Sitting up, I return the book to my nightstand and check the clock … three AM.
I must’ve passed out.
A few seconds later, faint whimpers trail from across the hall. Flinging the covers off, I tiptoe to Lucia’s room in hopes I can make it before she wakes Fabian. The cries cease the instant I scoop her out of her crib. Making our way to the kitchen, I kiss her cheek before preparing a middle-of-the-night bottle and carrying her back to her room.
We situate in the corner rocking chair, her favorite blanket draped over us, and I rock her as she plays with a strand of my hair, twirling it around her chubby fingers as she eats. A few minutes go by in silence when the creak of the guest room door is followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.
A second later, Fabian’s distinct, muscled figure fills the doorway. Leaning against the jamb in low-slung gray sweats and a white V-neck shirt that glows in the dark against his natural bronze tan, he’s a sight for sore, tired eyes.
Dragging a hand through mussed hair, he exhales. “Everything okay?”
He obviously doesn’t realize how babies work …
Which is understandable.
“Yeah, of course,” I say. “Sorry if she woke you. She started sleeping through the night around three months, but every once in a while she regresses for a week or two. I think this time it’s the teething. Totally normal though.”
“You want me to feed her? You can go back to bed if you want.” There’s a sexy, gravelly quality to his voice, one that makes me feel some kind of way.
“No, it’s fine.”
“I can’t sleep. Might as well make myself useful if I’m up.”
Lucia’s eyes grow heavy and the bottle is almost empty. I place it on the little table beside me and angle her over my shoulder, patting her back until I get a couple of burps.
“We’re about done here anyway,” I whisper before placing her back in her bed. When I’m finished, I meet him in the hall, pulling Lucia’s door closed. “You can’t sleep?”
He combs his fingers through his hair, eyes locked on mine in the dark as his musky, leathery, woodsy scent invades my lungs. It’s only now that I realize how close we’re standing.
“You want something to help?” I ask. “I have Tylenol PM … Benadryl … melatonin …”
Before he has a chance to answer, I’m shuffling to the kitchen and raiding my meticulously organized medicine cabinet.
“I was thinking,” he says as he watches me with a flicker of amusement in his dark eyes. “If you don’t mind, maybe I could replace that mattress for you.”
Stopping in my tracks, I ponder my response. If I decline his offer, he’ll be forced to sleep on that cheap discount store mattress for the next four weeks. If I accept his offer, he’ll probably buy something that costs twenty grand and then I’ll feel guilty about it every time I walk by.
“My bed is nicer,” I say. A top of the line hybrid, it was a gift to myself when I first bought this place. It’s hardly the sort of thing you’d find at a five-star hotel, but it’s leaps and bounds nicer than the one in the guest room.
Cocking his jaw, he smirks. “Is that an invitation, Rossi?”
“What? No. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, if you wanted to trade. You can take my room, and I’ll take the guest room.” Lifting a red and blue bottle of Tylenol PM, I give it a rattle and attempt to change the subject. “This stuff will knock you out in thirty minutes flat.”
“Got anything stronger?”
“I might have some Ambien? Though I’m pretty sure it’s expired …” I return to the medicine cabinet, rising on my toes as I work my way to the A section.
“What about whiskey? You have anything like that?” he asks.
“Actually.” Abandoning my post, I head to the cabinet above the fridge. “My neighbor, Dan, left some scotch here a few months ago.”
“Perfect.”
I grab the scotch and a small glass and pour a couple of fingers for Fabian. Dan’s going to be tickled when I tell him about this, I’m sure.
“Where’s yours?” he asks.
“I’ve got to get up in four hours …”
“Never been a fan of drinking alone,” he says. “Plus, I’ll be up before you anyway. Meeting my coach at seven.” Helping himself to the cupboard, he grabs an identical glass and pours me a smaller portion.
“This is a sipping drink,” I say.
“It is.” He nods. “But you can shoot it if you’re feeling brave.”
“It’s past three AM, I’m feeling exhausted,” I say. “And I just want to go back to bed.”
“Then bottoms up.” He clinks his glass against mine and shoots it without so much as a flinch, blink, or balk.
Crazy, brave, or a little of both?
“Fine.” I wince in anticipation, lift the amber liquid to my lips, and toss back what can only be described as fiery gasoline. My stomach recoils, responding with a flash of nausea that quickly subsides—thank goodness.
“Amateur.” He winks before rinsing his glass in the sink.
“I can’t believe you got me to do that.” Heading for the pantry, I grab an emergency pack of Double Stuf Oreos and pop one in my mouth to cancel out the whiskey taste. “Want one?”
I place the package on the counter and peel the top back all the way.
“When Carina and I were kids, we’d have a race and see who could ‘do a line’ the fastest,” I say.
“Do a line?” he asks.
“Yeah. A line of Oreos.”
“Let me guess, it was her idea?” he asks.
“One hundred percent.” I nudge the cookies towards him. “Come on. I know you eat, like, kale and egg white smoothies and this probably isn’t in your dietary guidelines, but don’t let me eat these alone or I will eat all of them.”
Examining the blue, white, and pink container, he reads the label. “Double … stuf. One F. That should be your first red flag right there. They can’t even spell stuff correctly.”
“They’re probably trying to be cute.”
“Or maybe the FDA wouldn’t let them call it ‘stuff’ because it didn’t meet their guidelines? So now they call it stuf with one f so they can get away with it?” he says. “Kind of like the word chocolatey.”
Brows narrowed, I say, “What’s wrong with chocolatey?”
“If a food says it’s chocolatey—with a y—that means there’s no real chocolate in it. Just chocolate flavor.”
“How do you know so much about this?”
“Years ago, this company wanted me to come out with a line of protein powders and meal replacement bars,” he says. “Would’ve been huge for me. Multi, multi millions of dollars on the line here. But since it would’ve been my name on the label, I started researching the ingredients and realized they were nothing but fillers and chemicals and the kinds of things that have no business going into the human body. It’s amazing, really, how they can take a shit product and package it in such a way that you think you’re buying something healthy. And then they price gouge you on top of it.”
I slide the cookies off the island and into the trash can.
“Thanks for the info, Fabian,” I say. “Now I’m going to have trust issues every time I go to the grocery store.”
“The more you know …” he winks.
“Maybe while you’re here, you can go through my pantry and throw out all the other Frankenfoods I’ve been deceived into thinking were acceptable to put into my body.”
“I’ll check the baby foods while I’m at it.”
I gasp. “Surely they wouldn’t poison babies, would they?”
The warmth of the scotch floods my body, a delayed reaction of sorts, and I brace myself on the island ledge. Without missing a beat, Fabian swoops in to steady me.
“You okay?” he asks. His hands are warm on my hips, and his body is all but pressed so close to mine I can smell the bleach from his t-shirt.
“Yeah.” I steady myself. “That shot just hit me all of a sudden.”
“Understandable for a rookie.”
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t always a rookie.”
“I imagine having a baby slows things down a bit.”
I realize now he hasn’t left my side, still anchored dangerously close to me, his eyes poring over every detail of my face as if he’s seeing it for the first time again.
“What’s … going on here?” I ask.
“Just looking at your facial features.”
“Okay, that’s not weird or anything.”
The side of his mouth lifts, flashing a dimple. “Just trying to determine which features of Lucia’s are yours and which are mine. It’s fascinating, these things. Genetics. So random yet so undeniable.”
“That’s why I went into the field,” I say. “It’s organized chaos with a paper trail. My favorite projects are the more mysterious ones, the families that aren’t super easy to map out. Love a good mystery—especially when it leads to a happy ending.”
I think of Fabian’s parents, whom he said he lost last year.
And the sister he wants nothing to do with.
“What were your parents like?” I ask, partly because I’m curious but also so I have something to share with Lucia when she’s older.
Raking his hand against his stubbled jaw, his gaze grows unfocused for a moment. “They were older when they had me. Early forties. I was a complete surprise, they said. My sister was their only child before that, and she was fifteen when I was born. Honestly, I hardly knew her. She got tangled up in the wrong crowd and was quite a handful from what I was told. I think they overcompensated with me, giving me all of their time and attention and energy, praying to God I didn’t turn out like her. Literally praying to God. I’ll never forget my mother lighting candles at church and begging the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to do something magnificent with me. That was the word she used. Magnificent.”
“Wow.” I lift my brows. “Guess they were listening, huh?”
He chuckles. “That or they knew they’d have to deal with her wrath once she got up there. My mother was no joke. Five foot two and could be terrifying as hell. But no one loved me more than she did.”
“What was your dad like?”
“Quiet,” he says. “Only really spoke when he felt he had something to say. In a lot of ways, he and my mother cancelled each other out that way. Or complemented each other. However you want to look at it. Worked at the same appliance factory for thirty-five years. Played racquetball when he could. Loved the Cubs. Other than that, he was a simple man.”
“Huh,” I say.
“What?”
“What’d he think of your anything-but-simple lifestyle?” I ask.
“He hated coming to Malibu. Hated the traffic. And all the people. I usually came home to visit. It was less stressful for him,” I say. “But my mother loved to come out. I’d put her up in a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills and she’d spend the weekend getting pampered before packing up and heading to my place to spend a week at the beach. It was her favorite thing in the world. And my staff always got a kick out of her because we could never predict what was going to come out of her mouth.”
“Sounds like my dad,” I say. “And Carina. They’re wildcards.”
Fabian hums. “Yeah. She was definitely a wildcard.”
“Which means you’re half wildcard,” I say.
He chuffs. “Yeah. Guess I am.”
“Though that would mean you’re also half simple man.” I lean against the island, examining him. “Which I don’t really see …”
“What about your parents? What are they like?”
“My dad is full-blooded Italian and he does this thing with his hands when he gets all worked up.” I toss my hand up, demonstrating. “And my mother’s name is Suzette, but everyone calls her Suze. She’s the quintessential midwestern stay-at-home mom. Volunteers around town, heads up a local book club, makes a melt-in-your-mouth cowboy casserole, and has an unhealthy addiction to Lifetime movies.”
“Who doesn’t?” Fabian teases.
“They adore Lucia though, to the point of being obsessed sometimes,” I say. “She’s their whole world. They’re already planning her first trip to Disney World, and Mom won’t stop knitting blankets for her. At some point, I’m going to run out of closet space. Anyway, she’s their only grandkid and probably always will be, so I don’t think there’s any way to talk them out of spoiling her.”
“No bambinos in Carina’s future?”
I let out a belly cackle, one that hopefully won’t wake the baby. “Never. She loves Lucia, but she has no desire to be a mom. She has her dog and her plants and an extremely robust dating life, and that’s all she needs. Granted, she’s twenty-nine, so things could change. But it’d be the shock of a century if she flipped that script.”
“How’d the two of you turn out so different?”
“How’d you and your sister turn out so different?” I lift a shoulder. “I could deliver an oral thesis on nature versus nurture, but it’s a quarter past four and I can barely keep my eyes open and the sun’s going to be up in a couple of hours, so …”
He checks the clock on the microwave. “Shit.”
Yawning, I cover my mouth so he can’t see the Oreo bits stuck in my teeth, bits that officially taste like shame and chemicals. “You sure you don’t want my bed?”
“Positive.”
I switch the kitchen light off and head for the hallway and Fabian follows.
We stop when we get to the end of the hall. Our doors line up perfectly, one across from the other. And in this still, small, quiet moment when exhaustion gnaws at my bones and whiskey flows through my blood, I know I should be climbing under my covers and chasing sleep like my life depends on it.
But I’m stuck here, my body refusing to move, as if it doesn’t want this moment to be over yet.
While it’s been a mere twelve hours since Fabian showed up at my door with his suitcase, I’m already enjoying his company more than I thought I would. He’s remarkably easy to talk to. My ex and I never stayed up late talking about anything and everything. And I always felt like I had to impress him with every word that came out of my mouth because he was witty and cuttingly sharp and charismatic.
That pressure, for whatever reason, isn’t there when I’m with Fabian.
“Thanks for your neighbor’s whiskey,” he says, eyes searching mine in the dark.
“Thanks for ruining my love of Oreos.”
His lips draw up at the corners, painting his face in a lighthearted grin that makes my stomach flip.
“Goodnight, Rossi,” he says, gripping his doorknob with his perfect, chiseled, million-dollar hand.
“Goodnight, Fabian.”
Disappearing into my room, I all but float to my bed.
One night down, twenty-seven to go.
There’s a chance this arrangement might prove to be harder than I expected—in ways I couldn’t possibly have anticipated.
Chapter 14
Fabian
* * *
I swipe the fog on the mirror in the hall bath Saturday, muscles tight from this morning’s practice. Today marks a lot of firsts for me—playing on some local real estate billionaire’s private court on no sleep being one of them. Second being the shower I just used—the one with shelves lined with yellow baby shampoo and matching rubber ducks.
Securing a thin bath sheet around my hips, I finger comb my hair into place before heading across the hall to grab my clothes. Only the instant I step into the hall—is the same instant Rossi happens to be passing by.
We collide.
My towel slips—though I manage to catch it … mostly.
I capture her gaze, holding it, testing it, while I secure my towel again. Tighter this time.
“I’m so sorry.” Rossi backs into the wall, pointing to Lucia’s door. “I was just coming to grab a diaper.”
Placing a hand on her shoulder, I wink. “All good. You sleep okay last night?”
; She nods, keeping her attention laser focused. “I did. You?”
Wincing, I say, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m having a new mattress delivered this afternoon. Same one I use back home.”
Quality sleep has always been a non-negotiable for me. My performance is shit without it. Same with nutrition. And last night was rough. But talking to Rossi in the middle of the night made it slightly less of an inconvenience.
My ex-fiancée used to try to wake me up in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep. And she’d always ask me the kind of questions that required more brain power than I could muster at 2 AM, like, “If you could save any endangered animal, which would it be?” or “If you could have dinner with anyone—dead or alive—who would you choose and what would you ask them?”
She never understood my annoyance—or the inconvenience.
I’d usually roll over, fall back asleep, and wake up alone with no covers.
Rossi, on the other hand, offered to trade beds last night.
“Oh?” Rossi’s brows rise.
“You can keep it after I leave. It’s a Duxiana,” I say. “It’ll just make things easier for me these next few weeks. I’m a bear if I don’t get my sleep.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she says, injecting a smile in her tone. “Speaking of this afternoon, I was going to see if you wanted to do a picnic? There’s a little state park not far from here. They’ve got a trail and a pond and lots of green space. Trees are starting to fill in and it’s going to be in the seventies today—maybe that’s cold to you back in LA, but out here it’s practically pool weather. Once it hits the forties, it’s not unusual to see crazy people walking around in shorts and flipflops.”
“I was one of those crazy people once upon a time,” I say.
“That’s right—I keep forgetting you grew up in the Midwest.” Her eyes drop to my chest for a flicker of a second. “Anyway. Picnic? Yea or nay?”
Can’t remember the last time I went on a picnic. Probably right around the last time I was running around a playground.
The Match - A Baby Daddy Donor Romance Page 10