“Mom?” Sadie called from the kitchen at Eli and Marlee’s.
She and her mom were getting things ready so when the new family arrived home, everything would be easy-peasy for them.
“In here.” Her mom came from around the corner of the living room. “Did you get all the things Eli asked for?”
“They didn’t have the tuna, so I got tilapia.”
“But Eli wanted tuna.”
“But they didn’t have tuna, so I got tilapia.” Unless the fish was an exotic species in a custody dispute, it was, in fact, just fish.
“I guess they’ll have tilapia then,” her mom said with resignation.
Tilapia was edible, it was a fish, and it started with a T. That seemed pretty freaking close to tuna.
“Let’s get everything unloaded, and then you and I can disappear before they get here.” Sadie had already laid out the two boxes of pasta on the counter.
Eli had texted her with a requested grocery list so he wouldn’t have to leave Marlee and Luke after they got home. Sadie handled the shopping trip while her mother stopped in to tidy up. All of the blog posts she’d read said that they should make themselves scarce during the first days so mom and baby and dad could all bond without having to worry about entertaining.
“I just need to swap out the sheets on their bed.” Sadie’s mom hurried up the stairs. “Lothario?” she called. “Come help me.”
“I don’t think Lothario does sheets, Mom,” Sadie shouted after her.
Then again, Lothario did everything. Sadie giggled at her own double entendre. He was already halfway up the stairs to follow his favorite grandma. She was his favorite because she kept kibble in her pockets just for him, and when he went to town on her shoes, she didn’t stop him. She just slipped them off her feet and walked away like nothing was happening and her pumps were not being defiled. Apparently, that’s what made an excellent grandmother.
Sadie’s phone chimed on the counter. She grabbed it.
Sadie had one bestest best friend, Marlee, but they were part of a group of best friends. Most of the group had scattered across the country after their undergrad years—Becca, Kellie, and Sadie—but thanks to a never-ending chat string, they stayed in touch daily. Often hourly.
Becca: Roman Dvornakov? Really? *He’s* the mysterious R?
Sadie: Marlee talked.
Kellie: Seriously, Sadie, this is the kind of thing that is required best friend disclosure.
Marlee: I’ve already been reamed for taking so long to spill. But…baby.
Sadie: Too bad you didn’t have twins, it would’ve bought me more time.
Marlee: We’re on our way home. Don’t leave until we see you, Sadie.
Becca: Can we discuss Sadie’s best friend betrayal?
Sadie sighed. She’d make it up to them with chocolate and tequila the next time they all got together.
Not that she could really blame Marlee; the four friends generally shared everything. Of course, they all had their own little secrets. She had the Roman secret, but that hardly counted. They knew he existed, they knew she’d had her heart broken, but she’d simply never shared the who of that situation.
Sadie: Let’s discuss something other than Roman.
Becca: Let’s not.
Marlee: Eli wants to talk to him about what his “intentions” are, it’s cute.
Oh nope. No.
Sadie: Do *not* involve Eli.
Becca: IDK That could be kinda fun to watch. Even match. Who do you think would win?
Marlee: Eli.
Kellie: She has to say that, he’s her baby daddy.
Sadie: Do people actually say that? The baby daddy thing?
Becca: Oh Sadie. Dear, sweet Sadie.
Marlee: …
Kellie: The next time you bang a Dvornakov, we need to be the first to know.
Sadie: Kel, we didn’t “bang.” I mean, we did, but…
Marlee: You should’ve seen him. He’s so into her.
Sadie: Stop. Let’s talk about baby Luke instead.
Sadie opened the pantry, moved Lothario’s special treats to the side, and there, in all its glory, was what she assumed was Roman’s cell phone.
Drat.
If she had his phone, then she needed to return it. She was doing such a good job of pretending he didn’t exist—until friends brought him up or his cell phone magically appeared where Babushka had hidden it. Sadie grabbed his phone from the shelf. She’d pass it off to Eli who could then pass it along to Roman.
Her own phone chimed again.
Kellie: We require hourly baby pics since Becca & I can’t be there.
Kellie and Becca had both moved away from Denver. Unlike Sadie, they’d stayed away.
Marlee: I promise. I would never leave you out of something so important.
Sadie: Puh-lease. Says the woman who got frisky with my brother.
Marlee: But I married him first, so…
Becca: Sadie, you know we’re teasing. We love you, no matter what.
Sadie knew that, and she also knew she’d earned the current razing session.
Kellie: Alfredo learned to lick his junk. I’m trying to decide whether to be proud of him or be horrified.
Sadie choked on her saliva. That was not what she’d expected to read. Alfredo, Kellie’s cat, had become her focus in life since her most recent breakup. Which was ten times better than her occasional infatuation with texting her exes when she was under any kind of stress.
Marlee:…
Becca:…
Kellie: He gives me the most intense stare while he does it. Like, look what I can do!
Becca: I had a client who could pull that same thing off. We had a lot of sessions about it.
Before Sadie could form any kind of response, the garage door hummed open.
Sadie briskly unloaded the rest of Eli’s requested groceries.
“Mom,” Sadie shouted. “They’re here. We have to say hello and go.”
The door to the mudroom separating the garage from the house opened and Marlee slipped through. She glanced around the now, thanks to Sadie’s mom, pristine home. “Oh my gosh, you didn’t have to clean up.”
As if Sadie’s housekeeping skills reached this level of accomplishment. “Mom did. Don’t give her crap. Cleaning up after her kids makes her feel like she’s needed.”
Marlee walked straight to Sadie and wrapped her in a hug. “Hospital food is the worst, and I’m exhausted.”
Sadie returned the squeeze. “Don’t worry. Mom and I are wrapping up and then we’ll head out.”
Marlee didn’t look thrilled at that idea. “Really? We just got here. Luke wants to spend time with his favorite auntie and his grandma.”
Sadie would love that but—“We don’t want to be in the way.”
“Eli’s making tuna; you’re not in the way.” Marlee leaned closer. “He’s going to be busy with dinner and I’m not ready to be alone with Luke. What if I screw him up?”
Sadie gave her friend a quick shoulder pat. “You’re only on day two. You have lots more time to screw him up.”
“Stay for tuna?” Marlee asked, her expression earnest.
How could Sadie tell her no?
“Okay, I’ll stay. But it’s not tuna. It’s tilapia,” Sadie corrected as Eli came through the door carrying little Luke zonked out in his carrier.
“You didn’t get the tuna?” Eli asked. “Marlee wanted tuna.”
And what Marlee wanted, Eli got her. It was super sweet. Sadie may not have generally believed in marriage as an institution, given all she’d seen. But her parents did remain happily in their union and she bet Eli and Marlee would, too, given how they looked at each other like no one else mattered. Except, Luke, obviously.
Sadie couldn’t help it, she gravitated toward the munchkin in the carrier. “They didn’t have tuna, so I got the next best thing.”
“They didn’t have salmon?” Eli asked. “Because that would be the next best thing.”
Sadie made a kissy face and baby-talked to her nephew. “I got the best option when they didn’t have tuna.”
“Which is salmon,” Eli replied.
Sadie glanced up at her brother from under her eyelashes and sweetly said, “They didn’t teach me in law school that salmon is preferable to tilapia when one is purchasing tuna.”
“That’s something you learn from your big brother, not law school,” Eli replied, passing Luke in his carrier to Marlee. She immediately went to removing the sleeping baby, fumbling with the carrier straps along the way. Luke’s eyes drifted open.
Sadie’s ovaries sighed at the way his little face scrunched up.
Luke stretched his body with the most adorable new baby arm pump. Aw, the little dude was just the sweetest. Maybe Sadie should consider a kiddo for herself. She didn’t necessarily need the guy to go along with a baby.
Marlee lifted him from the carrier, and baby Luke took that moment to spit up all over his mother’s shoulder while simultaneously releasing a gurgling noise in the diaper region.
Sadie side-eyed her brother and best friend. Their eyes were wide, mouths slack, eyebrows raised.
That sound could not possibly be considered normal.
Perhaps Sadie would go the way of Kellie and just get a cat instead.
Eli grabbed a paper towel to mop up Marlee’s shoulder. “Is that normal?”
“How the hell do I know?” Marlee held a squirming Luke against her now puked-on shoulder.
“It didn’t even sound human.” Eli seemed to be willing the child to stop making the noise. Also, he was correct, it sounded like something from one of those scary alien movies that Sadie liked to watch to creep herself out.
She was definitely getting a cat. Not even a kitten, she’d go for the full-grown variety that didn’t want to be petted and avoided her in favor of licking his penis.
“You have to know. You’re his mom.” Eli tossed the paper towel into the wastebasket, more perplexed than the time when he was seventeen and he accidentally backed into Dad’s car with Mom’s car and he didn’t want to tell anyone. Except, Sadie had seen the whole thing, so she totally ratted him out.
“Are you kidding me?” Marlee’s voice got progressively higher.
“Didn’t they teach you that kind of thing?” Eli was frantic.
“Who would teach me what to do when my kid makes that noise?”
Sadie? Sadie wasn’t too concerned. The kid was a Howard male and she’d heard some of the noises that came out of her dad and Eli over the years.
Once Luke finished, someone just had to change his diaper.
For the record, it wouldn’t be her.
Gah, she hoped they had diapers. Surely, they had diapers.
“Who is they? They didn’t teach me anything.” Marlee continued looking at her son like he was a bomb about to explode. “What did they teach you in dad school?”
Luke grunted and made a very unnatural sound in his pants.
Sadie’s gaze bounced back and forth between Eli and Marlee like a ping-pong ball in the world championship ping-pong match.
“Let’s look online,” Marlee suggested.
“What about the book we got at that breathing class?” Eli asked.
Marlee paused, her eyes turning to slits. “The labor skills workshop?”
“The lady said it had answers.” Eli started pulling open drawers. “Where is it?”
“You’re right. The book.” Marlee handed Luke to Eli. “I’ll find the book. I think I know where it is.”
“Maybe we should call the nurse line?” Eli asked.
Was Sadie imagining things or was there a trace of sweat beading on her brother’s forehead? He’d always gotten all kinds of sweaty when something stressed him out.
These two would be a disaster in a courtroom.
“Book. Then nurse line.” Marlee hustled to the office off the kitchen.
“Or, since Mom’s upstairs finishing up, you could just ask her?” Sadie offered. Given her mother’s commitment to hospital-grade corners when she made a bed, it’d be a minute before she came down. “She’s had a lot of kids, you know.” Five to be exact, which Eli knew, seeing as he was one of them.
“I’ll get Mom. Here, you take Luke.” Eli, in full commanding chef mode, tried to pass off the baby to Sadie.
“Not even.” She shook her head. Sure, she would’ve reached for Luke, but given the continuing noises and the way his face turned red as he made them, this was not in the job description of being the favorite aunt. “Would you like me to visit a different grocery store to see if they have tuna or salmon?” Sadie suggested. “I really don’t mind.”
Eli shifted Luke in his arms. “I’ll make the tilapia work. Don’t think you get to escape so easily. If we have to figure this out, you do, too.”
“That’s not true.” Sadie crossed her arms. “At all.”
“Tilapia will be delicious.” Marlee returned with a three-inch thick book still in the sealed plastic sleeve. She cooed to little Luke, “Because your daddy can cook anything.”
“But Daddy and Mommy can’t figure out that you’re filling your pants, now, can they?” Sadie cooed in the same tone Marlee had used.
Luke grunted and started rubbing his face against Eli’s pec, giving a tiny head bob at the end.
“What is he doing?” Sadie asked. She’d figured out the diaper thing, but this didn’t make sense at all.
“Oh, I know this one. He’s hungry. That’s his rooting reflex,” Marlee said, excitement and pride evident in her words.
"I don’t think Eli’s nipples work that way.” Sadie may not have known that salmon was preferred to tilapia, but she was 99.9 percent certain on this one.
“I can fix this.” Marlee adjusted Luke into her arms, clearly happy she had a solution to something he needed.
Sadie’s eyebrows dropped together as Marlee settled on the couch—didn’t she need to grab a bottle or something?
“Do you want the pillow thing?” Eli asked.
Marlee nodded.
“Should you change his diaper first?” Sadie asked.
“No,” Eli and Marlee said at the same time.
All right, well, that’s what Sadie would’ve done, but what did she know?
Eli helped Marlee with some C-shaped pillow, and Marlee lifted her shirt right over her breast and oh… Oh-kay, no bottle needed.
Sadie seemed stuck in place. This was exactly why guests weren’t supposed to stick around. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Glanced at the door. She should go. Find tuna. Wait until someone cooked or sashimi’d it. Then she could come back.
Sadie just needed to grab her purse that was next to Marlee. She started toward it. “Hey, I’m gonna go grab—"
Eli was assisting his wife with the placement of the baby. “You know what?” Sadie asked, averting her gaze to the stairs. “I’ll go find Mom.” She paused, turning quickly. “Can one of you let Roman know I found his phone in the pantry? I don’t know how to reach him.” She gave her best whatcha-gonna-do shrug toward Eli and took the stairs two at a time. “It’s on the counter,” she hollered, not looking back.