Fifteen

Kye

The amount of stuff that babies needed was way beyond what I had expected, and it was clear that Genesis had been trying to just get the basics. The must-haves. There was all kinds of shit she didn’t go near. Still, it had been a fucking lot.

Blaise had texted while we were out shopping, asking if I had things under control. I told him Genesis was helping me and we were currently buying baby things. He’d left me alone after that. I wondered if he’d told Maddie about Jagger and she’d made him check to make sure the baby he’d allowed me to take was okay. I couldn’t imagine Maddie would have been pleased to hear that.

Genesis was really good with baby stuff for someone who didn’t have her own kid, nor did she have younger siblings. Were women just born with the gift? No, that couldn’t be true because Chyna had clearly sucked at it.

I took the baby clothes we’d bought out of the dryer and carried them into my old bedroom, where we had set up the portable crib thing. Genesis put her finger over her lips the moment I entered the room. She was standing over Jagger, who she’d wrapped up like a burrito in one of his new blankets.

I put the clothes on the bed, and she started for the door, motioning for me to follow her.

Once we were out of the room, she started to close the door and froze. She looked up at me. “I forgot to get a monitor,” she whispered, leaving the door open before heading back toward the living room.

“What’s that?” I asked when we got to the living room. “Is it vital? I can go get it now. Walmart is open all night.”

She shook her head. “A baby monitor. It’s not vital, but I can’t hear him if the door is closed. It won’t be an issue at night. I or you …” She paused. “One of us will be in there with him.”

Sleep. Yes. We hadn’t talked about things. It had been go mode since I had gotten here with him and announced I had a kid. The thought of leaving them here without me didn’t sit well. I just hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“I was planning on staying. He’s my responsibility. I just knew I needed help. I was lost, and you’re the only person I wanted help from.”

She walked over and sat down, curling her legs up underneath her. “I didn’t question why you brought him here. I would have expected you to. But what are the next steps?”

I sat down beside her and laid my head back, staring at the ceiling. “I get my name on his birth certificate. Then, the state determines I have full custody after they acknowledge Chyna deserted him and gave up all rights. After all that, then I go through the process of putting him up for adoption.” I turned my head to look at her then.

She sighed heavily. “That’s a lot,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Then, she slid over and laid her head on my shoulder. I curled my arm around her shoulders, and we sat there in silence. My head was all over the place. Tonight … hadn’t been bad. I’d actually enjoyed myself. Which was strange. Genesis had taken the fear away, and I had been able to relax enough to be in the moment with him … and her.

“That’s not all going to be done overnight,” she said.

I’d already known that, but how did I ask her to help me until then?

“No, it’s not.”

She tilted her head back and looked up at me. “I’ll try not to get too attached to him. That is, assuming you want my help with him, or do you want to call your mom?”

Calling my mom was out of the question. Thankfully, she was in Greece right now. Once she got a look at my mini me, she was going to want to keep him. I wasn’t going to let my mom raise my kid. She’d done her job with me. She needed to be free to travel with her new husband and live her life.

“Mom is in Greece, remember?” I said.

“Yes, but she’d come home for this.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to see him,” I replied.

She nodded. “I get that.”

“But if you don’t want to do this or you think it’ll be too much, I can figure out something else.” Saying those words was fucking hard. I wanted to beg her to help me. Help us.

“Kye,” she began, “do you honestly think I could just turn my back on the two of you? And it’s not because I don’t think you can’t learn how to take care of him by then. It’s because you’re my best friend and you are about to handle some tough stuff. Emotional stuff. I can’t leave you to do it alone.”

God, I wanted that, but she was forgetting something real damn vital.

“Bowie. The two of you are getting married soon.” Way too fucking soon. Never would be better in my opinion.

She didn’t say anything at first, and I almost wished I’d not said anything.

“We will push the wedding to the summer. I’ll need to explain it to him though. I can’t keep this a secret from him.”

Push the wedding off. Fuck yes.

“This is a lot, Baby Doll. You’re sure you want to rearrange your life to do this?”

Please say yes. Please choose me.

“That little boy is yours. He’s a part of you. That makes him a part of my life. The wedding can wait. He is more important. You are more important than all the other stuff.”

I pulled her tight against me and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Fuck, I loved her. “Thank you,” I said, emotion clogging my damn throat, like I was a pussy.

“Always. Right?” she replied, putting her arm around me to hug me.

“Right,” I agreed, then inhaled her scent.

“Stop smelling me,” she said against my chest.

“But you smell so fucking good all the time.”

She laughed and shook her head. “You’ve not smelled me after I work out.”

The thought of her sweaty started to make my dick stiffen. I had to think about other shit real quick before that became obvious. It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed me hard before when we were together, but right now was not the time to remind her that my body was attracted to her in ways it shouldn’t be.

I heard her yawn and squeezed her arm gently. “Go to bed.”

She sat up, and I already missed the way she felt against me. “Do you want me to sleep in the room with Jagger, or do you want to?”

I sat there, staring at her. I knew I should do it, but I was afraid to be alone with him. What if he stopped breathing and I was asleep and didn’t know? The thought of being alone with him at night was daunting.

“Uh, the bed is a queen size. Can’t we both sleep in there?”

She nodded. “Yeah, until you’re comfortable in there with him alone. But that’s something we don’t ever need to share with Bowie.”

I wanted to grin at the thought that this would piss him off, but I didn’t. She was sacrificing a lot for me.

“It will go with me to my grave,” I promised.

She laughed softly and stood up.

“Please tell me you sleep in those little silk things I saw you in,” I teased, knowing there was no way she’d wear that for me—and it was a good thing because I’d be so fucking hard all night that I’d never get to sleep.

She shook her head. “Not for you.”

“Okay, fine. You can sleep naked. I’m good with that,” I replied.

“Kye, keep it up, and I’ll make you sleep in there alone,” she warned.

I smirked, knowing she was full of crap. “Does that mean I can’t suggest you sleep in one of my T-shirts?”

She picked up a pillow and tossed it at me before walking down the hallway. Grinning, I followed her, amazed at how my day had gone from a nightmare to something I was going to survive.