Page 153 of Moonlighter
Tara lifts the bottle out of a bowl of warm water and dries it with a towel just as Rose begins wailing in earnest. “There you go.”
“Excellent timing, thank you.” I grab it and hustle to the living room, where I make us comfortable on the sofa. And after testing the temperature of the milk, I touch the nipple to Rose’s tiny lips.
And—this part always kills me—after she opens her little mouth and takes the nipple, she gives her little head a shake as she begins to suck, just to make sure she’s on there good and tight.
“There you go. This bottle doesn’t stand a chance.”
Blue eyes look up at me, satisfied now. I find her tiny hand with my finger, which she grabs tightly. Her hands fascinate me. I didn’t know they made hands that small. She has short little fingers, each knuckle articulated in miniature, and fingernails no bigger than the head of a pin.
When she’s about half done, there’s a tap on the door.
“Come in!” The sling allows me to stand up and walk to the foyer while Rose keeps on slurping.
“Oh my God,” are Rebecca’s first words when she enters the apartment. “That is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I’m dead.” She puts a hand over her forehead. “Oh, and the baby is pretty cute, too.”
“What? Jeez. Come in already.” I wave her through.
Nate Kattenberger follows his fiancée. He stops to smirk at me. “I need a photo. I’m thinking of a before and after picture. You with a whiskey bottle, then you with a baby bottle.”
“Get your licks in now. Your day will come.”
He laughs. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Hold up,” Duff says instead of closing the door. “You have two more guests arriving.”
I poke my head out into the hallway and spot Coach Worthington getting off the elevator with Georgia, his daughter. “Hey, guys! Come on in.”
Georgia lets out a squeal. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Yeah, yeah. In you go.” I step aside to let her through. “Hey, coach. I’d shake your hand, but the little miss doesn’t like it when I take away the bottle.”
“Oh, I remember how that goes.” Coach thwacks me on the shoulder as he passes me.
“Thanks, Duff. Just send people in, okay? There will be more.”
“Sure thing. How’s everyone sleeping this weekend?” Duff asks.
“We’re sleeping well, but not often enough. Come in for a plate later, okay? Tara is cooking up some good party food.”
“I’ll do that.”
Duff is the one who drove us home from the hospital last week. It was hilarious, honestly. With a newborn on board, Race-car Duff never topped ten miles per hour. And the plastic sled rode home with us in the passenger’s seat.
“You’re keeping that thing?” Alex had asked.
“Are you kidding? I paid eighty bucks for this. And when it snows next year, we can go sledding in Central Park.” It’s somewhere in her coat closet now.
Back in the living room, Alex has appeared in lipstick and a sweater dress. She’s accepting kisses and presents from her guests.
“You look amazing!” Rebecca says. “Not at all like the sleep-deprived raccoon that most women turn into.”
“It’s all a facade,” she says. “Concealer has been deployed. I don’t even remember what a full night’s sleep feels like.”
It’s true. Rosie likes to nurse every three or four hours. I’m usually in bed with both of them, but Alex doesn’t use bottles at night, so I can just roll over and fall back to sleep.
My main job is making coffee in the morning and taking trips to the grocery store at regular intervals. And—this is educational—I have never received so much female attention as the time I wore Rosie in a sling to the deli. Forget professional hockey. The women of New York find nothing sexier than a man buying milk and bread with a baby sleeping on his chest.
Go figure.
