He and Aiden herded the two oldest kids out of the room, leaving Thea with a big wrapped box of ruffle-butt baby clothes for the newborn. Ana patted a spot on the couch next to her.
“To be clear, I wasn’t surprised to see Aiden talking to the kids; he does that all the time when he’s here. I was surprised to see you twotogether.” She cocked her head. “Funny that the guy with a different blonde every night settled down with a brunette.”
“Heh, yeah.” Thea shifted uncomfortably on the couch, both at the lie she was perpetuating with Ana and at the idea of Aiden gravitating back toward blondes again soon. “What a contrast, huh?”
“Oh. I didn’t mean it like that.” Ana rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Sorry, nuance escapes me when I’m only sleeping three hours at a time. What I mean is, I’m glad he realized what a catch you are.”
Thea’s lips started to shape a hasty denial, but she bit it back. Ana and Dave weren’t in the loop on their arrangement, but at this point Thea herself wasn’t quite sure what their arrangement looked like anymore.
While she was sorting through her confusing thoughts, Ana changed the subject. “How’s the station doing while Dave’s on paternity leave?”
From one unpleasant subject to another. “Fine. Mabel’s a good solo host, but the station’s kind of boring without Dave around.”
The station was kind of boring, period. Not for the deejays of course;theirjobs were dynamic and engaging. And the ad reps had endless meetings and copywriting tasks that always seemed fun. But answering the phones for people doing far more interesting things was definitely not her idea of exciting. Then again, she was a lady with a mortgage now, so she couldn’t exactly go hopping from job to job. Her professional future stretched in front of her as one long slog of taking messages and watching other people do cool things.
“Would you mind?” Ana deposited the newborn into Thea’s arms and stood. “I want to get a fresh bottle started.”
“Um. Okay?” She nervously cradled the breakable little human in her arms, looking around the empty room for help. But it was just her and the kid. “Let’s just be cool till they’re back, little Lucille. Don’t choke or cry or anything, all right?”
The baby blinked up at her, and Thea tentatively rocked her back and forth a fraction of an inch in each direction, holding her breath the whole time.
“Such a natural.”
The gently amused voice pulled her attention away from Lucille’s round little-old-man face. Aiden leaned against the doorway, watching her with a lopsided smile. Then he strolled across the room and sat down next to her, helping reposition the baby into a more comfortable position in her arms. Once that was done, he brushed his fingers over the downy black hair on top of Lucille’s head with such gentleness that Thea’s ovaries vibrated.
“I thought you didn’t do babies,” she said quietly.
“Don’t have much experience,” he said in an equally soft tone. “Didn’t say I don’t appreciate them.”
Oh no. Aiden Murdoch likedbabies. How was she supposed to survive this? It was enough to give a girl ideas, even if that girl had no interest in long-term relationships. But watching him with a baby, knowing that he preferred to eat his pizza crust first, recalling how his breath caught in his throat right before he came, it was too much intimacy for this fake/not-fake relationship. Things could spiral out of control if she didn’t keep reminding herself that they had a mutually agreed-upon breakup looming just down the road and he had his player ways to get back to.
As Thea was being bombarded by inconvenient musings about the man on the couch next to her, Lucille proved that she’d inherited her father’s comedic timing by widening her big dark eyes, opening her rosebud mouth, and spewing a thin white trickle of vomit all over Thea’s hands and dress.
“Aggh!” she cried as Aiden threw back his head in laughter.
“What happened to teamwork?” she hissed.
His only answer was to pluck Lucille from her hands. He gingerly slung the baby over his shoulder. “I got this now that she’s all puked out. You go ahead and—”
Then his eyes widened as another stream of vomit poured from the baby’s mouth down his back, and now Thea was the one doubled over and laughing.
“Teamwork!” she wheezed.
When Ana returned with a bottle, Aiden swiftly handed over the baby, and they said goodbye to the Chiltons a short time later, leaving in a much stickier state than when they’d arrived.
“Looks like we both have some laundry to do,” she said.
“Yep.” He twisted to check out the damage to the back of his shirt as they headed to his truck. “I should probably head home since I’m technically still wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
“Mmmkay,” she said as neutrally as possible.
“Or…” He held open the passenger door and gave her a boost.
“Or?” Her pulse picked up.
“Or we swing by my house so I can get a change of clothes, and I finish painting your bedroom while you lounge around naked and shout encouraging words.”
She pretended to think about it. “Is this just a trick to get me to wash your clothes?”
