I wasn’t paying attention to his useless attempts at assistance, too busy scrolling through a list of actual reasons babies cried.
Fever. Colic. Toe tourniquet. Intestinal distress. Temperament.
The list went on and on—and on, all with Mark twittering in the background about who knew what.
Relax? Ha. Who could relax?
“Just distract me until my heartrate drops below triple digits. I am not calling Mom again or bothering Jenna.”
“Fine. I’ll distract you. Here’s a list of the top ten reasons infants cry.” I cleared my throat as we both stared at Eloise. Her tiny face was still red, but she stopped kicking her feet and shaking her fists. We held a collective breath and waited—for what, who knew? Perhaps to see if she’d finally given up her wailing, or maybe to determine who would call the hearing specialist.
With another bloodcurdling cry, she started again, and I stood, cradling her like a football as I paced the living room.
“No. No. Nope. I’ve done more reading today than I have all month. None of the lists have a decent explanation for why my little princess has turned into a wailing banshee. Distract me with something else. Why did it take you so long to answer me?”
“Emma stayed over last night. If you must know.”
He stopped with his hand partway through his scalp and smiled, the expression borderline scary with the dark smudgesunder his eyes and spit-up stains on his shirt. “Really? I didn’t know you two were an item.”
“Shit, Mark. Are you five? Would you like to know if I passed her a note after biology?”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” he reminded me as I paced, doing a slow lap through the dining room and kitchen before returning to where he sat on the sofa. He’d lain down and thrown his hand over his face, and I was contemplating getting out of the house and walking around the yard when he started talking again.
“Nah, but something tells me your revolving door of women has thinned out since you started things up with her again, right? Why not make it official?”
I scoffed, not bothering to answer, as he propped one elbow on the arm of the sofa.
“Is the third Hansen brother finally going to take the leap and settle down? Should I alert theTimesand Mom to start looking at invitations and color swatches?”
“Are you high from sniffing your kid’s head too much? What’s with the third degree?”
It wasn’t that I was offended—well, maybe a little, but he’d never cared at all about my sex-capades before.
Something was definitely up.
“Nah. Just thought since Magnum and I have settled down, you might be thinking along those same lines. I mean, Mom is nuts about Emma.”
Yep. I walked right into a trap. Stupid, Miller.
“Just because Magnum hardly sleeps at home anymore doesn’t mean he’s settled down.”
“Sure.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hiking Eloise a little higher on my shoulder. Thankfully, she had calmed down as much as a cranky baby could.
“And just because you’re content to not be able to settle your own baby, living in the house we grew up in, doesn’t immediately mean I’m ready to follow in your footsteps.”
“Harsh,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Low blow.”
“Yeah? Well, so is making me feel like an incompetent doofus. I ran over here, worried something was seriously the matter, only to find out it was some lame attempt to ask me about my love life. Mom put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“No. That wasn’t it,” he said, standing and slapping me on the arm as I continued to pace with Eloise. “Not really. You haven’t been around the last couple of weeks, and I just figured you were with a new chick. When you said you were with Emma, I assumed you were giving things a real chance.”
I shrugged, only partway believing him because this had our mother written all over it. Half of her boys were in committed relationships, and it gave her the itch to make sure the other half went the same way.
“Regardless of the fact that I think you and Emma should get together,” he went on as I avoided his eyes and turned to walk in the other direction, “I, uh, miss talking to you.”
I turned and watched him rub the back of his neck and stare at a spot on the carpet below him.
