe. “I mean, someday…”
Adele barricades the baby on all four sides with pillows and then I grab some bedding and we set up a makeshift bed on the lounge chair in the corner for Braeden who is in the living area with Austin. The chair is a big easy chair with a long ottoman and pushed together is nearly the size of a twin bed.
She then sighs. “I need a drink. Do you want a drink?”
I smile. “I’m okay, thanks. I’ll let you hang with your brother and catch up. I’ve got some stuff to do.”
“Oh.” She looks disappointed. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says under her breath. “He’s going through a super-rough time right now. I decided to come for a couple days and see if I can cheer him up. How does he seem to you?”
“Uh…” My face heats. “I really don’t know him so I wouldn’t know if how…uh…he’s been is… how he usually is.”
“How’s he been?” Her eyes are sharp. Concerned.
I wince. “Uh… I-”
“Can’t answer that on the grounds she could get herself in hot water with her asshole boss,” Austin finishes for me from the doorway.
My face goes hotter.
He’s standing there smiling with his arms folded across his chest. Looking hot. Just my luck. Why can’t Austin be hideous?
“Language,” Adele chides.
“He can’t hear me. He’s playing Xbox.”
“What? No. Not the kinds of games you play. Turn that off. I’ll set up a Disney movie in here for him to go to sleep to. “You sure you don’t want to have a drink with us, maybe catch a movie, Jada?”
“I’m, I’m good. Thanks. Good to see you again.”
I (without making eye contact again) squeeze past Austin, who is still in the doorway and head for the kitchen to put away the rest of my dinner. I glance down the hallway and see that the wall could use a better cleaning by my door, but I don’t want to deal with that while Austin has company, so I grab my bag and head into my room and close the door.