Page 43 of Bad & Bossy

I swallowed. We hadn’t brought him up until now. I wondered if that was on purpose, if he had planned to discuss it here, in public, where I couldn’t openly berate him if he pissed me off. “Yes. To watch Drew.”

His gaze lingered on the pack of ground beef. “That’s his name?”

And there it was again, that feeling of wanting to hurl my guts all over the floor of Safeway. “Well, it’s Andrew, but I call him Drew for short,” I explained, my throat closing, forcing my voice to come out as a squeak.

“It’s cute,” he said as he pulled me and the cart toward the other end of the store.

To the fucking baby section.

He’d either read further down the list than I thought or decided to head there on his own. I wasn’t sure but either way I felt unsettled, and the heat in my cheeks was nearly burning as we turned down the aisle.

“What do we need?” he asked, his voice a bit gruff as he met my stare over the cart.

We. I knew he didn’t mean it like that, but god fucking dammit, the brief idea of my son having two parents made my chest ache. Clumsily, I unfolded the list again. “Two boxes of diapers,” I said, pointing toward the massive boxes on the shelves.

“Size?”

“One in size two and one in size three.”

“He’s growing?”

“Well yeah, Cole, that’s what babies do,” I sighed, helping him load the boxes to the bottom of the cart. “He’s almost grown out of size two, so I need to be prepared.”

“Right, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Can you grab a couple of boxes of baby wipes? Store brand is fine.” I kicked the box of size three a little further back and grabbed for the list again. I couldn’t remember if I’d put diaper cream on there, and for the life of me, I had no idea if I had any left at home.

A few packs of baby wipes landed in the cart, my attention barely picking it up.

“Can I get him this?”

I glanced up from the list. Cole stood with a box in his hands roughly the size of his torso. On the front of it was a baby about Drew’s size, sitting on a play mat in front of a short tower with buttons covering the front. Music With Me, it said across the top, and the more I looked at the nautical-themed item, it looked like something he could press buttons on to make different sounds.

Then I glanced at the price tag on the shelf.

“Cole, that’s a hundred and fifty bucks.”

He shrugged. “So?”

He didn’t wait until I’d said yes to find space for it in the cart. He took the time to move things out of the way gently, carefully shifting them so he didn’t damage any items and slipped it into the empty space.

“Okay,” I breathed.

I stared at the massive toy knowing damn well I wouldn’t have been able to afford that on my own. I hoped he hadn’t already put the pieces together and was buying it as a gesture of goodwill or an offering of a truce. I needed to tell him, needed to just spit the words out, but by the time they’d barely formed in my mind he spoke again.

“What’s next on the list?”

Chapter 15

Cole

Two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye with how much work I’d been doing on the new range of products. With a preliminary launch date in the spring and a ramp-up and push at the start of summer, we had a lot of shit to get done in the coming months.

And that meant less time for other things.

The revelation about Dana having a son had been in the back of my mind but I’d decided it wasn’t worth dwelling on or overthinking the weird feeling in my gut questioning the timing of it all. Yes, the diapers said up to four months, and the math added up to the approximate time of the incident between Dana and me. But I also knew that we weren’t anywhere close to exclusive and Lottie had said she wasn’t exactly shy when it came to sex. Lingering on possibilities wasn’t good for me, and besides, it was too far-fetched that it didn’t matter.

Instead of thinking about things that wouldn’t help me in the long run, I’d spent my time working and going to the gym, attended two more AA meetings, and cashed in on opportunities with Dana when they presented themselves. I would have preferred to take her out properly, but stolen glances as we passed each other at work and the occasional makeout session in my office were enough to keep me hooked on her.

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