Page 80 of The Bartender's Baby

Dylan removed his baseball hat to drag his hand over his head a few times. “We didn’t say that. We’ve got tons of helpful shit to say.”

I circled my hands, waiting for this sage advice. “Like…?”

He shrugged and thought for a few moments. “Like don’t watch Blippi. It’ll make you want to break things.”

“And try to avoid YouTube as long as possible. Pretend it doesn’t even exist,” Jude told me.

“Miss Rachel is good, though,” Liam said.

Jude tipped his head in acknowledgment. “For cartoons, Bluey’s the best. Brooke says it’s the most feminist show on TV.”

Liam pointed at him. “Agreed. I could write a thesis on the excellence of Bluey.”

I made mental notes. “Okay. What else you got?”

Dylan sliced his hand through the air. “No slime, no play dough, no glitter.”

“But watch out, because other parents will send bags of crap home with your kid because it was their kid’s birthday, and if they see the slime, play dough, or glitter in those bags, it’s a fight to the death,” Liam warned.

Jude shook his head as if imagining it. “There’s also a fight to the death about food. Everything they liked as a baby, they’ll hate as a toddler, and everything they ate as a toddler, they’ll throw away when they’re older.”

“You said you wanted chicken nuggets for dinner. Here’s your chicken nuggets,” Dylan said, pretending to hand his hat over as a plate of food before pitching his voice to a squeak. “No! I wanted pizza!” He rolled his eyes, leveling me with a glower as if I were the one demanding pizza over nuggets. “Sends me through the roof every time.”

“It’s the absolute worst,” Liam muttered.

Jude eyed me seriously. “And don’t be fooled by the well-behaved first child. The next one will be a savage.”

“Got that right,” Dylan grunted.

Liam lifted a careless shoulder. “Unless the first one is Finn. Then you’re fucked.”

I stared at my friends for a second, letting all that soak in before I dropped my head back, laughing.

The answer was there was no answer. I’d mess up. I’d get mad. I would definitely make mistakes, so I guessed all there was left to do was love my boy.

I’d do everything I could to protect him and help him and teach him everything I knew, and hopefully, thirty years from now, he’d think I did the best I could.

I leaned back against the wall. “I get it. Kids are hard. Buy a helmet.”

“Take it one day at a time,” Liam said, his attention focused on Finn, playing with some random child in the grocery store.

Jude leaned forward to slap my knee. “The only thing you really need to worry about right now is Tabby. Postpartum is tough.”

I nodded, thinking of the long nights when Tabby could barely sleep, plagued by worry and doubt. “Yeah.”

Dylan finally replaced his cap on his head. “In all seriousness, you’re doing great. You’re a good dad.”

“He’s right.” Jude grinned. “You were made for this. Like I always said.”

I felt a swell of gratitude for their faith in me, and I rubbed at the knot in my chest, where all my love for George resided. “Thanks, guys.”

It was at that moment Scarlett noticed me, and she screeched in joy. Dylan and Gen had brought Scarlett and Tucker over to meet their new cousin, and it had been practically impossible to pry her away from him. She raced right over to me, accidentally knocking into the car seat. All the other kids followed her, so George fluttered his eyes open to not only Scarlett but Sebastian, Amelia, Tucker, and Finn. All of them talking over one another and asking their dads questions about holding him and how old he was and what babies liked to eat and when they got teeth.

“Hey, all right.” Liam pulled Finn away, his finger dangerously close to George’s face. “Give the baby some room.”

“I wanna hold him. Can I hold him?” Scarlett folded her hands, pleading at me with her big brown eyes. “Please?”

“How about I hold him, and you can each take a turn holding his hand?” I suggested, starting to undo his straps.

---