Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
One thing was certain – there was no way I was going to let the love of my life and our daughter continue to live like this.
“Hey,” Harper said, opening the door and poking her head out while I was still in the hall. “I heard your buzz.”
I smirked at her. “More likely, you saw this thing coming all the way from Manhattan,” I said as I hefted the rabbit over my shoulder.
Harper groaned. “That thing is huge,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s barely going to fit in Ada’s room.”
“We’ll put it in the living room,” I teased. “Decorate it for Christmas and everything.”
“Do not give her any ideas,” Harper said, rolling her eyes. “A bunny tree for Christmas ... yeah, that’s seriously just what I need right now.”
I followed Harper inside but barely made it three steps before Ada launched herself at me. The chubby little thing was clearly feeling better – her brown hair was in pigtails and she was wearing a dress with a cartoon character on it. When she saw the bunny, she gasped and screeched and started hopping around.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Ada cried, clapping her hands together and giggling. She fell backwards onto her butt and gasped in surprise at her own clumsiness, then rolled onto her knees and got to her feet before throwing herself at the stuffed bunny.
“What do you say, Ada?” Harper asked. Her tone was stern but she was smiling and she turned to me with one eyebrow raised.
“I love my bun-bun!” Ada screamed.
“No,” Harper said. She smothered a smile and a giggle behind one hand. “What do you say to Daddy?”
Ada turned to me, her cheeks flushed and pink with excitement.
“Thank you, Daddy,” Ada said, mimicking Harper’s tone so perfectly that I burst out laughing.
In that moment, despite how uncertain and strange everything was, I knew that the three of us were going to be all right.
30
Harper – Friday
Waking up with Nico in my apartment – in my bed, really – should have felt strange.
It didn’t, though.
It felt like home, like something that we had been building towards for a long time.
Watching Nico with Ada was like watching someone who had been around kids for his entire life. It was crazy – being a good mother hadn’t exactly come naturally to me. It was something that I’d had to work at. Before I’d had Ada, I’d scoffed at women who said that being a mom was the hardest job in the world.
But now I knew that it was more than true – being a mother was a job that never ended. Ada was the last thing on my mind when I went to sleep every night and first thing on my mind when I woke up in the morning. I was always thinking about her: how to make sure she had the best life possible, how to make sure that she was reaching her “milestones” at the appropriate age.
When she had been smaller, I’d been so worried because she hadn’t started talking when all of the baby books said she would. When I’d gone to my father, crying hysterically over it, he’d chuckled and patted me on the back.
“She’ll talk when she’s good and ready,” Dad had said. “That was you, too. You had to do everything on your own schedule.”
His advice hadn’t helped me feel any better at the time, but now I knew that he had been one hundred percent correct.
Nico, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any of those anxieties. I’d woken up in the morning to find that I was in bed alone, and gone down the hall to find Nico and Ada sitting on the couch, having a rather serious debate about the merits of Frozen versus Moana.
It was like he had been born to be a dad – to be Ada’s dad, more specifically.
“Hey, you,” Nico said. He looked up and grinned at me. God, he looked so sexy in the mornings, I almost couldn’t stand it. He was already dressed for work in a suit and tie, but his black hair was slightly disheveled and he had stubble on his chin and jaw.
I’d never seen him look sexier. And sweet little Ada, beaming and sitting beside him, only completed the picture of domestic bliss. The night before, I’d made my prosciutto mac and cheese (which Nico had loved so much he’d eaten two servings before groaning and telling me that I needed to learn how to cook healthier food) and the three of us had sat around the dining table, just Mom, Dad, and the kid.
I’d loved it. At the time, I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything as cute.
Now, though, I knew I was probably in for a lot of those “firsts”, especially between Nico and Ada.