I’m not paying attention to her, so I am caught completely off guard when the baby is thrust into my hands.
“You’re a lifesaver, Sin. Thank you. How you’re single, I don’t know.”
“Wait, what?” What did I just agree to? The baby smiles like she remembers me and since I have her on my chest, in reach of my face, her tiny hand hooks my lower lip and she grins at me. “Oh, you caught me, did you? Better women than you have tried, shortcake, sorry to break the news.” Detaching her hand from my mouth, I follow Lydia into the other room. “Why am I holding your baby?”
“I told you, it’s just for a minute. I’ve been asking Gio to come out of that office and watch her, but you know how he is.”
That’s still not a reason, but she’s already waving me off, rolling her eyes, and heading upstairs.
Skylar’s little head bobs and she touches my face again, staring at me like she’s inspecting my cheek. At least she’s not covered in spit-up this time, I guess. “Well, shit,” I tell her. “Now what? Should we go see your daddy?”
She can’t talk yet, so she just makes a grunt-like noise and squeezes my nose.
I have the damndest urge to take a picture to send to Laur
el, but that would be mean. Still, she’d get a kick out of this baby man-handling me.
My thoughts drift to what it’d be like to have lazy days with Laurel and her baby. All babies like me, so I know hers would. Plus I’d be around from the start, so he or she would see me like its father, even with Rafe around.
I don’t know if Rafe has it in him to be a good dad. Or a good husband. When I initially decided to hand deliver Laurel to him, I didn’t know her, didn’t care about her happiness. She was a pregnant parcel that needed to be delivered to my thick-headed boss, and I was just going to keep an eye on it until he was ready for her. Whatever their relationship was like beyond that shouldn’t have mattered to me.
But then Laurel was Laurel, and now here we are. Me, with two hours of sleep on baby duty, having fucking daydreams about this baby being ours. Hers. I don’t know. Skylar is so fucking cute, she makes me hurt. I don’t know how I, of all people, have ended up babysitting this kid twice now. I like being the guy no one bothers.
Skylar smacks me in the face.
I level an unimpressed look at her and she gives me a big gummy grin. “You’ve got spunk, shortcake. You should’ve picked better parents. These two are gonna ruin you.”
Her response is just drool. A river of drool down her tiny little chin. At least she’s happy. I wish she’d been in a mood like this when Laurel babysat her. The last thing she needs right now is anything that makes her doubt her parenting abilities.
“Yeah, I guess you can’t pick your parents, huh?”
Since I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with her or how long until Lydia comes back for her, I head to Gio’s study. I rap my knuckles on the door once and he calls for me to come in.
Gio is in his chair, but he rears back when he sees I have his child on my chest.
“Moonlighting as a nanny now?” he asks.
“Seems that way,” I reply, shifting Skylar on my chest so I can reach into my jacket and draw out the envelopes I have for him. “I have to stop by Giordano’s later and have a little chat with him, but everything else is there.”
Gio reaches over to take the envelopes. “He giving you trouble again?”
“Not on purpose, but yeah. The business isn’t doing much lately. Good pizza. Too bad. Anyway, I’ll handle it, make sure he’s not late again next month.”
“I appreciate that,” he says, placing the envelopes down on the desk and leaning back in his chair. “You always do good work for us, Sin. Always have. I don’t want you to think no one notices. I notice everything.”
Unnoticed is not the thing I’ve been feeling lately. Unappreciated, sure, but it’s not like I don’t know why.
Anyway, I don’t thank him for appreciating me. It’s my job and I do it, simple as that.
I nod, looking at Skylar. She was ready to play a minute ago, but now she’s snuggled up on my chest, content as a kitten. “If that’s all, I should probably go find Lydia and give her back your kid.”
“No, no, stay,” he says, gesturing with his hand for me to take a seat. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Not unrelated, but... something else, still. How are you feeling about things lately? With the business? Are you happy?”
Shuttering myself off as suspicion creeps in, I give him a blank look, but I take a seat anyway. “Happy as a fucking clam. Why? Someone say otherwise?”
“No, no, of course not.” This is what Gio does when he’s uncomfortable—repeating certain shit twice. It’s always, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there,” or “No, no, sit down.”
“Let’s talk like adults,” I tell him, not in the mood to waste time. “What’s on your mind, Gio?”