A smile plays on my lips. “I’ll do that, Saint.”
Chapter Twenty
Sean
I pick up a little pink dress and wave it in the air. “What about this?”
Graham Locke, my friend, and a soon-to-be girl dad, smiles. “I already bought that one for her.”
This is the tenth time he’s shot down my proposed gift for his baby girl in the past twenty minutes.
I approach where he’s standing next to a display of children’s books.
We’re in a baby boutique on the Upper East Side. Who the hell knew a place like this even existed with its tiny cutesy clothes and gadgets for hiding stacks of diapers?
I feel like I stepped onto another planet when we walked in here after having lunch a block over.
“What haven’t you bought?” I question him.
He rakes a hand through his dark brown hair. “Let me think.”
I toss out my original idea for a baby gift. “I’m going to get that custom onesie made that I was telling you about.”
Onesie.
That was another foreign concept to me until Graham announced that he was going to be a dad.
He did that during one of our Buck Boys dinners.
It’s a term meant to pay homage to our time spent at The Buchanan School. Graham tells me he fucking hates being referred to as a Buck Boy, but secretly I think he loves it. I don’t think Kavan or Harrison mind it either.
“No.” His answer is direct. “My daughter is not wearing a onesie with your face on it.”
I skim a hand over my neatly trimmed beard. “She’d love it, Locke.”
“It would fucking terrify her.”
I laugh that off as the shop owner approaches us.
She’s a gray-haired woman with a penchant for pink.
Her outfit is light pink, her shoes a shade darker, and the ring on her finger is a sparkling pink diamond.
“Hi, Mr. Locke.” She bats her eyelashes. “Back for more?”
Graham turns to her. “My friend is looking for a gift for Sela.”
Little Sela Locke is due to arrive soon, and even though Graham thinks I’ve got nothing lined up in the gift department, I’ve already secured his baby girl’s college education with a fund I set up a month ago.
This foray into baby-world-retail-land is so I can grab a few extra minutes with one of my best pals.
“A book is always a special something.” The woman motions to the display. “I can help you pick out one, handsome.”
I perk a brow. “I’ll take one of each.”
“Sean,” Graham scolds me with a sharp bite of my name. “You don’t need to do that.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze it. “It’s the least I can do. I plan on reading our girl a few bedtime stories. I need to be prepared for that.”
The unexpected image of my grandmother sitting on the edge of my bed with a book in her hands when I was a kid shoots through my mind.
I remember those moments with fondness, and if I can create memories like that with Sela, I’m in.
“Thank you,” Graham says in a genuine tone. “You’re welcome to drop by whenever you want to read Sela a bedtime story.”
That tugs at my heartstrings more than I’ll admit, so I laugh it off as I face the boutique’s owner again and hand her my credit card. “Pack them up to be delivered to Graham’s home. I have a meeting I need to get to.”
Sitting in on my brother’s mid-afternoon meeting was a lesson in diplomacy. He can skillfully handle anyone with charm and grace.
On the other hand, I would have fired the entire accounting department for their recent missteps.
Declan chastised them in a way that will make them want to do better for him.
I know because I’ve been on the receiving end of my older brother’s disappointment a time or two, and it’s always pushed me to want to be a better person.
“Your thoughts, Saint?” Declan poses that question to me as I follow him into his office from the conference room.
“You’re a better man than I’ll ever be.”
He laughs that off. “Everyone deserves a second chance, Sean.”
I shut the door behind me. “I get that part of the accounting fuck ups had to do with software errors but you have to admit, that at least one of them should have caught the issue sooner.”
He shrugs that off. “It was caught.”
“After three days.” I wave three fingers in the air.
He mimics my movements but with four of his fingers. “It’s better than four days.”
I can’t argue that point, so I don’t. “What are you doing tonight?”
That draws his gaze to my face. “Why?”
It’s been years since I’ve arranged a blind double date for us, but his mind always wanders back to the night we had our last one. It was a shit show. The women we met up with were thirty years our senior.