She gasped and her jaw dropped.
“Actually,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest, “breastfeeding.”
I just nodded as I settled the baby against me, gently rubbing her back.
“I can’t believe you said that,” she said, shaking her head.
“Hey,” I murmured. “You opened that particular door asking about my balls.”
“I was joking!”
“So was I.”
Cecilia stared at me for a moment and then snorted. “Jesus,” she said with a sigh, her voice wobbling. Using both hands to comb her hair back from her face, she tilted her head toward the ceiling. “I’m so fucking tired.”
I didn’t know if it was the memory I’d stupidly conjured up or the fact that she seemed so vulnerable that made me do it, but I reached for her, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck to pull her in, tucking her against my chest next to the baby. I refused to think about all the shit between us, the history, or the fact that she’d be gone the next day.
Chapter 5
Cecilia
Trembling, I pressed my forehead against Mark’s chest. Somehow, without even knowing myself, he’d known exactly what I needed.
I was independent to a fault. I never asked for help if I didn’t have to, and I handled anything that came my way. But I’d never appreciated a hug more than I did at that moment.
We stood there holding each other for a long time. Mark’s hand didn’t stray from my neck, and I didn’t move my hands from where I’d placed them on his back. He rocked us slowly from side to side, his lips pressed to the top of my head, and eventually, I felt myself start to relax into him more and more.
“Come on,” he said eventually, his voice gravelly. “You need some sleep.”
I was groggy when he pulled away and it took me a second to get my bearings, but he hadn’t gone far. Standing at the side of the bed, his eyes met mine as he lifted the blankets in invitation. It was a bad idea and we both knew it, but I just didn’t have it in me to do anything but close the distance between us and crawl into the king size bed.
The sheets smelled like him. Whatever he wore—it was probably just body wash and deodorant—was different than I remembered, but his smell, the scent that was specifically him, hadn’t changed. Curling onto my side in the center of the bed, I let out a long breath.
“She’s sleeping now,” Mark said as he rounded the bed. He laid the baby down next to me so gently that I felt tears sting the back of my nose.
As he walked away, I rested my hand against her chest, comforted by the rise and fall. I was so caught up in watching her, my eyes barely open as the tension finally seeped from my body, that I didn’t realize he’d gone to the opposite side of the bed until he was sliding in behind me.
We didn’t talk about it. He didn’t ask if it was okay. I didn’t ask him what he was doing. By unspoken agreement, we just let it be, but I was hyperaware of every move he made. I was conscious of every inch between us. The tension I’d finally released was back, but it was fraught with more emotions than I knew how to name.
I curled my arm up under the pillow so my head rested in the crook of my elbow. He rolled to his side. I pulled my hand from the baby girl’s chest and tucked it beneath my chin. He fidgeted with the blankets.
Finally, he pressed forward, his body aligning with mine from knees to shoulders. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
I rolled slightly forward, straightening my bottom leg while the top stayed bent. Like a key fitted into a lock, his top leg slid over mine, and his weight pressed against my back. I closed my eyes as his hand skimmed my waist and slid beneath my shirt to rest against my ribs.
It wasn’t sexual, not in the way it would’ve been with anyone else. It was comfort. I couldn’t remember the number of times we’d slept that way, his body wrapped around mine. Still, I couldn’t stop the slight arch of my back and tilt of my hips that lined us up perfectly. His groan was nearly inaudible.
Then, miraculously, we slept.
I woke up later to the baby squirming next to me. She hadn’t started crying yet, but by the expression on her face, Armageddon was imminent.
“Where you going?” Mark murmured, his arm around me tightening as I started to slide away.
“Baby’s up,” I replied. He moved his arm and I crawled gingerly around the baby and off the side of the bed. When I stood, I cringed. Glancing between the baby and Mark, I considered my options. I really needed to get to the bathroom before I had a serious mess on my hands, but I couldn’t exactly take her in with me unless I wanted to lay her on the floor. Mark’s bathroom was clean, but he was a dude, and I highly doubted it was that clean. I could lay her on the guest room bed—
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“So, go.”
“Can she stay here with you?”
He stared at me, his expression confused. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” I said as I hurried around the bed.
“Stop fuckin’ thankin’ me,” he said tiredly, reaching up to scratch at his beard.
After I grabbed my supplies and cleaned up in the bathroom, I rifled through the bags we’d brought back from the store the night before. I’d gone a little crazy there, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Okay, maybe I was a little ashamed. When we’d gotten to the baby department, I’d gone a little manic when I’d realized how much shit she was going to need. I’d thrown things in the cart that I knew she probably wouldn’t use for a while, but some compulsion to have everything she could possibly need was overwhelming. Maybe it was the nesting that everyone had talked about and I’d never felt.
Grabbing a little footie pajama with a matching hat, a diaper, and wipes, I held them to my chest and picked my phone up from the nightstand. My mom had texted me while we slept and thankfully, they were only a few hours away.
After sending a reply, I walked slowly back toward Mark’s room. Now that I was fully awake, I was far more hesitant to just go traipsing around in his space. I didn’t belong in there. I didn’t even belong in that house.
As much as I’d appreciated the familiar warmth and strength of his body, it hadn’t made me any more comfortable in his presence. Actually, it was the opposite. I felt more on edge now than I’d been before.
“You’re pretty,” Mark said as I stopped in the doorway. He was leaning up on his elbow with his back to me, and his head was tilted down looking at the baby. “Just like your mama. And you’re bossy like her, too,” he said as she squawked. “I know, I know. You’re not bossy, you just know what you want.”
I leaned against the doorjamb, unable to move forward as my heart pounded. Jesus, the sight of him leaned over her like that brought back dreams I’d long forgotten—and grief that I’d refused to acknowledge for the last decade.
“She’ll be back in just a minute with the goods,” Mark said with a soft chuckle. “No need to get all wound up. There you go, princess. Feels good to have a little freedom, huh?” Just as he finished speaking, she let out a wail that could probably be heard from across the street. “Shit,” he yelped.
“What happened?” I barked, hurrying around the bed.
“I just unwrapped her,” he replied defensively, using one hand to ineffectually try to wrap her back up.
“She’s probably just cold,” I reassured him, letting out a relieved breath as I lifted her from the bed. As soon as she was pressed against me, her mouth started rooting around at my neck. “Babies like being wrapped up tight because it makes them feel secure. It reminds them of being on the inside.”
“Ah, like a halfway house for newborns,” he said, leaning back on the pillows to watch me.
“I’ve never heard it put that way,” I replied. “But yeah, I guess.”
“You should probably figure out what you’re going to call her,” Mark said as I laid the baby back down and went to work changing her diaper and clothes. “She n
eeds a name.”
“I’ll name her when I’m ready.”
“Better decide soon or I’m going to start calling her Cecilia,” he said, his lips twitching.
“Your friends are a trip,” I replied. Every time I tried to thread one of her legs into the little pants portion of the outfit she bent the other one back up against her belly and I had to start the process all over again. I was regretting not just buying her more nightgowns. Her cries turned into wails.
“Cec,” Mark said as I grew more and more flustered. He reached over and slid his hands under the baby, lifting her to rest with her butt on his chest. “Just feed her and then you can get her dressed.”
He patted the bed beside him and against my better judgment, but following my gut instinct absolutely, I crawled back onto the bed. He handed her over and after a couple attempts to get her all lined up, the room grew silent as she latched on.
“You’re a good mom,” Mark said, watching me.
“I don’t know about that,” I huffed. I’d been a mother for less than twelve hours. I had plenty of time to fuck it up royally.
“You’re a natural,” he murmured.
“No one is a natural,” I countered, running my hand over her mostly bald scalp. “It’s like all of a sudden this new person is just there, and you have to remember all this shit—how to be careful of their umbilical cord, and how to change a diaper, and support their head and don’t even get me started on the whole nursing bullshit.” I looked at him. “Breast may be best, but it’s a fucking nightmare at first.”
“Yeah?” He actually seemed interested, so I kept going.
“Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “I was only planning on the first couple of days—get her started on the good stuff, you know? But Jesus. She wouldn’t latch on correctly and my nipples hurt like a motherfucker for the first two days. Seriously. Agony. And I had all these lactation nurses coming in and out, feeling me up and talking in these super soothing, annoying as fuck tones when I really just needed them to give it to me straight. They finally set us up with these little plastic contraptions that went over my nipples, but then I lost them somewhere and we had to figure out how to do it old school anyway.” I shook my head. “Plus, I’m always thirsty. I have to drink a shit ton of water and I hate water.” I sighed. “We figured it all out eventually, though.” I rubbed at a spot on the side of my breast that ached like someone was pinching me really hard. The first week of baby girl’s life had been a whirlwind of nursing and pumping so Liv could give her bottles when I wasn’t there.
“Feelin’ you up, huh?” he said, lifting his arms up to cross them behind his head.
“Of course that was the part you latched onto.”
“Nice pun.”
“I thought so,” I said, grinning a little.
“Well, she seems to have the hang of it now,” he said with a sigh.
“Yeah. It helps that my milk came in, so she’s got immediate satisfaction.”
“I have no idea what that means, but I’ll take your word for it.”
We were quiet for a few minutes and I took the time to actually look around his room. Just like in the guest room, the furniture in his bedroom was no joke. It looked heavy and solid and expensive, and I wondered if he’d picked it out himself. There was a chair in the corner that had a pile of folded towels on it and a jacket tossed over the back. The dresser was clean and mostly bare beyond a photo I recognized of him and his mother when he was little. I quickly looked away from it.
“I don’t spend a lot of time in here,” he said, dragging my attention back to the bed. “We’re not home very often.”
“Do you like your job?” I asked curiously. When we were young, he hadn’t spoken much about what he’d wanted to be when he grew up. He’d always been good with building and fixing anything mechanical, and I guess I’d assumed that he’d work in the club’s garage and take his place in the hierarchy. His life now was so far removed from what I’d envisioned for him—for us.
“Yeah, I do,” he said, shifting a little on the bed. “It’s satisfying and I like never seeing the same thing twice. Shit is always shifting and changing. Keeps me on my toes.”
“Is it dangerous?” I asked quietly.
“Life is dangerous,” he replied seriously. “No matter what you’re doin’ with it.”
“Fair point.”
“I’m good at what I do,” he continued. “And my team is the best I’ve ever worked with.”
“They’re an odd mix,” I replied.
“Probably why they work so well together,” he said. “Everyone brings their own shit—faults and assets—to the table.”
“Are Josiah and Ephraim brothers?” I asked. “Because they almost seem like they could be twins.”
“Cousins, actually,” he said in surprise. “Most people don’t catch that.”
“It’s in their mannerisms,” I explained. “The way they move, the way they smile, even their voices are similar.”
“Get the two of them together and fuck,” he said, drawing the word out with a small chuckle. “They could convince the Pope that Jesus was a figment of his imagination.”
“Persuasive, huh?” I asked as I brought the baby to my shoulder to burp her.
“Charming is the word you’re looking for,” he said ruefully. “Snake oil salesmen, the both of them.”
“Does that come in handy?”
“More times than you would think.”
After the loudest burp I’d ever heard coming from someone so small, I laid her on the bed between my knees, quickly finished dressing her, and wrapped her snugly again. “This is another thing that I had no fucking clue how to do before she came.”
“Sure you did,” he said, leaning over to look at her. “You’ve made a burrito before.”
I raised my eyebrows in realization. “Well, fuck.”
Mark laughed. “Lay back down,” he said, his face going soft in a way that was both familiar and brand new. “Maybe she’ll sleep for a while.”
“The sun’s up,” I argued, glancing at his windows.
“You got somewhere to be?”
I looked back at him and dropped all protest when his eyes met mine. The pull was as strong as it had ever been, and I was too worn out to fight it. Not now. Not yet.
This time, when I settled the baby on the open space between me and the edge of the bed and laid down on my side, Mark didn’t hesitate to curve his body into mine. He reached beyond me and set his hand on the tightly wrapped bundle for a moment before his arm came back around my waist and slid up my shirt.
I didn’t bother hiding the arch of my back or the tilt of my hips and he didn’t try to muffle his groan. His lips pressed against the back of my neck just before his body relaxed. It didn’t take him long to fall back asleep, but I laid there for a while, listening to his breathing.
If someone would have told me a week before that I’d end up in Mark Eastwood’s bed again, I would have laughed in their face. I still remembered the devastation he’d wrought, the days I hadn’t been able to crawl out of bed and when I finally had, the absolute confusion I’d felt about what I was supposed to do with myself. My world had started and ended with him, and then suddenly, he’d been gone and I’d been completely rudderless. It had taken me a long time to dig myself out of the hole he’d left me in.
Counting on him again was probably a mistake. I knew that. But, as I lay there next to him, I reminded myself that this was temporary. He was an old friend who had come through for me in a big way, but that was all this was. Maybe if I kept repeating that, I’d be able to keep my feelings in check.
I must have fallen back asleep because we woke up later to the sound of my phone ringing on the nightstand.
“Hello?” I answered groggily.
“We’re outside,” my mom said. “At least I hope this is his house. We’ve been knocking for five minutes.”
“Shit,” I sputtered, sitting up. “I’ll be right there.”
“They’
re here?” Mark asked, throwing back the bedding.
“Yeah. God, what time is it?” I checked my phone. “Shit, it’s almost one.”
“They made good time,” he said as he got out of bed.
“Oh, my God,” I said, realizing that we’d been asleep for over three hours. She never slept that long. Snatching the baby up off the bed, I shuddered. As soon as I had her against me and could feel her breathing, I let out a watery sigh of relief. She was okay.
“What?” Mark said, staring at me.
“She slept for so long.”
“That’s a problem?”
I didn’t answer because suddenly we could hear someone pounding on the front door.
“I have a feeling my dad is done being polite,” I said in amusement as I swung my legs off the bed.
“Let’s get this over with,” Mark said as he led me out of the bedroom.
“Not looking forward to the reunion?” I asked dryly.
“I’m not your pop’s favorite person,” he muttered. When we reached the entryway, he paused, opening the drawer of a small table behind the couch. My eyes widened as he pulled out a pistol. “Just a precaution,” he said easily.
“Uh, you might not want to be holding that when you open the door,” I cautioned.
“You might be right,” he mused with a chuckle, setting it on top of the table within arms reach.
He unbolted the lock and swung the door open, and there, looking tired and worried, were my parents and brother Cam.
“I swear to God, CeeCee,” my mom griped as they came into the house. “You’ve given me more gray hair than your brother and sisters combined.”
She came straight for me, and as soon as she’d reached me, her arms were wrapped tightly around me and the baby. “That was the longest trip ever,” she said softly, kissing the side of my head. She leaned back to meet my eyes. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” I replied.
“I’ve had the stress shits the entire way,” Cam complained as he came up beside us. “Hug me quick so I can find a bathroom.”
Craving Cecilia Page 6