Vegas Baby(15)

Not. In. The. Mood.

With the loudest groan I can muster, I yank the door open.

“If you’ve come to yell at me,” I say above Emme’s wails, “I won’t be able to hear you anyway.”

“I came to help, not yell at you,” she fires back, her words chopped and heated.

“I don’t need your help.” Nor do I want it, if she’s going to be that way.

“Trust me, you do.” Her arms fall to her sides, her eyes still beautiful despite the unflattering fluorescent lighting above my door or the slight droop in her lids. “I’m good with babies.”

“How do I know you’re not some baby kidnapper?”

She shoots me a dirty look. Perhaps it’s a little early—or late, depending on how you look at it—for jokes.

Emme’s crying so hard her eyes are almost swollen shut. Her rosy cheeks are sticky with tears. My grown-man heart aches at the sight.

“You going to invite me in?” Her brows lift. “It’s the only way either of us will get any sleep tonight.”

Guess I don’t have a choice. I stand back and wave her through. When she brushes by me, I catch a whiff of lavender.

“I’ll take her.” She scoops Emme from my arms. “Where’s her room?”

I point down the hall, following Calypso as her pale cotton shorts and tank top glow in the dim space.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“First of all, you have her dressed too warmly.” She shakes her head, as if I should’ve known better. Maybe had I read the books, I would. “You don’t need to dress her in this many layers, it’s dangerous.”#p#分页标题#e#

“Didn’t want Emme to get cold.”

Calypso strips her down to just a cotton onesie, tossing the fleece pajamas and fleece zippered blanket aside.

“She’s wet too,” she says. “Enough to make it hard for her to get comfortable. When was the last time she ate?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“Okay, good. She’s just a little wound up, I think.” Calypso places her open palm on Emme’s face. “She doesn’t feel feverish.”

Emme’s cries have tempered down significantly in the last couple of minutes. Either she’s wearing out or she likes Calypso. Just my luck that my kid would like a complete stranger more than me.

“It’s her first night here,” I say. “Maybe she’s homesick.”

“Oh.” She glances to the side. “I thought she was your daughter. Are you babysitting?”

I hook my hand across the back of my neck and massage the knotted muscles at the base.

“She is my daughter,” I say. “And it’s a long story.”

Calypso lifts Emme into her arms. “No worries. It’s none of my business. Do you have a light blanket? Muslin maybe?”

What the fuck is a muslin blanket?

“Or any baby blanket will do . . .” She peers around the dark makeshift nursery, her eyes stopping briefly on the vintage Sports Illustrated posters I’ve yet to take down. “Hand me that one.”

I grab the white blanket she’s pointing at and drape it over Emme, following her back to the living room.

“I’m going to rock her to sleep. The rocking motion should calm her. You didn’t try that earlier, did you?” she asks.

No. Like a fucking moron, I sang her Hotline Bling and paced my apartment. I can hold a tune with the best of them, but in retrospect my song selection was slightly off.

“Does she use a pacifier?” she asks.

I hand her the one emblazoned with Emme’s moniker and she examines it. “This is a newborn pacifier. It’s too small. She could choke on it. Do you have any others?”

A pack of those things sits on my kitchen table. I wasn’t sure which size or brand to get earlier, so I had the guy grab me a little bit of everything.

“How old?” she asks.

“Four months.”

“Do you have one for size three to six months?”

I scan the packages until I find exactly what she needs, tear the packaging, and hand it over.

“Sanitize it.” She hands it back. This woman doesn’t mess around.

“Okay.” I grab the package and flip it to the back to look for directions.

“Do you have a microwave sterilizer?”

“A what?”

“Just run it under really hot water for a minute. Going forward, you should boil them or run them through a dishwasher.”

She rocks Emme back and forth, stroking her hair with a feather-light touch and whispering something only she can hear.

“You’re really good with babies,” I say over the running water at the sink.