And the Apple Store had been busy, as it usually was, so although he’d only been without the phone for a couple of hours, it felt like an eternity.
All he wanted was to get back to the apartment, pour some Blanton’s, and set up the new phone.
And maybe see if Taylor was in the mood to fool around, because ever since he’d fingered her up against the door in a public restroom, he’d had a nonstop hard-on that no amount of solo action would appease.
He shifted the white Apple bag to his left hand and fished his keys out of his pocket, opening the door to the apartment.
He froze.
Of all the things Nick had thought he would never see in his life, the sight in front of him was at the top of the list.
Taylor Carr sat in the middle of their living room floor wearing one high-heeled shoe, the other nowhere to be found. She was still in her work outfit, but what had probably been a very clean lavender dress not long ago was now adorned with some sort of goop on the shoulder.
Her hair was disheveled, her face marked with panic, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why.
A screaming baby wiggled in her arms.
Taylor’s wide eyes met his, relief flooding her face. “Oh, thank God. She won’t stop!”
Nick was crouched at her side in an instant, immediately lifting the baby to his shoulder, then standing once more and beginning the gentle bouncing motion he knew that babies—this baby in particular—adored.
Hannah stopped crying immediately.
“Hey, darling,” he said, pressing his lips to the baby’s smooth cheek and trying to ward off the flood of emotion that rocked through him.
Damn Kelsey. Damn Kelsey for putting him through this, for reminding him…
Belatedly he remembered Taylor. When he looked down, he saw her staring up at him in shock. Whether it was over his familiarity with the baby or the fact that there was a baby in his arms at all, he couldn’t be sure.
Nick settled Hannah in his right arm and reached down with his left hand for Taylor. She took it and let him haul her up.
She teetered on her one heel before bending down to remove it. She glanced around in vain for the other, then gave up and tossed the shoe aside.
“How’d you do that?” she asked in wonder. “I’ve been trying to get her to quiet down for forty-five minutes!”
Nick winced. Of all the days for his phone to go to shit.
He gave her the quick version on his phone trauma before tilting his head toward where Hannah was poking a chubby finger against his cheek. “Where the hell is Kelsey?”
Taylor’s nose scrunched. “Are you supposed to swear in front of a baby?”
“Yeah, well, it’d serve her mother right if her first word was four letters,” he muttered.
“Hannah’s grandmother had a stroke,” Taylor said, plunging her fingers into her hair, as though trying to gather her thoughts. “Kelsey said she had to get out to Jersey, didn’t want to take Hannah because of hospital germs or something.”
Nick nodded, making a blowing noise on the baby’s fingers that had her giggling wildly. His heart twisted at the sound. She was nearly nine months now, and it hurt a little to see how much she’d grown. Changed. And he hadn’t been there for any of it.
Her tears long gone, Hannah squirmed to be set down, and Nick obliged, experiencing another bittersweet pang when he saw that she was crawling now, a fast-paced wiggle that made him smile.
Nick followed her around the room, keeping her out of trouble, all while keeping an eye on Taylor.
“Nick,” Taylor said quietly.
Here it comes.
He met her gaze head on as Hannah stopped to sit down and inspect a coaster. “Yeah?”
“Is this…” Taylor swallowed. “Is Hannah your daughter?”
The words still hurt. Months later, they still hurt.
He slowly shook his head. “No.”
She looked from him to the baby, then back again. “Then why…why you? I got the impression Kelsey was an ex, so why would she assume you’d babysit a child that wasn’t yours?”
Nick knelt, ran a hand over Hannah’s silky light brown hair. “Because up until the time Hannah was three months old, I thought she was mine.”
—
“I’m not going to lie,” Taylor whispered. “She’s way easier when she’s asleep.”
Nick smiled as he looked down at where Hannah’s cheek rested on Taylor’s shoulder.
“Seems she likes you.”
Taylor snorted. “Yeah, pretty sure that’s not it. She’s just exhausted from screaming before you got here.”
Nick was giving her a studying look that made her squirm. “Not a baby person?”
“Do I look like a baby person?” Taylor asked. She tried to keep her voice light, but in her head she kept replaying the conversation with Jessica. About how Bradley’s reason for going back to Jess was that he wanted a family.
It hurt a little that he’d apparently changed his mind about wanting kids. And rather than even considering that Taylor might be able to change hers too, he had simply moved on to another woman.
Not just that. A different type of woman. One who was gentle, and kind, and motherly….
Taylor realized she’d been rubbing a hand over Hannah’s back, the gesture instinctive, but did babies even like this? She gave Nick a quick self-conscious glance to see if he’d noticed. To see if he was judging her for being almost unbearably awkward around small humans.
His smile was gentle. “You look an awful lot like a baby person at this moment,” he said quietly.
“It’ll pass.”
Nick reached out a hand, touched a strand of Taylor’s hair. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Shut down any insinuation that you might be kind.”
“Just because I’m not motherly doesn’t mean I’m not kind,” she said, more harshly than she intended.
“Agreed,” he said slowly. “I just meant you seem pretty determined to convince me you’re not good at this.”
She sighed and tried to shift to a more comfortable position on the couch without waking Hannah. “I’ve never really been the maternal type. It’s not in my blood.”
“Explain.”
“Well, let’s see,” she said with a bitter little smile. “My own mother got knocked up accidentally, tried to do the mom thing for all of two years, and then left. My only other female relative did her duty raising me the best she could, but let’s just say there were no bedtime stories, no mommy-daughter picnics.”
“That’s on them,” Nick said with a shrug. “Not you.”
“Look, can you please spare me the whole magic-of-motherhood speech?” she said testily. “I’m so sick of people in this day and age acting like a woman’s worth lies in her uterus. I don’t want kids. End of story.”
She felt weird as she said it, but she’d been repeating it so often to herself, it just…came out.
He gave her a look that said, I don’t think so, but he nodded. “Fair enough, Carr.”
Hannah made a sleepy sound that softened the tension in the room, and after a few moments of silence Taylor rested her head on the back of the couch and turned her face toward Nick. “What about you? You want to be a dad?”
His eyes were trained on Hannah, his expression so sad Taylor felt a lump in her throat at the longing.