“Well, he’s okay so I’m okay…but actually no. Not really.” He put his hand on his chest. “Did that not scare you?”
She laughed. “If he’s distressed, trust me, youwillknow. And also, I just rolled over and looked at that high-tech surveillance system you probably bought at a CIA garage sale and installed even though he’s right across the hall.”
He frowned. “A baby monitor is a totally typical thing to have. Even my parents had one.”
“Did theirs have high-definition video and also track his temperature and heart rate?”
“They might have if it existed. Don’t you have one?”
“Yes, I have a little baby monitor that’s a microphone on his end and a receiver on mine so I can hear him. It doesn’t double as a TSA body scanner.”
Stella, having sniffed Brian all over and determined that either he was fine or, if he wasn’t, there wasn’t anything she could do about it, circled wide around him toward the bed.
He put out his hand. “No dogs on that bed, Stella.”
She woofed once and veered just out of his reach before hopping up on the bed. Oliver wrapped his arms around her and she gave him sloppy morning kisses while he giggled.
“Since this is a test run, I’m going to go start a pot of coffee and leave you to it.” She blew Oliver a kiss and then looked back at Brian. “Do you need help getting up?”
While he might be fresh out of dignity, he still hadsomepride left. “Nope. Just a few more seconds of oxygen and I’ll be good to go.”
She was still laughing when she walked out of the room, and he had to listen to her moving the debris of the baby gate so she could go down the stairs. He waited until she was on the first floor before rolling over and pushing himself to his feet in case he couldn’t do it without some moaning and groaning.
Considering they got off to a fairly rocky start, getting Oliver up in the morning went surprisingly well. Brian got him changed and dressed with no problem. Because he’d been so tired last night, they’d skipped tubby time, but Siobhan said she’d given him a quick shower after daycare to get the sunscreen and bug spray off before the car ride. They brushed their teeth together, and Brian brushed Oliver’s hair before running the brush through his own.
He’d jump in the shower…later, he guessed. He’d have to remember to ask Siobhan or his mother how an adult who was alone with a toddler got to go in the bathroom alone and be naked under running water and unable to hear what was going on in the rest of the house.
He walked sideways down the stairs, holding Oliver’s hand while the child held the railing with the other. Brian wasn’t sure his nerves could take it, but he knew navigating stairs was an important thing to learn. About a third of the way down, Oliver gave up and butt-bumped down the rest, still holding Brian’s hand. That worked for him.
When he saw Siobhan sitting at the kitchen table, sipping her coffee in her pajamas, with her hair a messy cloud and one of his zip sweatshirts open over her sleep shirt, Brian’s heart ached in a way he hoped never stopped.
This was what he wanted.
It felt so right, her smiling at him and then at their son, who was a lot more interested in what Stella was doing than the adults. This felt like home to him, and he busied himself taking Stella out so Siobhan wouldn’t see the depth of emotion in his eyes.
Although, that would be hard for her to do since he realized once Stella was finished that Siobhan wasn’t actually meeting his gaze. They made eye contact once, and she’d blushed and looked away.
Maybe it was just typical morning-after shyness. This was the space where they’d probably have a conversation about what happened, how absolutely perfect it was—in his opinion, of course, but he was sure she’d also enjoyed it—and where they went from here. But between his near-death experience trying to save his son from absolutely nothing and then going through a very new-to-him morning experience, there hadn’t been a time for talking.
“I usually give him some water in his sippy cup when he first wakes up,” Siobhan told him. “I’m going to get dressed now and then we can do breakfast.”
She was gone before Brian could say anything, not that he had any idea what those words would be. They’d talked about a lot of things in front of Oliver because he was little and didn’t grasp a lot of concepts, but there was a line.
Brian got Oliver’s sippy cup from his bag and filled itwith filtered water from the fridge. Oliver thanked him in his little voice, making Brian smile, and then the boy toddled off to the living room, where he flopped down on the oversized dog bed that didn’t get a lot of use. Stella joined him there, and Oliver ran his fingers through her fur while having his drink.
It took Siobhan longer than Brian expected to get dressed, but he supposed she might be enjoying having the freedom of Oliver being watched over. She smiled at him when she finally came down the stairs, but it didn’t look like a smile to tell him she’d had a great time last night and wanted to do it again. It looked like anI have a very amusing secretsmile.
“Oliver, what do you want for breakfast?” she called, again delaying any kind of adult conversation.
“Eggs!”
She looked at Brian and shrugged. “Usually he likes oatmeal, and I brought a box. But I guess today, he wants scrambled eggs.”
“I can do that. How about you?”
“Scrambled eggs works for me.”
They worked side by side, him scrambling a skillet full of eggs while she fed bread into the toaster and buttered it when it popped. Brian noticed after the first round, she nudged the dial toward darker toast a bit, but he kept his mouth shut. He could live with darker toast if that’s how they liked it.
