Page 9 of Deep Sea Kiss
Lottie busied herself in the tiny kitchen, stealing glances at the pair on the couch. Eiric was holding Aksel correctly, and the baby wasn’t protesting, so she didn’t feel the need to interrupt the quiet moment. She faced the cupboard to get the mugs, and when she peered at Eiric again, she caught him sniffing Aksel.
“Did he poop?” She carried a plate of cookies to the coffee table. “I can take him if you want.”
But Eiric seemed in no hurry to let him go. “No, he just… He smells nice.”
Lottie chuckled. “Give him half an hour, and you’ll change your mind.”
Eiric gazed up at her, laughter dancing in his eyes. “He looks a little like you. And a little like Mikkel.” He pointed at Aksel’s eyes. “There’s something here that reminds me of my brother.” His expression sobered, and he contemplated the baby. “You said you told him about the pregnancy?”
“Yes.” Lottie returned to the kitchen for the tea. “I’d never keep the babies a secret from him, even if he was a little…wild.”
That earned her a wry smile. “That’s an understatement.”
A sigh escaped her. “I guess. But I didn’t really know him. I thought he deserved a chance to be their dad.”
“I wish I knew what he’d been thinking,” Eiric replied. “Refusing to take care of them, I mean. He shouldn’t have sent you away.”
There was a harsh undertone to his voice that Lottie hadn’t expected. “So you believe me now? That they’re really his?”
“They’re his.”
His words were a declaration, filled with some meaning she didn’t think she understood correctly. Since they hadn’t done a paternity test, she also wasn’t sure how he could be certain, but she was so, so relieved. The weight of carrying this burden alone lessened in the wake of his statement.
Immediately, she kicked herself. He hadn’t said he would help her or that his family had any interest in the babies. In that second, she almost desperately wanted Eiric to love Aksel the way her son deserved.
“Does this mean you’ll help me with the paperwork?” she asked, her throat constricting. She’d been trying to deal with this thing formonths. More than that, she’d been worrying about handling her new situation for over a year, ever since she’d peed on that stick and found out she was pregnant.
“Yeah.” Eiric calmly watched as Aksel grabbed his finger and tried to carry it to his mouth.
“Careful,” Lottie warned him. “He’s teething. Those little fangs don’t look like much, but they sting.”
He smiled at her then, his first genuine, open smile, and breath whooshed from her lungs. Oh, this man was trouble. As much as she wanted him in her life for her babies’ sake, she knew in that moment she had to watch herself around him.
Four
Lottie
Eiric didn’t makeit easy, though. The very next morning, he appeared on her doorstep, his wary expression still firmly in place, and offered his help. First, he drove her to Ålesund and helped her navigate the intricacies of Norwegian bureaucracy. Lottie was so grateful, she wept, to which a red-cheeked Eiric had responded by shoving his handkerchief at her. A real, old-school cotton handkerchief, spotlessly clean and ironed. She wasn’t sure where he came from, but she was happy she’d found him.
The week after that, he showed up unannounced, bringing her several bags’ worth of baby stuff. He’d been to the town, he’d explained, and passed a store where a shopping assistant helped him pick out the right sizes and advised him on the best toys for baby development.
Lottie had stared at the pile of stuff at her feet, overwhelmed and confused, while he assured her that this was still nothing to the amount of child support money Mikkel should have been paying her.
He never stayed long, however, and she still didn’t know anything about him, even after he’d been visiting them for a month. Mrs. Enstad told her he’d come by at other times, missing her while she’d been at work. She couldn’t figure out where he lived or what he did most of his days. He mentioned once he was an architect, but surely even freelance architects had to work at an office somewhere. Googling him showed no results apart from his master thesis being logged in the Norwegian library system. The man had an almost non-existent digital footprint, which worried her.
Was he a criminal? Or maybe in witness protection? She tried asking him about his family and friends, but he answered in monosyllabic words and always changed the topic.
They were returning from the local municipality office, each carrying a baby, when he paused in the middle of the empty road and said, “Do you want Mikkel’s house?”
Lottie stopped a step short of the pavement and faced him. “What?”
Eiric hoisted Aksel on his hip and wiped some drool off the baby’s chin. The gesture seemed instinctual, as though he’d done it a hundred times before.
“I’m getting the house ready for the market. You could live there. We could—” He stopped and corrected himself, “The kids should inherit it. It would give you a place to stay, rent-free, until you could, uh, afford a house of your own.”
Lottie hadn’t spoken to him about her living situation, but apparently he’d concluded that she needed financial help. She stamped down hard on her wounded pride and forced herself to consider the offer with a neutral mindset. Living in Norway was expensive, and she often cut things close with her single nurse’s salary.
“No, thank you,” she answered at last. “I don’t think…” She tried to find the most diplomatic words. “That house is a bachelor’s pad. I wouldn’t feel comfortable there.”
