This is much better than taking care of myself,I thought while laying in bed.
Sex aside, Jordan was the kind of guy I’d always wanted. Big and strong, but not a bully. Kindhearted. His job was tohelppeople. The kind of guy that ticked all of my boxes. I never expected to find someone like him.
Let alonethreeof them.
Jordan’s offer hardly seemed real. He and the other two firemen wanted tosharea woman? And they had considered me? It kind of felt like someone offering me a winning lottery ticket. It was too good to be true. There had to be a catch.
Did I want that? Jordan and I had only just started seeing each other, but it seemed like we had a good thing going. I was attracted to Taylor and Derek, that was certain. But there was a difference between appreciating a guy as eye-candy and wanting to be shared by them like a Netflix password.
I shook it off. I didn’t want to think about it right now. I was too happy after sleeping with Jordan. My lady-parts ached wonderfully, like leg muscles after a really good run. I would sleep well tonight.
At least, I might have if not for the baby.
Anthony woke up a few minutes later, whining softly in his basket. “I’m here, little guy,” I said while picking him up. “You’re loved.”
He was wet, so I retrieved a clean diaper from the drawer and set about changing him. It was tougher than I expected. Just remove the old one and strap on the new one, right?
Nope.
Baby Anthony squirmed and squealed. Despite being an infant, he had a surprisingly strong kick. Eventually I got the new diaper on, but it wasn’t a cakewalk.
I expected him to go back to sleep now that he was changed, but he was wide awake and ready toparty. It was too soon to feed him again, so I bounced him on my shoulder and hummed him a song.
Eventually he went back to sleep. I crawled into bed and tried to do the same, but he woke again an hour later. I prepared a bottle, fed him, and then put him down again. Hopefully that would be the last time.
It wasn’t.
I could see why the guys struggled with him this weekend. He woke several more times in the night, once with a dirty diaper, and two other times for no apparent reason. I sat up in bed with my back against the headrest and let Baby Anthony sleep against my chest, but whenever I carried him back to the basket, he woke right back up again and started crying.
All in all, I got about two hours of uninterrupted sleeptotalthat night.
I never heard the guys return from their call. Jordan didn’t check on me—probably because he assumed I was asleep—and the soundproof walls in the bedrooms did a good job of muting all sound. Itwouldhave been a perfect environment for soundless sleep if not for the infant I was sharing the room with.
Baby Anthony was wide awake—becauseof coursehe was—so I carried him out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The guys were putting away their breakfast dishes, but all of them brightened when they saw me and the baby.
“There’s our little station mascot!” Taylor said happily. He came over and squeezed Baby Anthony’s cheek. “You must have slept through the night.”
I scoffed. “What makes you think that?”
“I checked on you half an hour ago,” Jordan told me. “You werepassed out. You didn’t even respond when I told you breakfast was ready.”
“That’s because hedidn’tsleep through the night,” I said wearily. “He kept me up all night.”
“He’s got a set of lungs on him, that’s for sure,” Derek muttered.
I frowned at them. They were wearing their boots and blue fireman pants already .“Are you guys going somewhere? The alarm isn’t going off.”
“We’re giving a presentation on fire safety at the Clearlake Summer Camp,” Jordan explained. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”
“I made you extra breakfast!” Taylor said. He pointed. “Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. There’s a plate in the oven to stay warm.”
“You’ll note the oven isoff,” Derek said dryly. “It keeps plenty warm inside without the risk of burning the place down.”
I was too tired to say anything back. But Jordan came to my defense instead.
“You made your point about the oven last night,” he said to his chief. “Drop it.”
Derek gave him an even look, as if wondering whether or not he should be taking orders from one of his subordinates. But then he put the last dish away in the dishwasher and said, “We’d better go.”