“Would it have been bad if I’d actually picked something off the list?”
“Remember that time you walked in on Harris and Lucy having sex in his office at First Bass and you couldn’t look her in the eye for a month?” He groaned but nodded. “Well, I’m pretty sure that would have happened again.”
“Gotcha.” He glanced around at all the baby stuff, his shoulders drooping in defeat. “So what do I get her instead? One of those mommy pamper things she was talking about?”
“You want to give Lucy breast pads, nipple butter, hemorrhoid wipes, and feminine pads?” I asked, tilting my head to the side as I stared at him in amusement.
His face turned beet red. “What?” he whisper-shouted. “Oh, motherfuck, I need a drink.”
“It’s not even noon.”
“Doesn’t matter. I need alcohol for this shit.”
Laughing out loud at him, I pushed him toward the girl section. “Relax. I’m going to help you out. I’ve seen every outfit Lucy has already purchased for Hayat, as well as what the grandmothers have gotten. You can buy our goddaughter a few dresses, a stuffed animal, and like a truckload of diapers, and Lucy will love you forever.”
Seeing a particularly pretty little dress that I instantly fell in love with, I grabbed it in two different sizes and handed them to Jace.
“That’s the same dress,” he stated the obvious.
“Yeah, but it’s so pretty, and Hayat won’t be able to wear the smaller size for long. This way, Lucy will have another one to dress her in when she outgrows it.”
“Oh. Yeah, good thinking.” For the next few minutes, I thrust several more outfits at him, then made him pick out a stuffed animal on his own. “The nursery is decorated in pink with purple trim, but they went with a zoo theme with all kinds of adorable little animals, so you won’t go wrong with any of these.”
He picked up a gray elephant. “This is cute.”
I lifted the one beside it, noting how soft it was. I rubbed it against my face. “Very nice. Get it if you want,” I told him.
Adding that to the basket another saleswoman had offered earlier when she passed and saw how full Jace’s arms were, I led the way toward the diapers. “Lucy said she preferred this brand, but her mom said she would need more size one diapers at first than the newborn ones, especially if this baby takes after her daddy.”
He handed me the basket and grabbed three large boxes of the size ones. “What else?”
“This should be plenty,” I assured him.
Silently, we carried his items back to the sales counter. I stood with him while the manager scanned everything, waiting for her to get done with him so I could let her know I needed to pick up my present.
“Do I wrap these up? Put them in a gift bag?” He frowned at the large bag the woman was placing the folded clothes into. “You usually do all that shit for Ch
ristmas and birthdays, so I don’t really know what to do with this stuff.”
“I can wrap everything in tissue paper and place them in a gift bag for an extra charge, sir,” the woman assured him.
“Oh. Uh, yeah. Thanks.”
“Teddy bears or blocks?”
He looked at her like she was talking gibberish. “What?”
“The bag, sir. Would you prefer teddy bears or blocks? We have the blocks in both pink and blue, but from all these dresses, I would suggest pink if you go with that.”
“Kin?” he asked, uncertainty in his voice and mirrored on his face.
“It’s a gift bag, Jace,” I told him with a snort. “Either will be fine.”
He sighed and nodded. “Teddy bears, then, I guess.”
The woman smiled kindly. “Perfect choice, sir.”
Jace paid for everything, and the woman started to take the items into the back to put into the gift bag for him. I stopped her as she turned to go. “I’m picking up a present, actually. Kin Montez.”