Juked (7 page)

By the time he wakes up from his nap, Laurie has enough information to tell her supervisor and the court everything is running smoothly here. Well, as smoothly as it can with a newborn.

I no more than shut the door after walking Laurie out when Chance starts crying again.

“Hey, little man,” I call as I measure the formula for his bottle. I have learned he cries less if I can put a bottle in his mouth as soon as I pick him up. “You had a good long nap, didn’t you? Do you feel better?”

When he sees me walking toward him, he calms… until I appear in his line of sight. Then the tears start again. I unbuckle him and cradle him in my arms, kissing his wet cheeks and starting his feeding immediately.

As I predicted, as soon as he starts eating, he stops crying.

I sit down on the couch, feet tucked under me, and talk to him while he eats, rubbing my hands over his head and down his nose, over his eyebrows, and around his ears, telling him about everything from Laurie’s visit to the trinkets Geni and I brought over from the apartment.

He eats a couple of ounces and pushes the bottle away with his tongue. And then the most wonderful thing happens. He looks up at me, and coos.

I smile at him. “Well, hey there,” I say gently, enjoying the first time I’ve held him when he wasn’t crying or sleeping. “Are you full now? You feel better?”

He coos again.

My eyes fill with happy tears, and I kiss his sweet face and nuzzle him to me. “I’m your Aunt Quincy,” I tell him, looking him in the eyes. “But I’m gonna have to be your other mommy now, okay? Sarah will always be your mommy. I’m just gonna take care of you while she watches us from heaven, okay?”

He gurgles at me, and I finally see the draw of motherhood. It’s hard, but these little moments make it worth it. I can do this. We’re going to be fine.

I
hate shopping on Saturday nights but once again I’m the dumb-ass who didn’t plan ahead. I should hire a maid or someone to do my shopping for me.

With my baseball cap pulled low over my eyes, I wander around the store, swinging through the grocery aisles before making my way over to toiletries. I can hear what sounds like a baby giggling. It makes me smile and reminds me

I really need to call my sister, Blanca, in the morning. I haven’t checked on her since she got married a few weeks ago, and I want to see how Aaron is doing as a new stepdad. He’s a great guy, but she was adamant they wouldn’t live together until after they were married. Something about the kids getting too attached before things were finalized.

I get it. She had a really rough divorce from a total douchebag, who left her and the kids high and dry. They don’t need to get their hearts broken again.

I glance down the aisle as I pass by the baby items and barely register a woman with a giggling baby in a carrier strapped to her chest. But then it hits me.

I stop and back up because she looks familiar, yet she looks totally different than the last time I saw her.

She blows a raspberry on the baby’s cheek, making him laugh a hearty baby laugh.

Smiling, I swivel my cart down the aisle and walk toward them. “Hey,” I say. “Quincy, right?”

She looks pleasantly surprised to see me and even more surprised I remember her name. I actually surprise myself with that one.

“Yeah. Um….” She gets a look on her face like she’s trying to remember my name. I kind of like that she has no idea who I am.

“Daniel,” I say, giving her a reprieve from any embarrassment.

“I’m sorry. I’m terrible with names,” she says with a smile, bouncing the baby and patting his butt. She looks so much more comfortable with him than the first time we met. And she has a shopping cart.

“Don’t worry about my name. I’m happy you remember meeting me. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m a stalker or something.”

I’m not sure how I missed it before—probably because she was in such a bad place last time we met—but she really is beautiful. Long blonde hair pulled up in one of those messy buns, little wisps of hair falling around her face, hazel eyes that light up when she smiles. And that smile… that smile is killer.

“Of course I remember you,” she says, breaking out into that smile again. “How could I forget the man that literally saved Baby Chance from starving to death?”

I scoff. “I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe just from dehydration,” I chide.

She grins and runs her hand down Chance’s head. “Well, whatever it was, you helped us out that night. So thank you.”

I glance into her shopping cart, seeing a bunch of groceries and toiletries items randomly thrown about. “You look much more comfortable with him than the last time we ran into each other here.”

“It was a rough couple of months but I think we’re finally getting in a good groove.” She looks down at the baby and coos at him. “Aren’t we? Getting in good groove, huh?” He smiles up at her.

“So you guys just make a habit of shopping at night?”

She kisses him on the forehead and looks up at me. “He seems to be a night owl, so it seems to work better for me to sleep when he does, right after work, and do errands like this in the middle of the night,” she says dismissively. “It’s not ideal, but it works for now. What about you? Why are you shopping so late?”

“Me?” I say, feeling like a middle-school boy staring at his crush. For some reason, this woman is starting to intrigue me. Not just in an “I want to fuck her” sort of way. More like a “It fascinates me a single woman would take on such a major responsibility and is doing it so gracefully” kind of way.

“I have no excuse except I’m a dumb-ass.”

“Why?”

“I went out of town and didn’t bother to make sure I was stocked up on stuff like deodorant and laundry detergent. Now I’m back and have none of the needed essentials.”

“I wouldn’t call you a dumb-ass,” she says with a grin. “Maybe a lazy ass.”

I laugh. “I think my mother would agree with you about that.”

All of the sudden, the baby lets out a huge grunt and the most god-awful noise comes from the vicinity of his hind end. My eyes get wide, and Quincy looks down with a stunned look on her face.

“Did he just…?” I start but lose my train of thought as he grunts again.

Quincy shakes her head in humorous disbelief. “I swear this kid has the constitution of a grown man.”

I bark a laugh as Quincy holds her nose and says, “Ohmygod, Chance, what did they feed you at day care?”

“Come on,” I say, pushing past her and pulling her cart to drag it behind me. “Let’s go over to that bench and get him cleaned up. There is no way anyone wants you to let that smell permeate through the store.”

She follows me over to the same bench we sat on before and unstraps the baby from the carrier while I spread the changing pad out on the bench and pull out a diaper and some wipes.

“How old is he now?” I ask as she sets him down gently and undresses him from the waist down. He looks up at me, and I’m sure he’s trying to figure out why I look upside down. He smiles and reaches for my face when I lean down to talk to him and keep him distracted from the mess his fingers could be getting in down below.

“Four and a half months,” she says as she grabs him by the ankles and hauls his butt up in the air to wipe him off. “I can’t believe it’s been that long. He’s grown so much in that time.”

“He really has,” I agree, wiggling my fingers at him to keep him entertained. “If it weren’t for the fact we had been in this situation before, I never would have recognized him.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me as she quickly slaps a new diaper on him. “But you would have recognized me?”

I chuckle. “Well, not necessarily without the baby strapped to you. But you guys do seem to make a lot of noise on that baby aisle. It’s hard not to notice you.”

She laughs, never slowing from redressing the baby and wrapping the dirty diaper in a plastic bag. Smart woman. My sister used to always forget those bags. The diaper bag would always stink because she’d forget the diaper was in it, too. “I guess we are loud. It’s genetic, I guess. My dad always used to say he was from a big Polish family and Polacks are naturally loud.”

I scoop up the baby as she uses an extra baby wipe to clean her hands and puts things away, sitting him on my lap facing me. “Really? You’re from a big Polish family?” I say to her in my best baby voice while looking at him, making him smile a big toothless grin at me. “I have a big Mexican family, so you can’t beat us in the loud department.”

“That’s right. How many kids are there in your family? Five or six?”

“Six of us total. Three girls, three boys, and all the spouses and kids.”

“That’s crazy,” she says, sitting down after depositing the diaper bag in her cart. “It’s hard enough having one. I can’t imagine having six kids. Your mother must be a saint.”

I smile, thinking about my loud, overbearing mother. “Pretty close to it. But boy, her wooden spoon sure could pack a punch if we got out of line.”

We sit and chat for a while, neither of us really having anywhere we need to be. If I’m honest, I’m enjoying holding a baby again. My youngest nephew is three, and I kind of miss baby snuggles.

Not many men admit it, but we’re big suckers when it comes to babies. We’re just not necessarily comfortable with them, nor does it mean we want any of our own. They’re just fun to play with.

“So what kind of job do you have that you can grocery shop overnight and still make it through the day?” I stand Chance up on my thighs, sending an over-exaggerated smile his way, causing him to wobble in delight as I support him.

“I’m pretty sure the only reason I make it through the day is because of the Starbucks next door,” she says, watching the baby as he bounces and wiggles and drools everywhere. “I’m a hairdresser, so I’m on my feet all day.”

“That sounds pretty brutal, being on your feet all day on such little sleep.”

“It’s probably better than sitting behind a desk. At least it’s harder to fall asleep when you’re standing up.”

“Good point.” Chance reaches for my face with his chubby hands. I pretend to bite them before he can reach me. “Have you been doing it for a long time?”

She cocks her head to the side in thought. “Um, about six years now. I started off in college, but when my dad died, I switched over to cosmetology school so I could start working as soon as possible. I had guardianship over my sister Sarah, Chance’s mom,” She tilts her head to him. “I needed to have a career as quickly as possible. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“Wow, I’m impressed.”

“Why?” she asks, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

“You keep taking on the responsibility of raising someone. That’s admirable.”

“Well, what would you do in that situation?”

“The exact same thing you did,” I say reassuringly. “I know a lot of selfish people who wouldn’t, though. It’s nice to meet someone who has a real respect for family values. Not enough people do these days.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but before she can speak, we’re interrupted by a little boy. He’s probably eight or nine and obviously a fan by the look of awe on his face.

Even after all these years, it’s still weird when people recognize me on the street. I get it, because I was the exact same way, but it’s still strange when the attention is directed toward me.

“¿Me das tu autógrafo?” “Claro. ¿Cómo te llamas?”
I take the paper from him and scribble my standard signature and the number of my jersey on it.

“Gabriel.”

“
¿Juegas fútbol, Gabriel?
”

“Sí.” He smiles.
“Soy delantero como tú.
”

“Que bien. Tienes que seguir practicando si quieres ser profesional. ¿Okay? Saca buenas calificaciones y hazle caso a tu entrenador.”

“Lo prometo.”
I hand him back his paper.
“¿Me puedo tomar una foto contigo? Mis amigos no me lo van a creer.”
He’s smiling so wide. I remember what it was like to meet my favorite player when I was a kid. It’s kind of magical. So of course I’m gonna say yes.

“Por supuesto. ¿Tienes tu teléfono?”

He hands it to me and stands behind me so I can snap the pic for him. We smile for the camera quickly.