Saving Ever After (Ever After #4) (17 page)

 I texted
him to let him know I wouldn’t be around, but that he wasn’t getting out of the
League of Legends tutorial he’d agreed to. If he was going to make me work out
all the time with him, I was going to make him game with me.

When Kris
texted back asking what my plans were, I told him exactly who I was babysitting
for.

“Don’t
let that baby choke on anything or you’ll be all over the news for killing
America’s favorite baby,”
was what he texted back. As if I wasn’t already nervous
enough, but now I was thinking about all of the things a baby could choke on,
and it was true that America had fallen in love with Abel. Jaxyn and Ky were
“the couple” right now, even if they tried to stay out of the spotlight.

I texted
back,
Asshole,
and then started getting stuff ready to head to Sadie’s.
I grabbed my laptop and books just in case I got a chance to study. In reality
I knew I probably wouldn’t do any studying, but my intentions were good. That
counted right?

Chris

The knock at
the door alerted me that my brother was a few minutes earlier than I’d planned.
I pulled it open, expecting to see him and Lissa, but was surprised to find Jax
and Ky with Abel instead. “I’m watching this guy too?” I asked, slightly
concerned that I was going to be responsible for two babies. I wasn’t quite
sure I could handle that.

“Nope, Mia
is watching Abel here tonight,” Jax said. She and Ky stepped inside and it took
me a second to wrap my head around what she’d said and close the door.

Mia.

Mia was
going to be here tonight. Just thinking her name caused a smile to tug at the
corners of my lips.

“If you’re
going to be around, I expect you’ll give her a hand if she needs any help?” Jax
smiled and watched me in that all too perceptive way of hers. She’d caught the
smile that I hadn’t been able to hide at the mention of Mia’s name. Reflexively
I looked away and blanked my expression and then wished I hadn’t. That was more
of a tell than the smile itself. I was acting like I had some dirty secret. I
didn’t. Despite my reservations, a friendship was forming between me and Mia,
but that was all. There was nothing wrong with looking forward to seeing a
friend, I told myself. I had no reason to try and hide my smile or be afraid to
meet Jax’s curious gaze.

“Yeah, of
course I’ll help out,” I said, holding out my arms to Ky for Abel. “I’m going
to be watching Abby anyway.” Ky handed the little man over and Jax smiled.

“Oh, Bas is
bringing her here?”

“Yeah,
should be here sometime soon,” I said, bouncing Abel up and down a little in my
arms. “I think Ace and Sadie are still getting ready upstairs.” I led them into
the living room to wait for everyone else.

My night had
improved significantly with the news that Mia would be here. I was anxious to
ask her if she’d had many chances to try out her new assassin on League of
Legends while I’d been in California last week. I couldn’t deny that lately I’d
been finding more time to log into my account, which had been pretty inactive
this past year, and that had everything to do with my growing friendship with her.

She was also
the only person I knew who would be as excited as I was for an upcoming game
I’d gotten to test out while I was in California. The company was getting ready
to shoot some promos for the release later this year, and sent the game to our
manager in hopes that we would consider being a part of the advertising
campaign. Mia and I had talked about this game weeks ago, and she would lose
her shit when I told her I’d already played it.

The rest of
the guys had their games that they enjoyed so they’d thought it was pretty
cool, but they hadn’t been nearly as excited as I was to get my hands on this particular
RPG. They didn’t get how huge it was and how much gamers around the world were
anticipating this release. Mia would get it, and then she would grill me for
every detail of the game.

Jax set
Abel’s diaper bag down beside the couch and then turned to me again.

“I’m glad
you’ll be here with Abby, I think Mia is pretty nervous to watch Abel.”

“I’m sure
she’ll be fine.” I grabbed Abel’s tiny hand and grinned at the little guy. “You
won’t give us any trouble, will ya?” He just wrapped his hand around one of my
fingers, tugging on it.

Mia arrived
a few minutes later, and her demeanor when she walked in did appear slightly
anxious, but she didn’t hide her smile when she spotted me with Abel in my arms.

That smile .
. .

Just fuck. I
hoped Jax missed that one.

 I handed him
off to her and Jax started showing her how to hold him and burp him and where everything
in the diaper bag was. Mia listened intently, taking it all in, seeming to
relax only slightly.

Babies
weren’t a completely new thing for me. I had enough cousins that it seemed like
someone was always having a baby in our family, and there were dozens of them
running or crawling around at family gatherings.

When Bas and
Lissa arrived with my niece just a few minutes later, I gladly took her while
listening to Lissa give almost the exact same spiel Jax had just given to Mia.
By the time all four parents were convinced that their babies were in capable
hands, and Ace and Sadie had come down, we were almost shoving them out the
door.

“What did we
get ourselves into?” I asked Mia, chuckling.

“It’ll be
fun. I think.” She smiled back. Just then Abby started crying and that set Abel
off as well. “Okay, maybe not.”

Fun really
might not have been the right word. Interesting, entertaining, exhausting.
Those were all better choices. After feeding and burping them they were in much
better moods, but they didn’t stay that way.

We spread
out a large blanket on the floor and laid them both down with a few of their
toys. That only kept them entertained for about ten minutes. Nothing held their
attention for very long. They were both more interested in staring at each
other and communicating with their strange noises. They were also fascinated by
Ivy, who was equally fascinated by them. She would circle around them, and then
nudge them with her nose, inciting a chorus of what I think were baby giggles.

Neither baby
could crawl, but that didn’t stop them from reaching out and trying to tug on
her fur and tail. Then I think Ivy decided that they were her puppies because
she didn’t want to leave their sides. She did a better job of keeping them
happy than Mia or I did, which is why things started going downhill when I had
to put her outside to do her business.

Abel really
didn’t like that, and if one of them started crying, it immediately brought on
the waterworks from the other. So once again we had two wailing babies. Mia got
down on the floor with them and started playing peek-a-boo. I think I was more
amused by it than they were, but at least they stopped crying. They just stared
up at her like she was some kind of strange creature. Then Mia must have made a
face they didn’t like, because they both started crying again.

“Here, you
take him, and I’ll get her. Let’s see if we can get them to fall asleep,” I
told her, scooping Abby up and heading toward the stairs. I took her up to the
music room and sat down at the piano. I cradled her in my lap, gently rocking
her with one arm, and used my free hand to play around on the keys. She liked
that a lot. I wasn’t nearly as talented as Sadie or Ky on the piano, but I
could play pretty well, even one handed. Eventually, the soft lullabies put her
to sleep and I carried her back downstairs, pausing at the bottom of the stairs
when I heard music coming from behind the closed door of Mia’s room. In my head
that room was now officially hers. I cocooned Abby in her blanket like Lissa
had showed me and laid her on the couch, then went to check out the noise. It
certainly wasn’t a lullaby. There was nothing soothing or mellow about it.

I opened the
door to the room and a smile split my face at the sight of Mia jumping on the
bed and dancing to the music with Abel in her arms.

“So much for
putting him to sleep,” I said loud enough for her to hear me over Pharell’s
Happy.

She turned,
still jumping and just grinned. “He wasn’t having that. He decided this would
be more fun.”

“He
decided?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, well
I decided, but he’s having a great time. Don’t you ever just want to crank the
music and jump on the bed?”

“Not since I
was like six,” I told her.

“Then you’re
missing out. Come on, get up here.” The bed was plenty big enough, but I wasn’t
about to start jumping on it.

“I don’t
think so. It would probably break.”

She looked
at Abel, “Tell Uncle Chris not to be a party pooper and to get his butt up
here.” Abel made some kind of noise and Mia looked at me triumphantly. “Ha! Now
you have to come jump with us. Abel just said so.”

“I’m pretty
sure that was actually a cry for help.”

“Whatever.
Get up here. You know you want to. I can see how jealous you are that we’re
having fun.”

“I left Abby
lying on the couch. She shouldn’t be out there by herself.”

“Chris! Get
your ass up here. She’ll be fine while you jump with us for two minutes. She
can’t even roll over yet and with the door open we’ll hear her if she cries.”

I shook my
head, but stepped up onto the bed, bouncing lightly to the music, which had
switched to
I love Rock and Roll.

“That’s not
jumping. Come on Chris, jump! Think about all those times your mom or dad
probably told you to quit jumping on your bed and just go for it.”

I laughed,
but started jumping in earnest, feeling only slightly like an idiot. I was
twenty-six and jumping on the bed like a little kid. Mia smiled approvingly and
then started twirling and dancing again, singing at the top of her lungs, all
the while Abel grinned and squealed in her arms.

“You do this
a lot?” I asked her when we climbed off the bed and shut the music off.

“Sometimes,”
she replied casually, and I followed her out to the living room, where Abby was
still sleeping soundly right where I’d left her. After a little while of
rocking Abel, Mia had him out too.

“Now let’s
just hope they stay that way.” She laid him down on the opposite end of the
couch so we could attempt to set up the pack ‘n’ play bed thing Jax had brought
for Abel to sleep in. It was actually pretty big and both babies could easily
lay in there. It was also simpler to set up than it looked. I only had to
fumble around with it for a few minutes before it was up. Mia filled it with
blankets, and then very carefully we moved the sleeping babies.

The only
times they woke up after that were to have their diapers changed and to be fed.
Thankfully after feeding, they were both right back out.

“So do you
think you’ll have kids one day?” Mia asked me when we were sitting there,
eating pizza and watching Tv while they slept.

“Oh, uh,
yeah. At least, I want to someday.”

She nodded.
“So you don’t think you’re there yet?”

“No,” I
laughed. “Definitely not. Right now I just want to be able to focus on the
music, and enjoy this point in my life. I know Ky and Ace are really happy and
wouldn’t give up Jax or Sadie for anything, but I also know it takes a toll on
them, the travelling and being away from their girls all the time. And now that
Ky and Jax have Abel, it’s even harder. For him it’s worth it because he loves
the music, but he loves his family more. Ace feels the same about Sadie. I still
feel like, at this point, my music – my drums – are the love of my life. In a
way they were my first love, and now that I’m getting to do what I’ve always
wanted, I just want to appreciate that for a while, before I start splitting my
priorities.”

“That makes
sense,” she said and then looked at me hesitantly before asking, “So you don’t
think Katrina is the love of your life?”

I didn’t
answer her at first, not because I wasn’t sure of my answer, but because I was.

No.

It rang out
clear as day in my head.

“I’m sorry
if that was too personal. It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s
alright. I just, don’t know. I guess Katrina and I have been together for
almost eight months and maybe I should know, but we spend so much time apart,
and it just hasn’t felt like we’re headed in that direction.” I don’t know why
I told her that. It was the first time I’d admitted out loud what I’d been
feeling for a while. For the first time since Katrina and I had started dating,
I was really giving our future some thought, and when I did, I didn’t see
marriage and kids in it. I didn’t see anything more than this casual thing we’d
been doing.

That was
alright in the beginning, when we both just wanted to focus on our careers, but
I felt like after eight months we should both want more, but we didn’t even
talk about more. Hell, neither of us was even very sentimental. We didn’t talk
about us really at all or how we felt about each other.

We weren’t
the type of couple that had to call each other every day when we were apart.
Sometimes we could go three or four days without talking when one or both of us
was out of town for our jobs. I’d never thought that was a big deal, until I
thought of Ky who would lose his damn mind if he didn’t get to hear Jax’s voice
every day. I didn’t feel that, and I was seeing how significant all these
little things might actually be.

It wasn’t
something I wanted to think about right now and it definitely wasn’t something
I needed to be talking to Mia about, so I turned the question around on her.
“What about you? Do you want to have kids?”

“Yeah, I do.
I think I want three or four. But not all girls,” she quickly added at the end.

I laughed,
“Are you trying to say something about having sisters?”

She sighed,
“That many girls . . .  it’s hard. There’s too much competitiveness and drama,
and issues with jealousy. At least in our house there was.”