She was exhausted.
Luckily her water baby still loved baths. Instead of trying to clean him up with wipes, she just put him straight into the tub and got warm water running from the tap. When he sat down and started to splash – he usually preferred splashing with hisfeet in an effort to send his head crashing into the tub spout – Akemi was finally able to take a moment to breathe.
She sat down on the cool tile floor and leaned back against the wall.
“I’m so tired I could cry,” she said aloud. “Don’t you still need a nap?”
Kaleo gave her a grin that made her heart somersault with joy.
“You’re worth it, though.” Akemi handed him a bath toy and leaned in, slumping against the side of the tub. “You’re perfect. It’s not your fault I’m struggling.”
She needed backup.
Various options spun through her head.
Recently she’d met a family with a traveling nanny. Maybe she should do that.
But the idea of interviewing strangers and finding someone she could trust with her son when she was already tired to the point of tears felt hopelessly overwhelming.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and called Lorenzo.
“Amore!” He picked up the call right away and greeted her with a delighted grin. “How are you?”
“Not great,” she said, but Lorenzo’s grin was so catching that she felt her face pull into a small smile of its own.
The man was gorgeous. He probably had a score of women knocking down his door.
At that thought, her smile disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Our child escaped containment today,” she told him.
A small line of confusion appeared between his eyebrows.
“He climbed out of his crib.”
“Very impressive! He is very advanced, our little lion.”
“Yeah, except he did it while I was on a work call, and he broke a glass pitcher in the kitchen.”
“Is he hurt?” Lorenzo exclaimed.
“He’s fine.” She put the phone in Kaleo’s face to capture his toothy grin. “Somehow he emerged unscathed.”
“Leoncino,” his father crooned. “Babbo sente molto la tua mancanza.”
Kaleo talked back to him in a string of baby babble that sounded vaguely Italian.
“We miss you.” Akemi was so tired that the words came out unguarded.
“I miss you too,amore. Both of you.”
Those words tugged at her heart, and suddenly she missed him so much that she could hardly breathe.
Paradoxically, that made her want to run as far and as fast as she could. She didn’t like missing a man; she didn’t like the hold he had over her. She just wanted her freedom.
Even so, she missed him.
