Page 16 of Harts & Hurts

Once I locked the door behind her, Anistyn and I found ourselves on the living room sofa. “This was the longest day ever.” She moaned as her head rested on the back of the sofa, and her eyes were glued to the ceiling.

“It was long as hell.” I agreed. “But it was productive too. I changed a diaper.”

“You did. And I gave my first baby bath.”

“Was it scary?”

She looked over at me. “So scary. All I kept thinking was, don’t let her drown. Dear Lord, please don’t let her drown.”

“You did good. I don’t think she was ever in jeopardy of drowning. You had control of the situation.”

“Thank you. I’m not ready to do it without Gretta present, but I’m sure I will be after a few more baths.”

We sat there in a companionable silence until I broke it. “Damn! It just dawned on me that I didn’t get to take you over to the main house. I wanted to get that done today.”

“Yeah, me too. But there was a lot going on today. Maybe we can go by tomorrow at some point . . .” She hesitated. “Unless you have work.”

“I’m off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I took today, and I’ll take Thursday, but I need to be back at the studio on Friday. I gotta get my head in the game. Training camp starts in two weeks, which means my season officially starts in two weeks. Gotta do my prep work.”

“Okay,” she said both slowly and softly. “I have to be honest; I don’t really understand your job. What kind of hours do you work?”

“Right now, it’s the off-season. It’s light work for me. I’m in the office . . . at the studio a few days a week, a couple of hours a day. Like Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I get there about ten in the morning and leave about four o’clock. or so. But two weeks from now, when the season starts back up, I’m there from like one in the afternoon until about nine at night. And I won’t even talk about game days.”

“Which days are game days?”

She looked so serious that I almost wanted to laugh, even while I wanted to scoff. When she said she didn’t understand my job, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t even know which days of the week football played on.

“Saturdays and Sundays, sweetheart. Saturdays are for college football. Sundays are for professional football.”

“Oh, okay.” She gave a nod of her head. “What are your hours on game days?”

“Shit. Noon to midnight.”

Her jaw fell. “Are you serious?”

I nodded.

“That’s . . . wow. Wow.”

I didn’t know Anistyn, but I was trying to learn her. That was a character trait of mine, and I’d been doing it since I was a kid. Whenever something puzzled me, or I couldn’t figure something out, I studied it. I’d done it when I played football, and currently, figuring out the things that didn’t make sense to me was literally my job as a sports analyst. I could tell by the way she said wow that she was overwhelmed. “What’s wow, Anistyn? I need you to talk to me. What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking that I’m gonna be spending a lot of time with baby girl by myself.” She fanned herself.

I had been lounging on the couch, but I sat up when she started fanning herself. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel overwhelmed. I told her so. “Anistyn.” She gave me her eyes, but her hand kept moving with the fanning motion. “The last thing I want you to feel is like you’re in this alone. It’s team Melrose all day. We’re the Hs. The Harts and the Hurts. If I didn’t have to work, there’s no way I would leave you with our girl by yourself for so many hours. But it’s how I’m gonna keep a roof over our heads and all that.” I took a deep breath. “The season is a few weeks off. It’s not too late for us to interview some nanny candidates.”

Her head was shaking before I even finished the sentence. “The judge said no nannies.”

“I think he would approve in⁠—”

She cut me off. “I don’t want to take that risk. If the judge takes her from us⁠—”

It was my turn to cut her off. “He won’t.”

“He can’t.” She took a deep breath and tried to regain control of her emotions. I could see the fight on her face.

“He won’t,” I repeated, moving closer to her on the couch. I threw my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to me. I had never made physical contact with her before except when we traded the baby from her arms to mine or something else to do with Melrose. Otherwise, I kept my hands to myself. She needed me, though. “We can ask Gretta to extend her hours.”

She actually rested her head on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what made her do that, but when she did, something warm and soft coursed through my body in the area of my chest. “You heard what she said earlier today. She said she was here to guide, not to do. I’ll figure something out.”