Page 151 of Sloane

I ran the back of my left index finger along Millie’s cheek and said, “Don’t hurry down in the morning. Get some rest. We’ll be okay having cereal for breakfast.”

“We’ll see,” she said before disappearing out the door.

I crawled back under the covers, wishing I could do more to ease her burden and disappointed that my girls couldn’t stay.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Ashley

I made my way downstairs at my usual seven a.m. time and was quickly scolded by Sloane when he heard me and walked out of his room using the drugstore cane he’d bought last night.

“I told you to sleep in!”

“It’s kind of hard to sleep in when I have a starving baby to feed,” I said as I set her bouncy chair on the counter and pulled out mixing bowls to make breakfast.

“Let’s try the bottle at her next feeding.”

“We can try, but I’m going to need to pump before she gets hungry.”

“Good thing it’s the weekend and no PT,” he said with a grin. “Maybe after you pump, you can grab a nap while I feed her.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said noncommittally.

I hadn’t wanted to have the discussion with Sloane in the middle of the night for a few reasons—one, we were both tired. Two, I appreciated that he wanted to help me and didn’t want to shit on that, so I wasn’t exactly sure how to say, “you’re not physically capable of caring for her yet,” without hurting his feelings. I had no doubt he would be someday, but he wasn’t ready today.

I thought all the answers would come to me when the sun came up.

They hadn’t. But I held out hope that an idea would pop in my head before Millie got hungry again.

I wasn’t opposed to him trying to feed her; I just had no idea if she’d even take a bottle. And even if she did, after she was finished and burped, she’d need to be changed and put down in her crib for a nap. Both things he wasn’t able to do yet.

Maybe I’d just feign napping on the couch and “wake up” when it was time to change her diaper.

Even though I tried to act normal around the other guys as I made breakfast, Sloane took every opportunity to lay claim to Millie’s paternity.

“How’s my baby girl today?” he asked her with a broad smile and wide eyes.

She mimicked him with her own bright eyes and smile, and you’d have thought she’d said her first word at six weeks—and it was dada.

“Did you see that? She smiled at me! She knows I’m her dad.”

“She smiles at me all the time,” grumbled Stu as he took a bite of the omelet I’d set in front of him. “Does that mean she thinks I’m her dad, too?”

“Be nice,” I said with my hand on Stu’s shoulder. “He hasn’t spent as much time with her as you have.”

“Whose fault is that?”

My hands went to my hips as I admonished, “Stuart Laughlin! Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

Oh dang.

I hoped he hadn’t heard Millie downstairs. Or worse, me when I came on Sloane’s face.

Still, I played innocent.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you having pain?”