opening them.
“I’m right here.”
She huffs a quiet, playful sound and shakes her head. “I meant, do you understand, or have I confused you?” She’s holding up an outfit with snaps that go from the top all the way down one leg to the foot area and I have no idea what she was saying.
How am I supposed to focus on anything?
“I am lost.” I might as well have been dumped on a baseball field for as much as any of this means to me.
My phone rings with the ringtone that says it’s the desk downstairs and I jump at the noise. It has to be Byron but I’m holding Angelo and I glance at my phone then the bundle in my arms.
Paisley appears in front of me, arms outstretched, smiling so kindly. “I can take him while you get the phone. You’ll figure out how to do both soon.”
“Thank you.” This shouldn’t be so difficult, right? People parent babies all the time. Except they have notice, I suppose. Time to prepare. I have nothing except from what Paisley said, enough diapers to get through the night. I hand him off and grab my phone.
“Now the desk calls and tells me I have visitors,” I mumble.
Behind me, Paisley laughs.
I answer the phone, allow Pierre to send Byron up to me and when I set the phone down, Paisley is doing the rocking and swaying thing. I have to learn how to do that.
“Have you spent time with babies?” I ask. It seems such a natural thing for her.
“I worked at a daycare center in high school and usually worked in the infant room, so yeah, a little.”
“You know what to do.” I cringe. I must seem so dumb to her, and I don’t like looking dumb in front of her.
Her green eyes soften and that sweet smile appears. She has a dimple on her right side. It makes her prettier.
“You’ll figure it out. And the most important thing about babies is that they need love, feeding, changing, and sleep.”
Four things. I can do four things. She makes it sound so easy but it’s a human I might now be responsible for by myself with a life that is not meant for this. It’s anything but simple or easy.
There’s a quick, loud knock at my door and our gazes swing in that direction before I return to her…
“You can get the door,” she says, reading my thoughts. “I’ve got him.”
I let out a relieved breath. Byron is loud. He’s going to give me so much shit for this, but this is his fault.
Well, not the baby-making part, but he was part of the crew who insisted I get out and experience life and the benefits of being a pro hockey player. I can’t blame him for the rest but if I would have stuck to hockey, none of this would be happening right now.
I open the door, standing in the doorway, Byron and Hannah are both there.
“Thank you for coming.”
He practically shoves me out of the way and he squares his large form up to Paisley. I barely have time to step back and allow for Hannah to step in right behind him, thank goodness, when Byron barks out an evil sound.
“Sweetheart, if you think you’re getting money from this man here, you’re barking up the wrong tree. No way in hell that baby is yours.”
Oh. Oh no. He read that wrong. Or maybe I explained it wrong. I flip back to what I said on the phone but can’t remember.
“A baby?” Hannah says on a breath.
I step in front of Byron, hands out. Paisley’s face has paled and then scrunched.
“It is not hers.” I lower my voice. He was with me on my birthday. “Angela,” I say quietly. But I’m also pretty sure I shorten her name to one syllable.
Louder, I continue. “She left him here. In the hallway. Paisley, she is my neighbor. She found him.”
“Oh,” Hannah gasps and her fingers fly to her mouth. “That’s so…”
“Shitty?” Paisley snaps and again I am struck by the anger in her too.
“What the fuck?” Byron glances at me. His eyes are steel like he’s facing down an opponent and I know with the way he’s looking at the woman holding the baby behind me that she is his new target. “How much is that bitch paying you to lie about this?”
Hannah slaps his chest. “Stop it,” she hisses. “Don’t be a dick.”
It took me almost a year of living in the States