Page 9 of If Love Had A Manual (Skeptically In Love #2)

Lena

“Wes?” I call out as I let myself in, nudging the door shut with my hip while juggling my tote and a paper bag of pastries I picked up from the café down the road.

No answer.

But then—oh yes, there it is—a thud and a string of mumbled curses from upstairs.

I hesitate in the hallway.

“Lena!” he bellows from above. “Shower! Now! Quick!”

I blink. “Shower…me?” Because apparently we’re communicating in one-word sentences today.

“Not you. Her!” he yells again, and I swear I can hear the desperation dripping down the stairs. “Rosie…Jesus Christ. Just come help me before I drown in shit.”

I kick off my boots, abandon the pastries on the table, and bolt up the stairs two at a time.

Wes’s voice leads me to Rosie’s nursery, though calling it a nursery feels generous considering there’s currently what looks like a baby crime scene in the middle of it.

There he is.

Towering. Barefoot. Panic-stricken.

I stop in the doorway, blink once, and let out a stunned, involuntary bark of laughter.

He’s holding Rosie in the air like she’s Simba from The Lion King, except she’s wailing, he’s sweating, and there’s poop everywhere.

I mean everywhere.

“I looked away for two seconds,” he says, wild-eyed. “She exploded. It’s on the walls, Lena. The walls.”

There’s a distinct brown smear trailing from the changing table down the leg of his jeans and onto the floor.

I lose it.

I try not to, I really do, but the laugh that rips from my throat is involuntary and slightly unhinged.

“Don’t laugh,” he says, holding Rosie further away like that’ll stop the damage .

I hold up my hands. “Okay, okay, I’ll take her. I’ll shower her in the main bathroom. You go shower too and…burn your clothes.”

To his credit, he looks like a man on the brink.

He passes her over like she’s radioactive, and I cradle her gingerly, trying not to gag. Her onesie is a war crime. My hand squelches, and I black out briefly.

“Right,” I say, steeling myself. “To the bathroom we go.”

I take Rosie into the main bathroom and set her down on a towel while I strip off her disaster of a onesie. She giggles and immediately tries to crawl toward the toilet.

“Nope,” I tell her, hauling her back and grabbing a washcloth. “Not today, Satan.”

I get the water running and test it until it’s warm, then plop her carefully into the tub.

There’s poop in her curls. Her actual curls.

I rinse, scrub, pray, and repeat.

By the time Wes walks in again, freshly scrubbed and wearing clean black jeans and nothing else, I am sweating and soaked.

He tosses his ruined t-shirt into a garbage bag.

I glance up from where I’m crouched next to the tub.

And yeah. I gape. Because, well, it’s impossible not to, and he’s not wearing a shirt.

Wes is a lot. Broad shoulders. Defined chest. A tattoo I didn’t know existed peeking from under his collarbone.

And abs. Lots of them.

My eyes linger too long. I know they do because when I drag them away, it takes the emotional strength of a thousand therapists .

It’s only my third week here. I’m not allowed to have thoughts like that.

He quirks an eyebrow. “You good?”

I clear my throat. “Peachy. She’s all clean.”

“You’re a warrior. She should have come with a manual.”

I smile up at him. “That’s why you hired me.”

Now, please don’t fire me for gawking at you.

“You’re the manual?”

“Sure am.”

He wipes the threatening smirk away from his lips with his thumb. “Thanks for showing up early. I was about five seconds away from hosing her in the yard.”

I wrap Rosie in a towel as she squeals with joy. “She’d probably have loved that.”

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “I did my best with her room. I opened the window, but it probably needs to be fumigated.” He leans over and presses a kiss to Rosie’s wet head. “I'd better get going. I’m already late.”

“And you don’t want to be late.” I purse my lips, but the words tumble out. I can’t help it. “That would be shitty.”

He groans. “Too soon.”

Before he returns to his room to hopefully put on a T-shirt, he gives a final look over his shoulder. “Thanks again, Lena.”

My cheeks heat, but I brush it off and force my lips upward. “Yeah, well. Don’t fall in love with me yet, Turner.”

His mouth twitches. “No promises.”

Ah, would you look at that. He makes jokes.