Page 43 of Denim & Diamonds

February

My phone chimed in the middle of a meeting at work. I looked down to find a text.

Brock: There are way too many nipples to choose from.

My mouth went agape. What?

February: I thought men liked nipples.

Brock: The kind that go on bottles, Red. How am I supposed to choose? There are too many different kinds.

February: Ah. You’re baby shopping. All alone?

Brock: Yep.

February: Someone send help! LOL

Brock: You’re not kidding. I wrote out a list of stuff I needed. But I’m not clear on which brands are best. This shit is confusing as hell.

I grinned as I imagined big Brock standing clueless in the baby aisle. Some hungry woman would spot him and offer to rescue him any minute now. I figured I’d beat her to the punch.

February: Do you want me to FaceTime you? We can shop together.

Brock: I’d never refuse a chance to see your face. That would be awesome. But aren’t you in the middle of your workday?

February: One of the perks of being the boss is that I can take a break whenever the hell I want to. I’ll call you in a few.

After telling my coworkers I had an important phone call—technically the truth—I excused myself from the meeting and headed to my office, closing the door behind me.

While Brock and I hadn’t made any formal declarations about the status of our relationship, we’d talked each day since I’d come home from Meadowbrook three days ago, and I lived for these little surprise moments of contact.

Even if our future was unclear, I still wanted to be there to support him in any way I could from afar.

Since neither of us knew how we were going to feel once his son arrived, it seemed best to just take it day by day for now.

I placed the call, and when his handsome face popped up on the screen, the butterflies in my stomach came alive.

“Hey, Brock.”

“Hey, beautiful. How are you?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Better now that you’re here.” He smiled.

I leaned back in my seat and exhaled. “So…nipples, huh? That’s where we’re starting.” He paused, looking defeated. “I decided to formula feed him. The whole wet-nurse thing freaks me out. I don’t want him to be drinking some strange woman’s breastmilk.”

My eyes went wide. “You were considering hiring someone for milk?”

He shrugged. “It was Nina’s suggestion—before she basically handed me a baby how-to guide and ran. She thought breastmilk would be better for him.”

My cheeks felt hot, the need to punch that woman growing by the second. “Well, really nice of her to be so conscientious when she’s not going to be the one feeding him.”

“I know.” He shook his head. “The fucking irony, right?” He sighed. “I feel guilty about not giving the baby what’s best for him, but I need to go with my gut on this.”

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with formula,” I assured him. “I was formula fed. I turned out okay, right?”

He scratched his chin. “Hmm... Now, you have me second-guessing it.”

“Hey!” I giggled.

“Kidding, Red. You’re damn near perfect.”

A chill ran down my spine. Our eyes lingered for a moment before I cleared my throat and willed myself to focus on the task at hand.

“Okay…” I typed into my computer. “Nipples. Let’s do some research.”

“Not exactly the kind of nipple play I like with you.” He winked.

I quickly scanned some articles to find baby bottle recommendations and suggested a brand he was able to find at the store and place in his cart.

“Thank you, Red,” he said after making his selection. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”

“Well, that was only one item on your list. We have a long way to go. What’s next?”

“Diapers. I’ve narrowed it down to two brands, but how do you know which size?”

“I think the newborn size is pretty safe to start.”

“But this is my baby. What if he comes out huge and skips right over that?”

He had a point.

“Then buy a few packages of the next biggest size, too. It’s not like you won’t need them eventually, you know?”

“Good point.”

There should’ve been someone in Brock’s life who could’ve gone baby shopping with him today. But his mom wasn’t around anymore, and his brothers were probably as helpless as he was. Despite my need to protect myself, I wished so badly that I could be there in person.

“This list is long. It’ll take us all day.” He wiped sweat from his forehead, and I felt compelled to step in. Well, as much as I could from afar.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let me take this off your hands.”

He drew in his brows. “What do you mean?”

“Send me the list. Take a photo of it and text it. I’ll research the best products, and then I’ll order everything and have it shipped to you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? It would be my pleasure. I feel helpless over here. It’s the least I can do.”

He looked away for a moment. “ Feb, I can’t—”

“Non-negotiable.”

He sighed, his shoulders slumping in surrender. “Well, thank you. It means a lot that you’d want to do this for me.”

“You don’t have a lot of free days before he’s born. Go work on the cabin. Or start getting the apartment ready.”

He nodded silently, just staring at me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“This whole thing is surreal. I don’t know how to feel about anything. Sometimes I’m excited about getting to meet my son. And other times, I’m totally afraid. The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is that I miss you like crazy.”

My heart fluttered, though I tried to squelch the feeling. “I miss you, too.”

After we finished our call, I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping online for Brock.

He’d insisted on giving me his credit card number and wouldn’t send the list until I promised to use it.

I was pretty sure I’d ordered him all the main things he’d need, choosing what the Internet agreed were some of the best brands.

I’d even added some things that weren’t on the list like baby spoons and silicone bibs.

He wouldn’t need those right away, but it would be nice to not have to worry about buying them when he did.

And there was one other item I couldn’t resist throwing into the mix: little plaid footie pajamas that reminded me of one of Brock’s shirts.

***

At the end of the day, I was leaving the office when our public relations manager, Fallon, stopped me .

“Hey, Feb. Are you okay?”

“Sure,” I said as we walked down the hall together. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You left the meeting earlier very abruptly, and you’ve had your door shut all afternoon. Well, except when I stopped in to hand you a coffee.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her as we exited the revolving doors. “I just had some…personal stuff to take care of.”

She looked skeptical as we faced each other outside the building. “Okay, if you say so.”

I cocked my head. “You don’t believe me?”

Fallon looked around as if to make sure no one was near us and whispered, “I saw you looking at baby stuff when I barged into your office. You closed your computer window when you realized I was standing behind you with your coffee.” She lowered her voice further. “Are you pregnant?”

Oh Lord . She’d drawn the wrong conclusion. “No. Why would you jump right to that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’m not pregnant. I was shopping for a friend. It’s not my baby.”

As soon as those words exited my mouth— not my baby —I felt it in the pit of my stomach. Reality hit me all at once.

Brock’s having a baby.

Not my baby.

The finality of it all threatened to choke me.

She snapped me out of my thoughts. “What’s going on, February?”

Fallon was a friend. I could trust her. I needed to let some of this out, so we moved to sit on a stone ledge outside our building, where I explained everything that had happened with Brock.

Fallon offered a sympathetic smile. “I once dated a guy who was a single dad. His son wasn’t a newborn, but pretty young, like three or four.”

“And?”

Her expression dampened. “Mitchell was a solid boyfriend. Trustworthy and loyal. But he always had to put his kid before me. And that put a strain on things. If they have kids, you never come first. That’s just the way it is.

Some people are okay with that. Me? Well, I’m a selfish person.

I need to be number one. So needless to say, it didn’t work out. ”

I swallowed. “At least you figured it out before you got too attached to the kid.”

She nodded. “Mitchell was amazing, though.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “My guy is amazing, too.”

My guy. But he wasn’t really anymore, was he?

***

Later that evening, I was attempting to relax at home when my phone lit up with a number that looked international.

Picking up, I squinted. “Hello?”

“February, bella. How are you?” came a strong Italian accent.

It was Giovanni Vitadinni, a potential investor I’d been wooing since I started to get the vibe that the bank might not be too keen on the loan I needed.

I feigned my best friendly voice. “Giovanni, it’s great to hear from you, although it must be pretty late there. ”

“I’m an insomniac.”

“Ah.” I laughed. “Have you come to any decisions on what we last spoke about?”

“I’d like to discuss it further…but in person.”

My eyes widened. “Oh?”

“Come out to Milan next week. You can stay in my villa. My wife, Francesca, would love to meet you.”

Next week?

I couldn’t just drop everything and fly to Italy. Then again, Giovanni was someone I didn’t want to piss off right now. If he was inviting me out there, that meant he was considering becoming an investor at a time when I could really use his financial support…

“Let me take a closer look at my schedule, and I’ll get back to you soon, if that’s okay?”

“That’s perfect, bella. Take your time. Just not too much time, eh? I’m eager to speak with you.”

“Got it. Thank you. You’ll hear back from me in the next day or two.”