“Would you… like to… hold her?” I ask Nick. “I need to get her bottle ready. Or I can put her in her basket.”

“Of course. Sure. I’d like to.” He smiles. “I’d love to.”

He takes her in his arms, experienced and assured but maybe a little rusty, and turns back to sit on his stool. I take a bottle from the fridge, put it in a bowl, and run hot water. When I glance up, he’s looking at her tiny face, completely absorbed. And she’s looking right back at him. He has one of her hands between two big fingers. She looks even smaller than usual.

My heart skitters.

Why?

Howard and Charlotte stand and walk out of the room, his arm around her, their heads together. He catches my eye and winks.

I think I may have lost my babysitters for tonight.

I test Holly’s bottle on my wrist. Feels right.

“Thanks,” I tell Nick. “Her bottle’s ready. I’ll take her.”

He looks up, surprised. He holds out one hand.

“I’ll do it. Let’s see if I remember how.”

With nothing else to do for the moment, I sink down onto the next stool and watch them.

After a minute, Nick smiles at me. “Like it was yesterday. Muscle memory. I wonder how many bottles I’ve given?”

There’s a clatter in the front hall, and a moment later Howard appears, Charlotte behind him. She is wearing a cashmere wrap and carrying her handbag.

“Chloe,” Howard says, “it is always wonderful to see you, and now Holly, too. She’s an angel. And I know how much it means to you to have your mother here to help with everything when you’re so tired and overwhelmed.”

He looks suspiciously like he’s trying not to smile.

“Oh, Howard. You just don’t know what it means,” I contribute. “Really, you don’t.” Wild hope is rising inside me.

“I think I do, actually. Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me for taking her away,” he continues. “She is wearing herself to the bone taking care of you both, and I just feel I must step in before she makes herself ill. I’ve made a reservation at the Four Seasons for tonight, and tomorrow we fly to France.”

“Whatever you think best,” I assure him. “Of course. We’ll manage somehow.”

“I’m sorry, dear.” Charlotte steps forward and kisses me on both cheeks. “Howard is right. It was too much.” She brightens. “But I’ll send you both some dresses from Paris. We’ll be back in a few days, and I can help more after I’ve recovered.”

Nick is watching all this like it’s an episode of Arrested Development. He can’t shake hands, but Charlotte kisses him and Howard pats him on the back. And then they’re gone, leaving behind just the scent of Chanel No. 5.

I cough.

“Looks like we’re not going out for dinner,” Nick says. “Pizza?”

I burst out laughing, the kind of hysterical peals you can’t quite believe are coming out of your mouth. Holly’s eyes widen, darting to look at Nick, and then her mouth does the telltale tightening I’ve come to know.

“Oh, baby,” I whisper, my laugh halting midstream as she turns her head aside, spitting out the bottle nipple, and makes a squeaky newborn cry that says she’s just getting started.

I hold out my hands to take her back. No man wants to hold a screaming baby as foreplay on a date. The night just shattered, for good or bad, and this date turned into a threesome.

And not an O party threesome.

“I’ve got her.” He stands, all fluid grace and muscle memory, moving her to his shoulder and patting her back harder than I would.

Scrambling, I get a cloth on his shoulder, fussing with the space between Holly’s tiny body and Nick’s broad shoulder. I have to stand on tiptoe, even in heels, to make Nick as spit-up proof as possible.

I manage.

He laughs, the rumble making me suddenly aware of the space between our bodies. “It’s just a little spit up, Chloe. It washes out.”

“Charlotte acted like it was napalm. She wore latex gloves and a Tyvek suit while burping Holly. I’ve seen Ebola researchers wear less.”

“Why do you call your mother by her first name?”

“Because it’s slightly less painful than using her preferred form of address.”

“Which is?”

“Your Majesty.”

Nick is in the middle of finishing his bourbon. He chokes, clapping a palm across his mouth to cough discreetly, those bright blue eyes mesmerizing. I could watch them for hours.

Being with him feels so good.

He’s bouncing and patting little Holly, who decides the world isn’t so scary after all, her little knees tucking up under her, face burrowing into Nick’s shoulder.

I think I’m a little jealous.

Jealous of my own daughter.

This is how far I have fallen in a few weeks?

“How’s life?” he whispers, his tone clearly implying that life as I know it is over.

“I’ve had a good life. A great life. Now this is my new life.”

Holly’s diaper begins making sounds you normally only hear in Lord of the Rings movies featuring the fiery pits of hell. I continue talking, because I’m used to it. It’s not unlike working with a construction crew after the local food truck makes a stop.

Nick is so obviously an experienced dad, because he completely ignores Holly Vesuvius. I take her back from him.

“When you have kids,” Nick says quietly, “it brings up all your own unprocessed issues.”

“What unprocessed issues?” I say, pretending to be offended.

“Like your mother?” His eyebrows shoot up.

“What about my mother?” Even as the words roll off my tongue like a ribbon of error, I regret them.

“She’s a little — “

I interrupt him. “Petty?”

“I would use the word ‘narcissistic.’”

I shrug. “We all view the world through our personal lenses, right?”

“Chloe.”

“She means well.”

“She’s slowly driving you to the brink of collapse.”

“Only the brink. I’ve lived on the brink for long stretches of my life, Nick. It’s not such a bad place to live.”

Holly begins to cry.

“Diaper change,” I announce.