Her top teeth bit into her bottom lip. “You’re going to be a great dad.”
That hit him right in the feelings.
“Ye’re goin’ t’ be a great mom.” He chucked her under the chin.
That got him a slight chuckle. Not enough of a laugh. He’d need to work on that.
She glanced at her hands in her lap. “Can we be serious for a second?”
“I’m always serious,” he said seriously.
Then she gave him a full smile. Full sunshine. All Courtney. “You were just speaking like a pirate.”
“Good point.” He sat in the kiddie chair across from her, his knees going up to his chest. “Whatcha got for me?”
“Well…” Again, she glanced at her hands.
She’d painted her nails since yesterday. Good. She needed to take a little time for the things that mattered to her.
“I was trying to sleep. But I kept thinking about your offer of a place to stay,” she said as cautiously as if she were creeping through a construction zone in a stretch Escalade.
But that didn’t sound like a no. “Annnd?”
“I think we could try it.” She stopped wringing her hands, placing them on the acrylic table between them with a treasure map etching. “But if things aren’t working for either of us, we’ve gotta be honest about it. I don’t want Tiny Badass to have parents who fight every second of the day.”
Good news, he didn’t want that either.
Don’t get him wrong, this wasn’t the reason he’d gone on an arguing-with-Courtney fast, but it wasn’t a bad by-product of that decision.
“Agreed.” He nodded. “Not saying we’ll never argue in front of the little badass, but we can make it a point that it’s not habit.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t disagree,” she added quickly.
“Right. It’s about how we handle those disagreements.” He ran a hand over his newly cut hair. “Check it out. I’m being an adult.”
“Oh my God, Bax.” A sly smile hit her lips as she continued, “That’s the thing.”
“What’s the thing?”
Then the smile disintegrated, and she got way too serious for pirate ship discussions. “You don’t argue anymore. Even when I can see you have a strong opinion about something, you drop it. I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like which part? The strong opinion or the dropping it?”
“It just doesn’t feel right to me.” She shifted in her chair. “Like, we used to have our thing—it wasn’t a healthy thing, but it was ours. Now I don’t know where I belong in us.”
“Give me some examples.” Real-world experience dictated how he should move forward. Helped with the communication.
Again with the fucking adulting. He was going to be the best dad ever.
“Tiny Badass?”
“It’s a great name.”
“Me moving in?”
“A fabulous idea.”
“You didn’t argue your point on either of those things.”
