Page 187 of The Moment We Know

Chapter 74

Because they’d met on David’s birthday, it had always been special to Paige. However, since Ashley had sort of co-opted it, Paige wanted to make sure this birthday was returned to its rightful owner: her.

To start things off, she asked if she could take Jacob shopping for David’s birthday, and he blinked at her. “Really?”

“Yeah. Is that weird? You’re looking at me like it’s weird.”

“No, I just …” he trailed off. “It’s nice. I’m sure he’d love to go with you.”

“Okay, great. I’ll pick him up at eleven so he and I can go grab lunch, first.”

When she arrived, he held out his Jeep keys. “Here. You can take my car.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather take mine.”

“Seriously, take mine. That way I don’t have to transfer his car seat. That’s a huge pain in the ass.”

“I actually got one for my car and already put it in.”

He stared at her in surprise. “Are you serious?”

She nodded. “I got the same kind you have.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, no shit. It seemed like the easiest thing to do. You know, in case of any future car rides.”

He put his hands on her face and kissed her. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she returned, slightly flustered at his intensity. “But it’s just a car seat.”

Without any real gift ideas in mind, Paige decided to take Jacob to one of the smaller shopping malls. After grabbing lunch in the food court, they started walking around, hand in hand, not seeing anything interesting until they came to a shop that specialized in custom-made T-shirts.

“I have an idea,” she said, taking Jacob inside.

After Paige shared her idea with the woman behind the counter, Paige turned to Jacob. “What do you think?”

He bobbed his head. “Yeah.”

Twenty minutes later, Paige was paying for a pair of matching blue shirts—one small and one large. The small one had ‘JACOB’ silk-screened across the chest in white letters and the larger one had ‘JACOB’S DAD’ silk-screened on it.

As the woman was putting the shirts in a bag, she nodded toward Jacob, who was looking at a display of keychains and whispered, “Your little boy is adorable.”

Paige didn’t correct her. “I think so, too.”

“He must look like his dad,” the woman said. Then, realizing she might’ve sounded insulting, she quickly clarified, “I just meant he doesn’t look like you.”

“I knew what you meant.” Paige smiled at her. “And he looks exactly like his dad.”

Deciding it was time to call it quits, Paige led Jacob toward the mall exit, only to stop when she spotted one of those photo booths with a curtain and ‘4 photos for $1.00’ plastered on the side. “Why don’t we take some pictures for your dad?” she immediately suggested.

“Okay.”

They popped into the booth and shut the curtain. Once she determined she had enough dollar bills to do five strips of four pictures, Paige sat down and motioned for Jacob to sit on her lap. She explained how it would work, and that he should just make whatever faces he wanted to. At first, he seemed a little hesitant, so she started doing things like tickling him or sticking a finger in his ear to get him to let go.

The last two strips she suggested they go solo on, so she got out of the way as Jacob went first, then he did the same for her.

When they were done, Paige retrieved the picture strips from the collection tray. They looked at all the photos together, cracking up at all of them—especially the ones in which Jacob’s eyes and top of his buzzed head were the only things in the picture, and Paige was picking her nose.

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