Page 97 of Her Football Star Ex

“Not again.” He closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Then he opened his eyes again and said, “Sorry. Looks like I need to give her another bath.”

He trudged away from the door. And seeming to forget me, he disappeared down the hall where I guessed he planned to change and bathe his blowout baby.

Should I just set the toy inside the door and leave?

I stepped inside the apartment to survey the area and see what Jaxon might be up to, and what I saw inside was nothing like the last time I’d been here.

There were baby toys littered all over the living room rug. A baby swing sat in the middle of the floor between the living room and kitchen, a baby bouncer seat next to it. Pink and purple blankets and baby clothes were piled on one of the couch cushions, looking like they had been washed but had been waiting for who knows how long to be put away.

“Hi, Mommy,” Jaxon said, bringing my attention to the kitchen counter where he was eating pizza and watching a cartoon on Vincent’s iPad. “Do I get to come home now?”

“No.” I shook my head and held up his toy. “I just came to drop off Petrie.”

“Oh.” He shook his head and gave a little laugh like he thought he was silly. “I forgot him.”

“Yeah.” I stepped closer and sat on the stool beside him, putting Petrie on the counter. “How are things going, anyway? Have you been having a good time with your dad and Evelyn?”

He just shrugged. “Daddy said I can watch movies all night.”

I raised my eyebrows. “He did?” That did not sound like Vincent at all. Usually he was way more strict than me in how much screen time our son got.

But Jaxon just nodded, a gleeful look in his eyes. “Baby Evelyn’s teeth are owie, so we get to watch movies all night to make her happy.”

I imagined the movies were really to give Jaxon something to do while Vincent was dealing with a screaming infant, but I wouldn’t correct him.

I looked around the room again and noticed several other things that were out of the ordinary from what I knew about how Vincent usually kept house. He had always been the type of person who washed his dishes or at least put them in the dishwasher as soon as he was done with his meal, but his kitchen sink was overflowing with dishes and bottles. The garbage was overflowing as well. And though it was the middle of March, the calendar on the wall was still on the month of February with Derek’s wedding scribbled on the twenty-eighth.

Jaxon had always wanted to be held as a baby, especially the first nine months before he started crawling. Was it possible that Evelyn was even more needy?

But then again, having a baby suddenly appear in your life and having to take care of her on your own would definitely be overwhelming—especially if she was teething like Jaxon suggested.

I turned back to Jaxon. “Wanna help do something nice for your daddy?”

He narrowed his eyes, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to agree to doing anything.

I said, “Your dad is giving Baby Evelyn a bath right now. I think it would be fun if we surprise him and clean up the toys before he gets back in here.”

He looked at the toys on the floor. “But Baby Evelyn maked the mess.”

“I know.” I pushed pause on his show. “But I think it would be really nice for you to help out.”

He sighed a long sigh, like it was a huge sacrifice for him to clean up a mess he didn’t make. Then he said, “Fine.”

So I helped him off the stool, and after he showed me the bins where the toys went, we started throwing the toys in them. By the time Vincent came back from cleaning up his daughter and changing her into a fresh diaper and footie pajamas, the living room floor was mostly clean.

The big man stopped when he saw what we’d done, and for a second it looked like he was fighting a wave of emotion as his jaw worked. “Thank you,” he said, his voice deep and throaty.

I pushed my hands along the thighs of my jeans and stood, looking around at what we’d done, which honestly wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. “It was no problem.”

But when I looked at Vincent again, it seemed like he was going to fall over from exhaustion. I was reminded of those early days with Jaxon and just how tired I had been all the time.

Sure, Vincent was used to pushing his body to the limits during football season, but this was an entirely different thing. He was raising a baby himself, whereas with me, I’d at least had someone to trade off with on the long nights and days. It was both physically and emotionally draining.

Not to mention the fact that I had also been avoiding him after getting both of our hopes up during the wedding weekend, so he was probably also dealing with some heartbreak like I was.

So I stepped toward him. “Let me take her for a little while,” I said, holding out my arms. “I remember how hard it is to get showers in with a little one. I can give her a bottle or whatever she needs next while you take a few minutes to yourself.”

He just stared at me, disbelief and surprise in his dark brown eyes. Like he couldn’t believe I—the woman who had walked out on him and his baby two weeks ago—was actually offering to help him during his time of need.

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