The smell of home hit me before I’d even walked in the door. My talk with the girls and George had done wonders, and I’d successfully navigated the day with no freak-outs, no tears, and only one breast milk incident when a phone call went long and I couldn’t get to my pump in time. Next time, I’d just do it while I was on the phone. Boom. My friends were right; I’d figure it out as I went.
Basically, I was feeling pretty unstoppable as I rounded the corner, ready to tell Max about our dinner that night. Then I found him shirtless—again—wrapped in nothing but a towel, with a tiny sleeping baby in his arms, and I was ready to forget about dinner entirely and let him get me pregnant again that very second.
Focus, Sara.
“I’m taking you to dinner,” I said. “Surprise! Also, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to need you to put some clothes on for real this time or we’ll never get out of the apartment.”
Max looked up, confused. “Dinner? How did you—?” Sitting up, he said, “And no, I meant to ring you today. I wanted to take you to dinner this weekend but Mum is leaving for Leeds tomorrow. I completely forgot it was in my schedule.”
“That’s what I’m saying: George is watching Anna tonight.”
“Tonight? Has George ever even seen a baby?”
I crossed the room and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Hi,” I said, and kissed him again. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s perfect.” I took the sleeping baby from his arms and leaned in, pressing my face to her soft little head, breathing in as much of her as I could. She had Max’s hair for sure, only a shade darker than mine but already with a bit of a wave to it. Her clean-baby smell hit me, and I felt my breasts grow heavy, my milk letting down almost immediately.
A chair Max brought me from England sat tucked beneath the window in the nursery. It was my favorite place in the apartment, where I was able to look out over the city while I nursed. I got Anna situated, and then looked up at him.
He clearly thought I’d lost my mind. “Are we talking about the same George?”
“I had breakfast with everyone this morning before I went in to work. Did you know that George’s mom ran a day care while he was growing up? He worked there while he was in high school and all through college. He worked with infants.”
He gave me his best skeptical face. “We’re talking about the same twenty-something bloke who wore a Wisconsin cheese hat and some flowy Jesus robes for Halloween, calling himself ‘Cheesus’?”
“The one and only,” I said, laughing at the memory. “He’s probably more qualified to take care of her than we are. Plus we’ll stay close. Just around the corner. He can text or call with any questions and we can be back up here in less than three minutes.”
“But . . .”
“No buts. This is exactly what we need. Now get dressed, he’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
George showed up exactly fourteen minutes later.
From the bathroom, I could hear Max open the door and let him in, and begin grilling him as they went from room to room.
“And what about her bottle?” Max asked, clearly hoping to be proven right, and that George had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
“Sara’s breastfeeding so I assume you have expressed milk in the freezer? Maybe even fresh in the refrigerator,” George said, more to himself than to Max, I was sure. “What am I talking about? Honestly, I think I’ve seen more of Sara’s boobs in the last four months than my own.” There was the sound of the freezer door as it opened and closed, and I stepped out into the living room, watching as George answered Max’s questions one by one. Max looked begrudgingly impressed.
“I assume she’s getting about six ounces a feeding,” George continued. “Probably every three hours or so? I’ll heat the refrigerated milk first—only ever under warm water, never the microwave. It kills beneficial properties, you know—and I’ll use the frozen if needed. Though you’ll probably be back by then . . .” George trailed off.
“We have a bottle warmer,” Max said, brow furrowed in what I was certain had to be confusion. George really did seem to be more knowledgeable about taking care of an infant than we were. “And nappies?”
“You mean diapers? Oh you Brits are so damn cute. And please, Maxwell. I could probably diaper you in your sleep and you’d never have any idea. I am a pro.”
“Or so you’ve been told,” I said, stepping out to kiss his cheek. “Sorry, Chloe’s not here and I had to throw that in for her. Thank you so much for doing this.”
He waved me off. “No problem. The little princess and I will probably just sit here and cry through The Notebook. For very, very different reasons, I’m sure.”
Between kisses and cuddles and last-minute instructions, it took another fifteen minutes for George to shoo us out of the apartment.
But we didn’t go to the restaurant around the corner. George had apparently made such an impression that Max made us last-minute reservations at a little Italian place a few miles away. I was nervous at the prospect of leaving Anna when I didn’t have to, but I was also giddy. We were going on a date, just the two of us, and my pulse hadn’t slowed down yet.
I watched his profile as he drove us both to the restaurant; as I studied the way the streetlights passed overhead to emphasize the fullness of his lips, the cut of his jaw, I thought back to our first real date—is that what that was?—when he’d taken me to Queen of Sheba and I hadn’t been able to stop looking at his mouth. I still couldn’t stop looking at his mouth.
The press didn’t follow him like they did before we were together, but since Anna had been born, there was an uptick in Hot Daddy Max Stella photos in Page Six and on various Internet gossip sites. I couldn’t say that I blamed them, no matter how much I still resented them for ever spooking me in the first place.
I closed my eyes, my heart squeezing tightly as I was pulled back in time to our first night together after the pictures in the papers, the ones that made me think he’d cheated. He’d thrown a party, and after not answering his calls for over a week, I’d shown up, finally ready to talk. But it hadn’t been as simple as I expected—he’d been genuinely hurt—and I had some apologizing to do.
I remembered the small, grudging smile Max gave me when we woke up together the next morning; he had handed over the last tiny bit of himself with that.
I remembered how that look had squeezed my heart, painfully. He’d been scared to let me back in, and in the stark white light of the morning, with both of us sweaty and spent, we couldn’t hide with our faces pressed to the other’s skin, or in the game of transparency through photos. He looked at me directly, baldly, and there was nothing else between us.
“Stay,” he said, bending to suck at the skin just beneath my ear. “Stay with me. It’s good, Petal. Us. It’s so sodding good and if you spook again it will absolutely wreck me.”
“I won’t.”
“I love you, yeah?”