Play Softly (The Devil's Share Book 4) (5 page)

She smiled. “It would be nice to not smell like that hospital anymore.” Lexi put the baby in my arms and carefully got to her feet. “Oh, you know what, just let me burp her real quick.”

I shooed her hands away. “I can burp her.”

“You sure?”

How many fucking times was she going to ask me that? I kind of wanted to give her a hard time, but then I remembered she had pushed our baby out of her vag a few days ago so I smiled. “Kitten, we’ll be just fine.”

“Okay.”

I kept my eyes on Lexi as she slowly made her way to the bathroom. Even exhausted, hormonal, and covered in breast milk leakage, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. I placed my hand on Halen’s small stomach. “You have the most amazing mommy.” Lexi blew me a kiss from the doorway. After she’d closed the door and turned on the shower I added, “But she’s a little bit cray cray.”

I placed Halen on my shoulder, careful not to let her head do that horrible baby roll thing where it looked like it might fall off. That freaked me out. I patted her back a handful of times before she let out a burp. “Good girl. See? We’ve got this. We are doing just fine.” I pulled her away from me and smiled at her. Then she projectile spit up all over my neck and shirt. “Well. Okay. That’s okay. That was Daddy’s bad and that’s what burp rags are for.”

Lexi had been using a rag earlier and I grabbed it and mopped up everything I could one-handed. “Look at that, now you actually do need to change clothes.” I chuckled at my own joke and laid her down on the bed, buttressing her with pillows on either side. I got up and compiled everything I needed to get her diaper and clothes changed.

We were doing good until I took off her diaper. “Holy. Shit.” Literally. The second I removed that miniature diaper, blackish green poop shot out of her tiny little butt and covered the bed and my pants. I just stood there, completely frozen. What the hell was I supposed to do now? “Uh… Okay…okay, no worries, baby girl. Daddy’s got this.” I reached to the side and started pulling baby wipes out by the handful.

“Hey, are you guys hungry? We’re about to…” Smith stopped talking as he entered our room and wrinkled his nose. “What’s all over your clothes?”

I looked down. “A mixture of spoiled breast milk and poop.”

Smith stared at me, unblinking and unmoving. Then he took out his phone and snapped a few pictures. “Where’s Lexi?”

“Shower.”

He started to laugh, “She finally left you alone with your daughter and you managed to cover yourself in vomit and baby shit? Classic.”

I narrowed my eyes. “A little help here?” I cleaned Halen up and then handed her in her new clean diaper to Smith while I took off my shirt and jeans and threw them in the dirty clothes hamper.

He sat down on the bed before I could tell him not to. When he saw me wince, he asked, “Did I just sit in shit? Tell me I did not just sit in a pile of runny baby shit.”

I nodded. “Yeah…you did. Sorry about that. Let me change and then I’ll take her, hold on.”

Smith stood, frowning down at his jeans. “I’m never coming to ask if you guys want dinner again.”

The second I went to grab some new clothes for myself, I heard her burp again then the unmistakable sound of spit-up hitting skin.

“Ew.” Smith had spit-up running down his neck into his shirt. “That smells really fucking bad. Why does it smell so bad?”

I crossed the room and took Halen from him. “Toss your clothes and grab some of mine. I’ll change after you do…” Seemed like the polite thing to do since we were now both covered in baby fluids. “And don’t say ‘fuck’ in front of my daughter.”

Smith handed the baby back to me and then stripped out of his clothes and threw them out into the hallway. Leaving us both in boxer briefs and Halen in a diaper. So of course Lexi would pick now to come out of the bathroom.

She was wrapped in a fluffy robe, her hair dripping wet. She took a few seconds to take in the scene in front of her then shrugged. “You know, I honestly didn’t expect anything less.” She crossed the room, grabbed my phone from the nightstand, and snapped a few pictures. Then she picked up Halen’s jammies, took the naked baby from my arms, and walked out of the room.

I looked over at Smith. “I don’t think I did so badly.”

Chapter Eight

Lexi

Halen was two weeks old today. And I was officially running on fumes. My baby, my perfect adorable baby, didn’t sleep. At all. Dash and I took turns with her in the middle of the night…sort of…I tended to hear her wake up ninety-five percent of the time and he caught the other five percent. We were a team, but it was a lopsided team. And sometimes I would look down at him while he slept peacefully, and contemplate justifiable homicide.

“Lex? What are you doing up?” Luke shuffled down the hall and stopped when he saw me.

I’d come into the living room to watch some TV while I did Halen’s three a.m. feeding. “Oh, you know, just hanging out with your goddaughter.”

Luke sat down next to me on the couch, “How long has she been awake?”

I glanced at the clock on my cell. “About an hour.” I leaned toward him, sniffing his shirt. “Where’ve you been?” It didn’t smell like he’d been at a bar, nor did he smell like cheap-ass groupies.

“Upstairs.” He picked up his t-shirt and lifted it to his nose, checking to see what I had smelled. “I couldn’t sleep. I was going to go bang around on my drums for a bit.”

I smirked. “Banging on your drums instead of banging on a chick?”

“Something like that.”

I handed him the baby then leaned back and kicked my feet up on the ottoman. “Tell us your troubles. Halen is a good listener, she rarely interrupts.” I hadn’t really spent much time with Luke over the past two weeks. He made sure to come check on me, and kiss Halen’s soft little head, but we hadn’t spoken.

“No troubles.” He bounced the baby a bit when she started to fuss. She loved to be bounced. Constant movement was key with her. Jacks said it was all the dancing I did side stage when I was pregnant.

I rolled my head to the side. “Don’t lie to me, Lukey.” I waited until he met my eyes. “You wouldn’t be awake and playing your drums at three in the morning if nothing was bothering you. We both love sleep.”

He took a deep breath. “I’ve just been feeling restless these past few weeks. Claustrophobic.”

I shrugged. “For sure, this house can be constricting, it’s filled to the brim. I never have any idea where anyone is, or who is home. It’s chaos.” Dagger came lumbering into the room and lay on the ground under my legs. “Case in point, I don’t think I’ve seen him since yesterday.”

“I shouldn’t complain. I know I’ll miss it when we are all living in separate houses.” He took Halen’s small hand in his and held it. “I’ll have to jump in the Razor just to come see this one.”

“I know it’s hard for you, living with all these growing families around you.” Everyone was coupled up, and now there were kids being added to the mix. It just showed him every day that he was alone. More to the point, it showed him that he wasn’t with me. “You will find your person, Lukey. You will. She’s out there, I can feel it.”

He turned sad eyes on me. “What if I missed my shot? What if my person is already gone?”

My heart broke for him. “She’s not gone, bud. She’s out there, right now, waiting for you.” I let my head rest on his shoulder. “I love you, Luke. I have always and will always love you. It’s a special love. It’s unbreakable. And I know you love me too.” I wiped a tear from my eye. “But I’m not your girl. You aren’t
in
love with me. You don’t look at me with passion and fire in your eyes. You don’t want me. I don’t consume your soul.”

“Don’t cry, little Lexi.” He placed a soft kiss on my forehead and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I’ll be okay.” This was us. Forever making sure the other was solid, and feeling bummed when we couldn’t make it better.

I settled against his side. “You’ll be more than okay, Luke. You’ve just got to give yourself permission to be happy. To find your heart.”

“Shhhh…”

I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to my daughter, but both Halen and I drifted off to sleep wrapped up in our second favorite man.

Chapter Nine

Dash

I woke up around four o’clock in the morning, I was groggy but it didn’t take me long to realize that Lexi and Halen weren’t there with me. I lay there for a few minutes. Not going to lie, I thought really hard about just going back to sleep. But the need to check on them overwhelmed me, and I got up to find my girls. And I did, both asleep in Luke’s arms. I leaned against the living room wall, watching. Lexi was curled against his side, her head on his chest, and Halen was resting on his other shoulder. Luke was awake, singing softly to both of them, an old tune by the Overtones
.

“Goodnight sweetheart, well it’s time to go. I hate to leave you, I really must say oh goodnight sweetheart, goodnight
.” I waited for jealousy to overtake me. I waited for the tinge of anger to seep in, but it never came. I had the girl of my dreams and the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. I had more than I deserved. I had it all. And for the first time since Lexi got onto that tour bus, I felt nothing but quiet understanding watching them together.

“Thank you.”

Luke looked up surprised to see me. “What?”

I pushed off the wall and sat down in one of the big club chairs. “Thank you for bringing Lexi to me.” I let out a soft chuckle. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have met her. I wouldn’t have Halen, I wouldn’t have anything.”

I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but Luke’s eyes turned dark. “Yeah well, hindsight’s twenty-twenty.”

“That’s not what I meant, bro. And you know it.”

Luke cocked his head slightly. “What did you mean? Bro.”

I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my knees. “I don’t know, I guess I meant that everything happens for a reason. If you and Lex were supposed to end up together, I wouldn’t have mattered. I meant that the universe is crazy in how things work out.”

Luke looked at Halen then down at Lexi. “This could have all been mine.”

“No. It couldn’t have.” I stood up. “I want you to think about how you feel for Lexi. Think about how you would do anything for her, how you would walk on glass for her. How you would give up everything just to make sure she was always safe and okay.” I grabbed a blanket and covered my fiancée. “Now light all that on fire.”

“I love her. She’s my heart.”

I nodded. “I know she is.” I leaned down and kissed Lexi and then Halen. “But she’s my
soul
.” I left him there, with my girls, and I went back to bed. Luke was days away from running. That look in his eye was undeniable. He put on a pretty brave face in front of Lex; he didn’t want her to worry about him. But he was losing his mind here in this house, watching Lexi nurse our daughter with my diamond on her finger. And the song he was singing her, he was quietly telling her good-bye in his own soft way.

“She’s really crying now, she’s turning red.” Landry looked over the edge of the bassinet, giving me a play-by-play of Halen’s tantrum.

I reached in and scooped her into my arms. “She’s hungry. And this bottle warmer is really fu…dging slow.” It was the morning after I’d let Lexi and Halen have a sleepover on the couch with Luke. Lex had a follow-up appointment with her ob/gyn and she’d left me in charge of our daughter. Which was a HUGE step. I sat down on the couch and went to put the bottle into Halen’s mouth.

“You have to test it first, Uncle Dash.” Landry was watching me like a hawk. I wonder if Lexi had told her to do that.

“Thank you, sweet girl.” I spilled some of the milk onto my arm. “Shit.” It was scalding hot. I guess I didn’t have to leave it in for a whole warming cycle. I looked around the room, not sure what to do now. Did I wait for it to cool? Did I run it under cold water?

Landry took the bottle from my hand and went into the kitchen. She pulled a baggie of breast milk out of the fridge and added a little to the too-hot bottle. Then she put her finger over the nipple and gave the bottle a little shake. “Here you go, try this.”

I tested the bottle and then used it to silence my screaming kid. “You’re the best.” She smiled, and I added, “Don’t tell Aunt Lexi.” She sat down on the couch and picked up her book. I could feel her eyes on me every few seconds.

Jacks came into the room a few minutes later. “What’s up, Buttercup? Making sure Uncle Dash doesn’t break the baby?” He plopped down beside Landry, making her giggle.

“I’m not going to break my baby.” Although I did almost burn her mouth. “I didn’t know you were home. I thought you and Bryan went furniture shopping.”

Jacks leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. “I got out of it, told her my stomach was upset.” He shrugged. “It’s not like she’d let me pick anything out.” He looked over at his daughter. “Don’t tell B I said that.”

Landry sat her book down on her lap. “You know they pay me, right?”

Her little accent was adorable.
Ya know thay paay me, riiiigh?
Jacks narrowed his eyes. “What? Who pays you?”

“The chicks and B. They pay me to watch you guys when they aren’t around.”