“Yeah, I told her about it earlier,” Ariel said. “But she’s not home. She said she had to run into town, but I’m pretty sure she’s hanging out with James again.”
“Really?” Callie raised a brow. “Now that’s interesting.”
“I agree.” Ariel stood up in tandem with her mom. “But we can’t tease her too much about it or she might stop hanging out with him just to spite us. C’mon, I’ll help you with the champagne.”
The two of them walked into the kitchen. Erica followed behind them, shaking out one of her hands.
“You decided to end your baby-duty shift?” Ariel asked.
“I had to. I didn’t want to wake Dot,” she said. “But the way she was sleeping on my shoulder kept me from moving my arm for a while, and it fell asleep. I handed her off to Taylor.”
“You did?” Ariel laughed. “Does Taylor even like babies?”
“I think so,” Erica said. “At least, he didn’t seem to have a problem with taking Dot.”
“Of course he likes babies!” Callie clicked her tongue. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” Ariel shrugged. “He never seemed too interested when my kids were that age.”
“That was a long time ago.” Her mom went to the fridge and pulled out the champagne bottle that was buried behind thestockpile of food items for Thanksgiving. “And I bet he wasn’tdisinterested. He probably just didn’t know how to interact with a baby. It can be intimidating to hold a newborn when you’ve never done it before.”
“I think Ariel’s right though,” Erica said. “Taylor likes kids, but he’s never been the type to fawn over a baby. Maybe it’d be different if it were his own baby. Who knows?”
Ariel shot her mom a look, like she was trying to discern something. Callie gave her a scrutinizing look back, wondering if Ariel knew about Taylor and Erica’s struggles to conceive.Would he have told her? He seemed so dead set on keeping it private.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re all talking about me?” Taylor called from the living room. His voice was followed by the sounds of the recliner creaking and footsteps approaching. “Or are the whispers about Mallory and her new man, because if that’s the case, I want in on the gossip.”
“Your ears were burning, weren’t they,” Erica said when her husband entered the room. “We were just debating whether or not you like babies.”
“Who, me?” He frowned. “I love babies! Who doesn’t like babies?” At that, he tickled Dot’s stomach and made her laugh. “What’s not to like?”
“You wereneverthat affectionate with my babies,” Ariel argued. “And you never asked to hold them or anything.”
“I’m sure I did!” he insisted. “But if I didn’t, it was probably because there was always a long line of people ahead of me who wanted to hold them. Between you, Chris, mom, dad, and Mallory, I never really got the chance. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like your kids when they were babies. I remember Becca was super lively. She laughed at almost anything I did.”
“I remember that.” Callie grabbed some flutes from the cupboard and started opening the bottle. “All you had to do was look at her and she would laugh.”
“She laughed at men in general,” Ariel said. “Which of course, I found very funny. Chris wasn’t thrilled, but it was better than Micah, who used to pull on Chris’s tie when he’d come home from work. We used to joke that he was trying to strangle his daddy, but looking back, that was a little dark…” She let out a soft laugh. “But that’s what those early years of parenting will do to you—you have to find the humor in everything, or else it gets overwhelming.”
“Well, I’ll have you know,” Taylor went on, “that I can do more than just make a baby laugh. Erica and I have been babysitting for a couple of our friends back home. Apparently, I’m very good at guessing what a baby’s cry means.”
“It’s true,” Erica confirmed. “It’s like he has a sixth sense or something.”
“Now that would be handy.” Callie laughed. “I would’ve killed for something like that when Mallory was a baby. I never knew what she was crying about and honestly, I don’t even think she knew what she was crying about half the time.”
“It will definitely come in handy if we end up adopting a baby,” Taylor said. “Although, we’re probably not going to put any age restrictions on our application, so we could end up with a kid of any age.”
Callie nearly dropped the bottle, she was so surprised to hear this.
“Wait…” She looked at Ariel, who seemed unphased. “So, you told your sisters that you were looking into adoption?”
“Yeah, we did,” Erica said. “The topic of babies just kept coming up since Dot was often in the room with us, so we decided it’d be weird not to tell everyone.”
“I didn’t know you already knew, mom,” Ariel said. “That’s why I was confused earlier when Erica mentioned something about Taylor being different with his own baby.”
“Wow, you guys really were talking about me.” Taylor scoffed. “Now I want to know what you said.”
Erica leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
