Not that I wouldmindgetting into her pants. I haven’t been able to focus on much else since I gave her the butt plug set and she said she wanted to take pictures, to be honest. But I’m sure she doesn’t want me involved in that, so I push it out of my head. She has more than enough to worry about without thinking the father of her child brought her butt plugs, hoping to sleep with her again.
But damn if I’m not hoping. Hard.
And she didn’t seem upset with me for bringing them, thankfully. I was worried about it the whole way here. It could have gone so much worse.
“That makes sense. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to reheat Thanksgiving leftovers, only to have them be ice cold in some places and scorching hot in others.”
She chuckles. “Exactly. Come on.” She gestures for me to follow her to the living room.
I’ve got Lincoln in my arms, practicing holding him, and he’s so soft I want to nuzzle into his squishy little neck. Babies must be magic if he has me wanting to do that a mere ten minutes after he pissed on me. “You ready to eat, little man?” He reaches up and smacks me in the face. “Hmm, that sounds like a yes to me.”
“Sit there,” she says, pointing to the end of the couch. “He likes to snuggle while he eats, and it’s easier if you have somewhere to rest your arm.”
She positions me with Lincoln resting in the crook of my arm and gives me the bottle. “He likes to put his hands on it, but he’s not great at holding it yet, so you need to keep it in position.”
As soon as I raise the bottle to his lips, Lincoln sucks at it like he’s starving. I guess what Phoebe was saying about babies having small stomachs is true even now that he’s a little older. He’s drinking like he’s never had a drop of milk in his life. My heart melts a bit more with each of the little grunting noises he makes every time he sucks the bottle.
It’s so weird staring into his huge brown eyes. They’re so much like my own, it’s like looking in a mirror to the past. I need to go dig up some baby pictures at my parents’ house to confirm, but I suspect Lincoln looks almost identical to the way I looked as a baby. Other than the crazy red hair he gets from his mother, that is.
“So I have a confession to make.” Phoebe hands me a cup of coffee and sits next to me on the couch. I hadn’t even noticed she’d left the room because I was too busy staring at Lincoln. I can’t help it. The kid is so mesmerizing I almost miss what she’s saying. “I checked you out.”
My head snaps up. She certainly has my attention now. “You checked me out?” I ask, wiggling my eyebrows. “Do tell.”
Her mouth opens to protest when she realizes what she said. “No, shit. No. That’s not what I meant.”
Pity.
“I meant I had you checked out. By a private investigator. And the police.”
I snort a laugh. “Yeah. Right.” She looks at me, her face devoid of expression but for a little redness on her cheeks. “Wait. You’re serious? Why?”
She cocks an eyebrow. “Do you really need to ask that? You may be Lincoln’s father, but it’s not like I know you. I needed to make sure he would be safe with you.”
I suppose that makes sense. Still, it’s a little disconcerting to know she had someone looking into me. Does she not trust in her own ability to keep him safe? Should I be worried about her bringing him around strangers if she isn’t confident she can keep him safe around me?
“Do you have self-defense training?” I blurt. “My buddy Lucas goes to a gym in town that teaches a lot of self-defense classes for women. Maybe we should get you registered for one.”
It’s her turn to snort a laugh. “What? Where did that come from?”
I look down at Lincoln and notice he’s sucked back almost the entire bottle. The little guy eats fast.
“If you can’t keep Lincoln safe around people, maybe you should get some self-defense training. You can’t have a private investigator look into every person who might come in contact with our son.”
She stands with a huff. “First off, I can keep Lincoln safe just fine, thank you very much. I didn’t have a check run on you because I can’t keep him safe. It’s because you’re his father, idiot, and I needed to know that you’ll keep him safe when I’m not around.” She stomps into the kitchen and yells back, “And I had to get a private investigator to find out your name because you didn’t give it to me in your long-winded, asshole-ish message.”
Ahh, fuck.There you go, being an asshole again, Archer. You need to cut that shit out.Of course she’d want to have me checked out. I should have thought of that and gotten a criminal records check done for her peace of mind.
“And another thing,” she says, storming back into the living room. “I’ve already talked to a lawyer. So don’t think you’ll be getting full custody.”
“What?” I splutter. Holy shit. When did the wheels fall off this thing? “I have no intention of taking a child from his mother. Do you think I would do something like that?”
“I don’t even know you!” she yells, throwing her hands up and running them through her hair. “For all I know, you could be dressing up in your Santa costume every weekend and impregnating women all over town to breed your own baseball team.”
I can’t help the grin that takes over my face. She’s adorable when she’s freaking out like this. Her hair is sticking up at odd angles from when she ran her fingers through it and her eyes are more than a little wild.
“Actually, I’m more partial to basketball,” I tease. “So if I were breeding any kind of sports team, it would have to be a basketball team.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t mock me. You don’t know what it’s like being a mom. All I do is worry about Lincoln. So I was worried about what kind of person you are and had some friends look into you. And then someone mentioned the custody thing and I’ve been freaking the fuck out. You can hardly blame me for that.” She comes over and flops back on the couch, a little farther from me this time. “I wanted my baby to have the chance to know his father. I guess I didn’t think about what would happen if his father also wanted to know him.” She heaves an enormous sigh.
