For the Sake of Their Son (The Alpha Brotherhood #5)(31)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Happens to the best of us, brother. You were just the last man to fall.”

“Back to my question. When I give the baby a bottle of this breast milk from the refrigerator, do I heat it in the microwave? And I swear if you laugh, I’m going to kick your ass later.”

“I’m only laughing on the inside. Never out loud.” Conrad didn’t have to laugh. Amusement drenched his words.

“I can live with that.” As long as he got the advice.

“Run warm water over the bottle. No microwave. Do not heat it in water on the stove,” Conrad rattled off like a pro. “If he doesn’t eat it all, pour it out. You can’t save and reuse it. Oh, and shake it up.”

“You’re too good at this,” Elliot couldn’t resist saying as he turned on the faucet.

“Practice.”

“This has to be the strangest conversation of my life.” He played his fingers through the water to test the temperature and found it was warming quickly. He tucked the bottled milk underneath the spewing faucet with one hand, still holding his son to his shoulder with the other.

“It’ll be commonplace before you know it.”

Would it? “I hope so.”

The sound of casino bells softened, as if Conrad had gone into another room. “What about you and Lucy Ann?”

Elliot weighed his answer carefully before saying simply, “We’re together.”

“Together-together?” Conrad asked.

Elliot glanced through the living area at the closed bedroom door and the baby in his arms. “I’m working on it.”

“You’ve fallen for her.” His friend made it more of a statement than a question.

So why couldn’t he bring himself to simply agree? “Lucy Ann and I have been best friends all our lives. We have chemistry.”

Best friends. His brothers all called themselves best friends, but now he realized he’d never quite paired up with a best bud the way they all had. He was a part of the group. But Lucy Ann was his best friend, always had been.

“You’d better come up with a smoother answer than that if you ever get around to proposing to her. Women expect more than ‘you’re a great friend and we’re super together in the sack.’”

Proposing? The word marriage hadn’t crossed his mind, and he realized now that it should have. He should have led with that from the start. He should have been an honorable, stand-up kind of guy and offered her a ring rather than a month-long sex fest.

“I’m not that much of an idiot.”

He hoped.

“So you are thinking about proposing.”

He was now. The notion fit neatly in his brain, like the missing piece to a puzzle he’d been trying to complete since Lucy Ann left a year ago.

“I want my son to have a family, and I want Lucy Ann to be happy.” He turned off the water and felt the bottle. Seemed warm. He shook it as instructed. “I’m just not sure I know how to make that happen. Not many long-term role models for happily ever after on my family tree.”

“Marriage is work, no question.” Conrad whistled softly on a long exhale. “I screwed up my own pretty bad once, so maybe I’m not the right guy to ask for advice.”

Conrad and Jayne had been separated for three years before reuniting.

“But you fixed your marriage. So you’re probably the best person to ask.” Elliot was getting into this whole mentor notion. Why hadn’t he thought to seek out some help before? He took his son and the bottle back into the living room of his bachelor pad, now strewn with baby gear. “How do you make it right when you’ve messed up this bad? When you’ve let so much time pass?”

“Grovel,” Conrad said simply.

“That’s it?” Elliot asked incredulously, dropping into his favorite recliner. He settled his son in the crook of his arm and tucked the bottle in his mouth. “That’s your advice? Grovel?”

“It’s not just a word. You owe her for being a jackass this past year. Like I said before. Relationships are work, man. Hard work. Tougher than any Interpol assignment old headmaster Colonel Salvatore could ever give us. But the payoff is huge if you can get it right.”

“I hope so.”

“Hey, I gotta go. Text just came in. Kid’s awake and Jayne doesn’t believe in nighttime nannies. So we’re in the walking dead stage of parenthood right now.” He didn’t sound at all unhappy about it. “Don’t forget. Shake the milk and burp the kid if you want to keep your suit clean.”

Shake. Burp. Grovel. “I won’t forget.”

* * *

Lucy Ann blinked at the morning sun piercing the slight part in her curtains. She’d slept in this room in Elliot’s posh Monte Carlo digs more times than she could remember. He’d even had her choose her own decor since they spent a lot of off-season time here, too.

She’d chosen an über-feminine French toile in pinks and raspberries, complete with an ornate white bed— Renaissance antiques. And the best of the best mattresses. She stretched, luxuriating in the well-rested feeling, undoubtedly a by-product of the awesome bed and even more incredible sex. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d woken up refreshed rather than dragging, exhausted. Certainly not since Eli had been born—

Blinking, she took in the morning sun, then gasped. “Eli!”

She jumped from the bed and raced over to the portable crib Elliot had ordered set up in advance. Had her baby slept through the night? She looked in the crib and found it empty. Her heart lurched up to her throat.

Her bare feet slipping on the hardwood floor, she raced out to the living room and stopped short. Elliot sat in his favorite recliner, holding their son. He looked so at ease with the baby cradled in the crook of his arm. An empty bottle sat on the table beside them.

Elliot toyed with his son’s foot. “I have plans for you, little man. There are so many books to read. Gulliver’s Travels and Lord of the Rings were favorites of mine as a kid. And we’ll play with Matchbox cars when you’re older. Or maybe you’ll like trains or airplanes? Your choice.”

Relaxing, Lucy Ann sagged against the door frame in relief. “You’re gender stereotyping our child.”

Glancing up, Elliot smiled at her, so handsome with a five o’clock shadow peppering his jaw and baby spit-up dotting his shoulder it was all she could do not to kiss him.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, his eyes sliding over her silky nightshirt with an appreciation that all but mentally pulled the gown right off her. “Eli can be a chef or whatever he wants, as long as he’s happy.”