Page 50 of The One Next Door

“Open your arms.”

I obeyed and Stephanie placed Gaby in my arms.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Hold the baby, Carter,” she ordered.

“Why?”

“Because you haven’t yet. You’ve been avoiding holding Gaby and I think it’s time you got over it.”

Steph backed away, leaving me holding her newborn. My arms were shaking. My heart raced a little. I could feel myself start to panic and I tried to give her back to her moms. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Just hold her.”

“I’m going to drop her.”

“No, you’re not. Just sit there.”

I sighed, trying to make my body calm down and just hold Gaby without freaking out. She babbled for a few seconds before scrunching up her face. I braced myself. She was going to cry because she hated me. She knew I wasn’t parent material and she wanted to get away from me as fast as possible.

“I can’t do this, Steph. She’s going to…”

Gaby opened her mouth and I braced myself for a long, loud wail, but instead she made a soft, relaxed sound and closed her eyes. I sat terrified to move a muscle or make a sound.

“She’s sleeping. Finally,” Maya whispered.

“What am I supposed to do? Here, take her back,” I said, trying to hand her back to Steph, but they stopped me. “Come on.”

“Just hold her, Carter. Let her sleep.”

“Yeah, this is the first step in dealing with your issues,” Maya confirmed.Slowly, they backed out of the room, closing the door behind them.

“Wait… what am I…”

“Shh.”

And, with that, Maya and Steph left me with a sleeping baby in my arms. To work through my issues. I smirked to myself. Who was anyone kidding? This wasn’t about my issues with kids. My friends just suckered me into free childcare while they took a nap.

I sighed and looked down at the baby in my arms. It would be so easy to let her down. To fail her. To make her uncomfortable or forget to do something that she needed and make her cry and scream and hate me.

But I didn’t. I sat there and she slept.

Eighteen

Zoe

I approached Dr. Castigan with an armload of charts.

“Those all up to date?” she asked me.

“They are. Just finished.”

“Good. Good work, Laster. I wasn’t sure how this pairing was going to work out, but you’re really keeping up.”

I nodded, trying not to smile like a dork. To most people,keeping upmight sound like the most backhanded compli-sult, but from Dr. Castigan, it was glowing praise. Especially since we got off to a rocky start.

“I’m going to have you put on the rest of my surgical procedures this week.”

---