Page 33

SIXTEEN

TANNER

“This is where you came with Holiday?”

Millie nodded. “Yep. I told you it was intense.”

Yes. Intense. There had to be five thousand square feet of soft toys here.

I probably should have prepared better. I probably should have prepared at all. I knew for a fact I hadn’t covered the shopping chapter in any baby book I’d read yet, and while I’d bought plenty of presents for kids before, today was my first day in a baby department.

Anything I’d bought for my nieces and nephews had been shipped from the internet, or, even better, Holiday had purchased them and added my name to a card. Most of the time they’d already been picked out by my brother and sister, so there was no possible way for me to get it wrong.

I could definitely get something wrong today.

It was also busier than I expected it to be, and standing at the point where the escalator reached the baby floor wasn’t the best place to stop.

Something not one, but two people had already informed me of.

The third said nothing, but his frown followed by a double take made me wish I’d worn a baseball cap.

I glanced around. It seemed that the floor was split into sections—baby outdoor, baby bedroom, baby dining—which had to be one saving grace, I supposed, even if I didn’t entirely understand what baby dining would consist of.

Taking a deep breath, I glanced at Millie, whose expression perfectly matched what I was feeling, even though she’d already been here once.

But, I was in my brand new, super soft daddy sweater, and I needed to live up to my role. Plus, I’d brought Millie here, therefore it was up to me to decide the plan.

“Okay, why don’t we start with baby bedroom. It’s going to have to sleep, right?” I laughed, desperate to bring a smile to Millie’s face.

“Let’s hope,” she mumbled.

Taking her hand in mine, I led us through display units of what we’d no doubt be buying later until we reached the threshold of baby bedroom, and I realized I needed to call in the professionals.

“We need help,” I told her, pulling her over to a squashy couch, at the end of which was a guy who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“I think the store clerk is over there?—”

“I’m not talking about a store clerk,” I replied, hitting one of the speed dials I had set for family calls.

“Baby bro. What’ve you done now?” asked Lucas, picking up before the first ring.

“Why do you think I’ve done something?”

“Because you never call me.”

“I call you all the time.”

“You call the family group. The last time you called me was to ask if a sex position you’d found in Cosmo could pull a hamstring.”

My gaze sliced to Millie, it didn’t seem Lucas was talking loud enough for her to hear though, the slight frown she was wearing could be from anything.

“Oh yeah,” I replied, as my memory jogged. It wasn’t something I’d ever discovered, either, because not long after, Millie had come along, but after this morning, maybe it was something I could try. I still had that copy of Cosmo somewhere. “Well, I’m calling about something else today.”

“What’s up?”

“Millie and I are baby shopping?—”

My sentence was cut short by the loud laugh my brother barked out. “Oh man.”

“Yeah, anyway, we just arrived and I need your help.”

“Have you bought anything yet?”

I shook my head. “No. But we’re sitting in the middle of the department floor.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t panic. I’m going to email you a spreadsheet I created when Henry was born, and I updated it after Scarlett came along. It’s everything you need to get started, and listed according to efficiency, quality, and cost, and it’s all rated.”

My brother could be an annoying pain in my ass, as well as a patronizing bastard, but right now I’d forgive him anything because he was also the nerdiest, most organized person I knew. And about to save my ass for the umpteenth time, it seemed .

“Luke, not that I’m not grateful or anything, but why am I not surprised you have this?”

His laugh boomed down the line. “I’m friends with a bunch of dads from before Henry was born and it started as a bit of fun because we wanted different kinds of things that our wives had.

We figured it was the best way to ensure we didn’t fuck up too much, and we all contributed. It’s specific to dads.”

I didn’t want to think about whether I’d become one of those dads with a spreadsheet, because I was not in the position to turn away any kind of help.

“Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.”

“No worries. Call me if you need anything. You’re gonna be fine, Tan,” he replied, before hanging up.

I swallowed down the lump that suddenly formed in my throat from his throwaway comment. I would be fine, better than fine. I was going to nail this dad thing. Blinking away the moisture in my eyes, I turned to Millie.

“Well, what did he say?”

“He’s sending us a spreadsheet.” And there it was, right at the top of my emails when I opened it. “Je sus .”

“What?”

I turned my screen to Millie. It was only open on the first tab titled furniture . Rows and rows split out according to room, not unlike the floor at Bergdorfs we were sitting on. If my brother ever decided to pack in medicine, he could work in retail.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, my brother is freakishly organized. As well as being the biggest tech geek you’ve ever met. ”

She scrolled through the list, flicking between the different tabs, all as full of information as the first one.

“I’m not complaining, this is more than we could have ever come up with.” She smiled, and the expression of helplessness she’d been wearing was replaced by one of hope. Peering at the list again, she added, “Come on, let’s go and find our baby a bassinet.”

I wasn’t about to tell her I didn’t even know what a bassinet was.

T wo hours later and we were still in the baby bedroom department. We’d only bought one crib and I hadn’t found out what a bassinet was.

On the plus side a very helpful woman named Julie had introduced herself as the Bergdorf Goodman’s baby preparation expert, or something along those lines, and we’d hired her immediately.

Another item we’d ticked off our list—even if it hadn’t been on our list when we’d walked in—was decorating the nursery, because Julie was managing it along with everything else that we apparently needed doing.

I had a feeling Julie was going to become Millie’s new best friend.

Mine, too, seeing as I knew nothing about paint swatches.

“Do you like this color?”

I’d been flicking through a thick pile of baby blankets, which had to be made of clouds for how soft they were, and glanced up to find Millie holding a piece of white card.

“Which color?”

“This one.” She waved the card at me .

“It’s white.”

“It’s not, it’s creamy.” Her eyes dropped to read the back. “It’s called Corduroy.”

It was the way she was looking at me, almost begging me to make the decision, even though I was certain the walls were already that shade. White .

“Julie said she can get the team in to start decorating beginning of November. It’s after the playoffs, I thought that would be okay, right?”

My entire body flooded warm and fuzzy, like I’d been wrapped in one of those cloud blankets, but it was purely because of this girl in front of me. I never realized she paid any attention to the schedule. “You know when the playoffs are?”

“Of course I do. You’re winning them, aren’t you?”

Before I could stop myself, my hands had surrounded her face and my lips pressed to hers. “Yes, babe. We’re winning.”

If she was shocked or unhappy with my public display, she didn’t show it. “That’s what I thought. Now, do you like this color?”

“Yes, I love it. It’s perfect.” I smacked a kiss to her one more time, just to tide me over. “And we’re getting one of these blankets. Actually, two. I want one.”

“I like it.” Millie brushed her fingers along the cashmere, with a smile. “I think we’re done with decorating, if you want to pick out a stroller?”

“I’d love to pick out a stroller with you.” I grinned down at her, refusing to be the first one to break the lock our gaze was in.

Julie did it instead.

“How long have you two been together? You really are the cutest couple.”

Yup, Julie was definitely my new best friend.

Wrapping my arm around Millie’s shoulder, I pulled her into me and rested my lips against her temple.

“If you ask me, we’ve been together thirteen months.

Since the first time I laid eyes on her, standing across the grossest, stickiest, noisiest dive bar.

But this one has a different answer, don’t you, babe? ”

Man, I loved that color she turned, especially when I winked.

“We’re not together,” Millie replied eventually, adding a deep roll of her eyes.

“Oh, you two.” Julie’s smile beamed out as she laughed at the bit between Millie and me that I’d just invented, and turned to guide us through to a different section of the floor.

“I’ve seen plenty of couples in my day, and I know when I see the ones who’ll last. You’ll be coming back with the next babies, mark my words. ”

I turned to Millie, my eyes flaring wide, and mouthed, Next babies , only to receive a sharp elbow to the ribs in response.

“Do you know what you’re having?”

Millie shook her head, and I could see from her expression she wasn’t finding Julie as charming as I was. “No, we haven’t decided to find out yet, our twenty-week scan isn’t for a few weeks.”

“What’s the date? If you find out, we can adjust the color schemes.”

“October thirtieth.”

“If Jupiter’s correct, that’ll be game five,” I added .

“Correct about what?”

“That we’ll win the World Series in five games against the Yankees. Which means game five will be the winning game.”

Millie stopped walking, standing between an almost life-size giraffe and an equally large tiger. “But that’s a big day, should we push the scan?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s going to be the fourth best day of my life.”

“Fourth?”