My eyes blink open for a second, seeing the blackness of the room before closing again. A weird sound fills my ears, maybe it’s my imagination, I think to myself, or a dream. It sort of sounds like grunts but then the sound of screeching fills my ears. “What is that noise?” I mumble, asking myself as I turn to my side. My arm flies out beside me, falling onto a warm body. My eyes suddenly fly open, looking around I realize I’m not home. My eyes get used to the darkness of the room to see Eva lying on her back. My eyes go from her to my hand draped over the pillow that is acting as a barrier between us and toward her stomach where my hand has landed.
“It’s the baby,” she murmurs, moving her head from side to side, no doubt trying to wake up from sleep. It takes her about five seconds before she goes from lying down to sitting up in the bed, then she turns and swings her legs to the side, standing up. My hand moves slowly off her and falls onto the bed with a thud.
I get up on my elbow as she stands right next to the bed, my eyes go straight to her ass. She must have changed from when she got into bed before, because she is now wearing booty shorts. When did she change out of her pants? Also, when did her ass get so—umm sexy? I blink a couple more times to clear my head. Maybe I’m delirious from the lack of sleep? Or maybe I’m delirious because my life has been flipped upside down in the past two weeks? Maybe also I’m delirious because it’s been a month since I’ve had sex with someone? “Why is she crying?” I sit up in bed, listening to the crying becoming louder and louder.
“How am I supposed to know? I’ll have to get my magic ball out to see what it says.” She rubs her eye with the palm of her hand before she walks out of the room. The crying gets louder and louder. I look over at the bedside table where the white monitor sits and I see the green lights fill it to the top. The lights go down when she takes a second to breathe while wailing. It takes less than a second to hear Eva’s voice coming through from the monitor. “What’s up, baby girl?” Eva’s voice comes out soft. “Are you hungry? Come here, baby girl.” I hear her lift the baby as I toss the covers off me, getting up and making my way toward Cici’s bedroom. “What’s all the tears for?”
My feet sink into the carpet as I walk into the room seeing Eva holding Cici to her chest, right in front of the crib where she picked her up from. “Should I do something?” I ask and she turns around to look at me.
“Can you get her a bottle?” she asks as Cici buries her face in Eva’s neck, looking over at me, not sure if she should cry or not.
“Um,” I say, looking at her and then at Cici, “is the bottle ready? Like how does one make a bottle? Do I grab it from the fridge, twist the top open? Do I put it under hot water? Do I boil the water?” I put my hands on my hips, suddenly petrified she is going to tell me what to do and then I’m going to go downstairs and, of course, fuck it up, because chances are I’m going to fuck it up.
Eva walks over to me. “Okay, fine.” She hands Cici to me. “Hold her and I’ll go make a bottle.” The minute Cici is in my arms, she starts screaming. I’m expecting Eva to rush back in here and save both of us, but she just looks over her shoulder at us. “Walk her,” she orders me as she heads toward the stairs, leaving me with a wailing Cici.
I put my hand on Cici’s back as her eyes stare at the door for Eva to come back. “I feel you,” I mumble. “It’s okay.” My voice comes out softly, making her turn to look at me. She stops crying for a second before she shudders as she looks at me, her lips going into a pout. “I know the last person you want is me.” I take Eva’s advice and start to walk toward her bed before turning back to walk toward the door. “But she’s going to go and get you food. The good stuff.” She looks at me, taking her little chubby hand in a fist and rubbing her eyes. I’m a forensic accountant, who literally takes down million-dollar companies for fraud and embezzlement. I sometimes make grown men cry, I’m a beast in some people’s eyes, especially most of them trying to hide shit that I will eventually find. Yet, here, this little girl, not weighing more than twenty pounds, terrifies the fuck out of me. She takes a big inhale. “I’m just the middleman.” I walk back and forth. “I promise not to keep you longer than I need to.” I put my hand on the back of her head, rubbing her softly. “It’s just that I don’t know how to make a bottle. But I promise to rectify that in the morning.” She just looks at me. “Or I’ll YouTube it as soon as you fall asleep, just in case you need another bottle before morning.” She lets out a soft cry. “She just has to get the goods and then she is going to come and get you.” She looks over at the door as footsteps come up the stairs. “I think she got it. I think she is almost here.” Cici looks up at me, her eyes filled with water, not sure if she wants to cry or not. Her little bottom lip quivers as she puts her two balled-up little fists against my bare chest, and I can’t help but fall in love with this little girl. My eyes go toward the door. “There she is.” I kiss her head as Eva comes into the room. “That was fast.” I see Eva with sleep still in her eyes, but a smile on her face when she sees Cici has stopped crying.
“Yeah.” She walks to us. “There is this bottle-making machine. You put powder on one side and water on the other. You put the bottle underneath it, press a button and boom, formula comes out. It’s like a Keurig but with baby formula.” She smiles at me, then looks at Cici. “Look what I got.” She holds up the bottle at her, shaking it back and forth. She holds out her hands to Cici and she immediately lunges forward. Her hands grab the bottle before lifting it to her mouth.
“Wow,” I say, putting a hand on my chest, “cutthroat. Forgotten in a nanosecond.”
Eva chuckles as she walks over to the rocking chair. “If it makes you feel any better.” She places Cici on her chest sideways. “It’s only because I was holding the bottle. Isn’t that right, baby girl?”
“Nah.” I shake my head, looking at the both of them. “She loves you.”
Eva looks down at Cici as she drinks her bottle. She grabs Cici’s hand and she wraps her whole fist around Eva’s index finger. “She can’t love me more than I love her,” she declares, bringing her finger to her lips and kissing it. “Go back to bed,” she says as she rocks her back and forth, the sound of Cici drinking as if she hasn’t had anything to drink in five days.
“Does she wake up often?” I ask, my feet feeling like they are stuck in quicksand, not being able to move. My eyes are also stuck on the both of them.
“The first two nights no, I guess she felt better being in her own bed,” she shares softly, “but after that, she has been getting up a couple of times a night.”
I take a step toward them, my heart speeding up with worry. “Did you call the doctor?”
She leans her head back on the rocking chair, as her foot pushes up and down to move the chair. “Twice,” she admits.
“And?” I wait to hear what the doctor said.
“He didn’t really say much, just that she’s probably teething.” She shrugs.
“Well, he sounds like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I huff and fold my arms over my chest. “We need to get a second opinion. Maybe we can google best pediatrician in the area.”
She chuckles at me. “I’ll add that on my list of things to do.” She smiles at me. “I’ve got her, go to bed.” I nod at her, moving toward them.
“Good night, baby girl,” I whisper, kissing Cici’s head softly. She stops sucking on her bottle before giving me a smile but then quickly starts drinking again. “Good night.” I look up at Eva before turning to walk out of the room. I take one look over my shoulder, seeing Eva’s eyes are now closed as she rocks her.
Go to bed, my head screams at me the same time I look at Eva move her head to the side, leaving her neck exposed. My finger moves at my side in the same way it would if I was touching her. I shake my head to get rid of the vision of her sitting on top of me, my cock buried inside her, with my arms wrapped around her as I lean forward and bite her neck.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I mumble to myself as I walk back to the bedroom. My cock is now rock hard. “Are you insane?” I look down at said cock straining to get out of my shorts. “You need to shut that shit down. It’s Eva. If she even thought you were looking at her in any other way but as a friend, she would knee you and then you would be out of commission for a good week. Is that what you want?”
I get back into the bed, covering myself with the blanket up to my waist, looking up at the ceiling. I put my hands on my chest as I hear soft murmurs coming from the baby monitor. “Good night, sweet girl,” Eva coos as she kisses her and places her down in her crib.
I look over at the bedroom door, seeing Eva appear and come straight to the bed. She slides into the bed beside me. “Is she asleep?” I ask as she lies on her back, her position mimics mine.
“Not really.” She looks over at me. “But Lisa used to feed her and put her down to sleep. It’s called self-soothing.”
“It sounds horrible.” The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“You don’t self-soothe?” She smirks at me. “I’m sure you self-soothe at least once a week, maybe even once a day.”
“That isn’t what I was saying.” I smile at her in the dark and she sits up in the bed. I follow her lead and look over at the door. “What’s the matter?” Both of us sit up in bed on our respective sides. I look at Eva and then back to the door, and again back at her, waiting for her to say something—anything.
“I don’t know,” she says in a whisper, looking at the door and then the baby monitor. “I feel so guilty.”
“Why?” I ask, confused about what is actually going on.
“Because I just left her in there alone and awake,” she states and her hand comes up to wipe away a tear.
“She’s not crying.” I try to make her feel better. “So I’m assuming she’s okay with it.”
She takes the cover and tosses it off herself, getting up out of bed. Standing there beside it, I lean across the mattress, snatching her hand and pulling her back into the bed. “Go to sleep.”
“Fine,” she huffs at the same time I go back to my side of the bed and lie with my head back on the pillow. I close my eyes but can feel the nervous energy coming from her side of the bed. I open my eyes, looking over at her, seeing her with her hands on her stomach, her index finger tapping the other.
“You aren’t going to go to sleep, are you?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’ll just wait a bit,” she says, looking over at the monitor, seeing that there is no green light on.
“Okay.” I look up at the ceiling, my eyes getting heavier and heavier. I look over at Eva right before my eyes close for good. She also has her eyes closed, and we fall asleep while listening to Cici snore.
