Hard Fall by Brenda Rothert

Chapter Eight

Hadley

“Can I push the button?” Annalise asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

I double-checked to make sure the lid on Lauren’s food processor was locked, pointed to the Start button and said, “Yes, it’s this one right here.”

“I know, Mommy always lets me push the button.”

She stood on the chair she’d scooted over to the kitchen counter and pushed the button, and the food processor started to whir, running a lot quieter than I’d expected. Annalise watched as the avocado chunks in the blender swirled into a puree.

“This isn’t hard,” I said to her. “It feels like it’s going to be a huge deal, but you just have to get organized first and clean as you go.”

I’d been at it since Wes left for practice this morning, moving Benny from his stationary jumper to his swing to keep him happy, and occasionally holding him against my hip and having him sample the different baby foods I’d made.

Jars of pureed blueberries, chickpeas, green beans, kiwis and bananas lined the marble kitchen island. I was taking photos for my article about making homemade baby food, not even feeling guilty I had the Disney Channel on in the family room for when Annalise got bored and wanted a break from the kitchen.

It was Tuesday, so Tori wasn’t on nanny duty today. The kids and I were in no hurry to get out of our jammies, and I felt better than I had in a while.

Here I was, actually multitasking. Accomplishing childcare and work and feeling like I actually could find a way to do it all. With an assist from coffee, of course.

I could admitto myself that my good mood was partially due to Wes kissing me last night.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was so much more than just good. There were many words that were more accurate. Hot. Raw. Heart-stopping. The whole world had stopped for those few seconds, and all I’d felt was heat and muscle and the primal need coming not just from Wes, but from myself, too.

My world had never stopped turning before last night. Not once. I’d been that woman who was always thinking. Even during sex. I struggled to fall asleep at night, no matter how tired I was, because my mind was always on.

Last night, though, Wes Kirby had brought everything to an unexpected and mind-blowing halt. It had taken a long time to wind down from all the different emotions he’d made me feel. And this morning when I woke up, that kiss was the first thing I’d thought of.

When he’d looked at me with that swollen, stitched-up cut above his eye, I’d seen far more emotional hurt than physical. His eyes had flashed dark indigo, full of pent-up grief, anger and tension. In that moment, Wes needed me.

As I drained the sweet potatoes I’d peeled and boiled, I wondered what might have happened if Annalise hadn’t interrupted us last night. Would either of us have seen reason and stopped the madness, or would we have ended up fucking right on the kitchen island where I was now lining up baby food?

I smiled as I thought about how much Lauren would have loved hearing about this. She’d always sworn Wes wasn’t the womanizing dirtbag I thought he was and that if I’d give him another chance, we’d be a great match.

“Aunt Hadley, can I have some Froot Woops?” Annalise asked me. “In a bowl but not with milk?”

“How about if you have a banana first, and then a few Froot Loops?”

“Okay. Did you know my mommy likes to make banana cookies?”

I looked at her perfect, innocent face and dark curls and melted inside. Lauren’s death still hurt so badly, but Annalise and Benny brought me comfort. Each of them had Lauren inside them, and it hurt a little less to remember she would always live on through them.

“I didn’t know that,” I told Annalise. “Were those your favorite cookies your mom made?”

“Banana chocolate chip is my favorite!” she said, pronouncing it “chocwut.”

“Why don’t we find your mommy’s recipe and make some today?”

“Yeah! I can push the buttons and stir. Mommy said I’m good at stirring.”

“I bet you are.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Aunt Hadley?”

She gave me a solemn look, her eyes wide. I mentally braced myself for a comment about Lauren that would threaten to break me, but Annalise surprised me.

“Of course you can.”

“I like to eat those baby food bananas.”

Brows arched, I looked at her, waiting for the rest of the secret.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“Don’t tell Uncle Wes. I don’t want him to think I’m a baby.”

Laughing, I set my spoon down and picked her up in a hug. “He’d never think that, and do you know what a little ray of sunshine you are?”

Benny started fussing in his swing, so I grabbed a banana for Annalise, peeled down the top for her and took Benny to the nursery for a diaper change and some cuddles. When we got back to the kitchen, Annalise asked for her Froot Loops, so I washed up and poured a few into a bowl, hoping Lauren would understand.

I settled Benny into his high chair and gave him a frozen teething ring, then cleaned the food processor and loaded the sweet potato chunks into it. This was the last batch of baby food, and then I’d arrange jars of everything I’d made for some staged “after” photos, clean up, make lunch for all of us and see if I had all the ingredients for banana chocolate chip cookies.

Benny whined and I turned around, finding his teething ring on the floor.

“I’ll wash it off, big guy,” I said, smiling at him as I picked it up and ran it under the kitchen faucet.

He grabbed it back, grinning, and proceeded to drool all over it. At that point, my phone rang and I walked over to glance at it, seeing my boss’s name on the screen.

“Ugh.” I sighed and picked it up, feigning enthusiasm. “Hey, Liz.”

“Hadley. Where are the sidebar pitches for the solo travel piece?”

“I thought you liked the ones I pitched on the phone, so those were the only ones I included.”

“I always want multiple sidebar pitches.”

That wasn’t actually true. When Liz said she was putting something on the budget, that meant it had been chosen as pitched. But I knew better than to try to win an argument with her.

“Okay, I can get some more to you late tonight.”

“I was hoping for something within the next hour.”

Benny squealed, dropping his teething ring on the floor again. I picked it up and washed it off again, passing it back to him.

“I’ll do my best,” I told Liz. “But my nanny isn’t available on Tuesdays so I’m taking care of the kids today.”

“Look, I’ve been very flexible with this whole situation,” she said, her tone laced with aggravation. “But today I need work done during working hours.”

Benny started whimpering, and I turned to see his face all scrunched, winding up for an epic cry. I quickly removed his high chair tray and unbuckled him, picking him up in hopes of comforting him before he started screaming.

“And I think I can do it,” I told Liz, gently bouncing Benny on my hip. “Naptime is in an hour and a half. Can I send you something within the next two hours?”

Right as I could sense Liz caving, Benny let out an ear-piercing wail, and I cringed, walking into the family room to see if maybe the TV screen would catch his attention and calm him down a bit.

“Yeah, fine,” Liz said shortly. “I guess two hours will have to work.”

“Okay, thanks for understanding.”

Liz didn’t even hear me—she’d already ended the call. Someone really needed to let her know how unprofessional it was to just hang up on people.

I took Benny over to his large baby mat and laid him down to play. I got down on the floor with him and started arranging some large letter blocks in front of him. He finally started to calm down a bit as I began talking to him.

“Should we play with these blocks?” I asked him, still lining up the ABC letter blocks. “Or should we maybe read a story?”

“Aunt Hadley!” Annalise cried from the kitchen.

I sighed. Just another day in a household with two kids. I quickly stood and scooped up Benny, hoofing it back to the kitchen. I came to an abrupt halt, my mouth dropping open as I saw orange goo splattered all over the white cabinets, the counter, the floor and even Annalise’s hair and face. It had to be the pureed sweet potatoes.

“I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly.

I hadn’t secured the lid on the food processor before I answered my call from Liz and she must have pushed the button while I was in the family room with Benny. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point. The kitchen was an absolute nightmare. Think slasher horror film but more orange and less red.

“It’s okay honey,” I said. “It was just an accident. We’ll get it cleaned up. You aren’t hurt, right?”

Annalise shook her head and I buckled Benny back in his high chair even though he was crying again. If only I had two hands for each child.

Lauren kept cleaning cloths in neatly folded stacks in the laundry room. I grabbed several as well as some hardcore cleaning supplies. On my way back to the kitchen, the doorbell rang, and my laugh was half amused, half crazed.

“That better be Mary fucking Poppins coming to my rescue,” I muttered.

Benny had stopped crying and was trying to fit his entire hand into his mouth now. At least he wasn’t upset anymore. That was something.

“Aunt Hadley!” Annalise cried from the foyer.

“Yeah?” I set the cleaning cloths down and headed in that direction, praying there wasn’t another disaster waiting for me.

“My Gram and Gramps are here!” Annalise said.

Oh God. In the few moments it took me to get to the foyer, I sent up a silent plea to God that it wasn’t Patrick and Susan Whitmore.

It was. Annalise was grinning at me from her grandpa’s arms.

“Hey,” I said weakly, forcing a smile.

“Hi, Hadley. I hope you guys meant it when you said we could visit anytime,” Patrick said. “We just really wanted to see the kids, and maybe help out if you need it.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to think of a way I could get the kitchen cleaned up before they saw it.

“You really shouldn’t let Annalise open the front door like that,” Susan said, frowning at me. “It could have been anyone.”

“We…she’s not supposed to open it.”

“It was my Gram and Gramps. Mommy and Daddy said to always open it for family,” Annalise explained.

“Where’s Benny?” Susan asked.

“He’s in the kitchen.”

“Alone?”

“He’s buckled into his high chair,” I said, not in the mood for her snap judgments. “Why don’t you guys go up to Annalise’s room so she can show you her tea party set and I’ll bring Benny up so you can spend some time with both of them?”

“I want my Froot Woops!” Annalise cried, scrambling from her grandpa’s arms and running into the kitchen.

Her grandparents followed, but I waited a moment, dreading the reaction the sweet potato massacre was going to get.

“What in the world…?” Susan exclaimed with pure shock as I walked into the kitchen.

“We’re making baby food, and Annalise forgot to put the lid on the food processor,” I said. “But everyone has accidents and I’m going to clean it up. It’s not a big deal.”

“Want a Froot Woop, Gram?” Annalise offered, holding out her bowl.

“What is that processed garbage?” Susan demanded. “Lauren didn’t feed our grandchildren this way.”

Annalise’s happy expression fell away, and I despised Susan a little bit more than I already had.

“I think you should spend some time playing with Annalise,” I said. “I need to clean up the kitchen and make lunch.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Patrick said. “Can we take Benny off your hands, too?”

I gave him a grateful smile. “I’d appreciate that, thanks.”

Annalise walked over to her brother and gave him a bright smile. “Benny, Gram and Gramps are here!” She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, I think he shit himself again, Aunt Hadley.”

I needed a humongous glass of wine and a five-minute break, exactly in that order. Unfortunately, neither of those things was going to happen.

“This is the language you’re teaching our grandchildren?” Susan cried. “Patrick, we need to expedite the lawsuit. We can’t have them around her.”

“Actually,” a deep voice from the entrance to the kitchen interrupted Susan’s rant, “any bad language the kids heard came from me, and I’m working on it. Hadley’s a great role model, and she’s busting her tail taking care of the kids.”

I turned, so happy to see Wes I could have cried. My heart hammered with excitement as I took him in, his hair damp from a post-practice shower. He wore a Mavericks T-shirt and gray jogger sweatpants, a day’s worth of dark stubble on his face.

“You need some help cleaning up the kitchen?” he asked me as he approached.

“Yeah…thanks.”

Was I thanking him for sticking up for me or for offering to help clean? Both, I decided, and more. If Wes hadn’t walked in just now, I would’ve been left alone to deal with Ben’s parents, the kids and the work I somehow had to get done in the next hour and a half.

“You guys planning on changing Benny or should I do it?” Wes asked.

“I’ll do it,” Susan said, getting her grandson from his high chair and taking him upstairs without another word.

Wes grabbed a towel from the island and started wiping down cabinets.

“Hey, where’s my lunch?” he asked.

I turned to him, ready to tell him where he could stick his lunch, and saw him smirking. Both of us burst out laughing.

“I’ll make lunch,” he said. “And I can finish cleaning up if you’ve got stuff you need to do.”

“No, I’ll finish. But if you’ll make lunch, that would be great. I also told Annalise we’d find one of Lauren’s cookie recipes and make them this afternoon.”

“I’ll help with that.”

“Thank you.”

He moved closer, and I couldn’t name the emotion in his eyes as he looked down at me. “You want to talk about last night?”

The kiss. My body warmed at just the mention of it. I shook my head, because I knew if I tried to say anything about that kiss, I’d embarrass myself and say something stupid like “it was awesome” or “you’re super hot”.” I’d die before I let that happen.

No, I was going to keep both my dignity and my cool by not saying a word about that kiss. There was no chance of it happening again as long as Patrick and Susan were here, but after that…

I didn’t know whether Wes would want to kiss me again, or if maybe he’d want more, but I knew I wanted it. I’ve never been Team Wes, but my body had decided to join his fan club in a very big way.

Wes looked from newborn Annalise’s peaceful, sleeping face to mine, his eyes wide with wonder.

“She’s so little.”

“Isn’t she perfect, though?” I smiled down at the soft bundle in my arms, whispering because Lauren and Ben were finally asleep.

It had been a long thirty-six hours, Lauren’s labor progressing slowly. Ben only left her side once, because he had to pee, and I felt for him during the three minutes I spent holding Lauren’s hand while he was gone.

It was hard to see someone you loved in that much pain. Even with help from an epidural, Lauren was having a hard labor and she was exhausted.

But you wouldn’t have known it once her daughter made her entrance into the world. My best friend was smitten with her little girl, crying tears of joy as she held her for the first time, her smile more radiant than ever.

She’d fallen asleep sitting up in her hospital bed, and Ben was snoring from a recliner in the corner. All four of Annalise’s grandparents were in the waiting room, anxious to see and hold her, but Wes and I were taking our turn first.

He had been here for the whole delivery, not coming all the way in the room but occasionally sticking his head in the doorway and asking how it was going. He’d asked Lauren in the middle of a rough contraction how she was feeling and she’d just screamed, sending him fleeing.

“She looks like Ben,” Wes whispered.

“She looks like a squished raisin,” I countered, laughing softly. “There’s no way to tell who she looks like yet.”

“Nah, she looks just like her dad.” He grinned. “Can I hold her?”

I frowned. “She’s delicate, Wes. You have to be really careful.”

“I’m not a complete dumbass. I know some things.”

“Have you ever held a baby before?”

He shrugged. “Not this young, but I’ll be fine.”

“Hmm. Thought you might have at least one baby mama by now.”

“Don’t be petty, Hadley. I want to hold my goddaughter.”

“Okay, okay. Hold your arms out,” I whispered.

He cradled his arms and I passed the warm, sleeping baby from my arms to his.

“Make sure you support her head,” I cautioned.

Annalise wiggled and wrinkled her face up as Wes took her, and he gave me a look of alarm.

“Shit, she’s gonna cry,” he said. “Take her back.”

“Just hold her close and rock her a little. You’ll be fine.”

He wrapped his arms closer around her, his hands as big as her little head. When he looked up at me, his eyes looked a little watery.

“I’m an uncle,” he whispered, grinning.

It was hard to dislike him in that moment. Wes was taken with little Annalise, and I’d never admit it out loud, but he looked sexy as hell holding her.

“You are,” I said, smiling back.

“Will you grab my phone from my pocket and take a picture?” He turned one hip toward me. “Phone’s in my left pocket, and don’t try to cop a feel while you’re in there.”

And I disliked him once again. I sighed with aggravation as I fetched his phone.

“Password’s 696969.”

I gave him a look as I entered the numbers. “Ugh, there better not be a photo of someone’s tits as your wallpaper.”

“I think it’s a crotch shot, actually. A hairy one.”

I glared at him and he winked.

“You’re disgusting,” I whispered.

His wallpaper was actually a photo of the Stanley Cup. I clicked the camera button and held the phone up, centering it to take a photo of him and Annalise. Wes smiled, looking as happy and proud as if he’d birthed her himself.

“Want me to take one of you with her?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He passed her back to me and took two photos—one of me smiling while holding her and another of me kissing her forehead.

“Should we share her with the grandparents?” I asked, reluctance in my voice.

“I guess so.”

Ben and Lauren had asked us to introduce their daughter to their parents while they rested; they were both too exhausted for talking or photos right now. They were in a private birthing suite with an attached waiting room.

“I can’t believe Ben and Lauren have a kid,” Wes said as we walked toward the door that led to the waiting room.

“I know. They’re better at this adulting thing than we are.”

Wes scoffed. “Yeah, I’m not settling down for a long time. Like decades.”

I rolled my eyes because I knew what he probably had in mind—womanizing until he was in his forties and then finding a hot twentysomething to be semi-faithful to and have a family with.

And when he did have a family, Wes would be one of those fathers who showed up for photo ops but let his wife do all the heavy lifting. He’d probably pass out if he tried to change a dirty diaper.

I couldn’t actually blame him on that one. I was over the moon to be an auntie to little Annalise, and if she needed me to, I’d change her diapers, but I was in no hurry at all to have kids of my own. I had parties to attend. Places to travel to. Corporate ladders to climb.

Like Wes, I loved my carefree, single life. Though that was about the only similarity we shared.