Baby Business: Baby Steps

“Nothing ‘all this’ about it. Business was slow so I took off early, figured I might as well throw the pork in the oven. We’re eating in the dining room, by the way.”

He glanced toward the room in question, saw the table set with place mats, cloth napkins, candlesticks. A centerpiece, for God’s sake.

“I never eat in the dining room,” he said.

“Then it’s high time you did,” she said.

Honest to Pete, she’d had no agenda behind dinner beyond feeding everybody. Roasts were no-brainers, for heaven’s sake. As were boiled potatoes and steamed asparagus. Okay, so maybe the gravy was a little tricky, but not if you’d been making it since you were twelve.

And really, she hadn’t been trying to impress him or anything with the table setting, she’d just thought it seemed a shame, never using the dining room. The man needed to start appreciating his own house, that’s all.

So the look on his face when he’d walked in, smelled the cooking, seen the table, taken that first bite of pork … was icing on the cake. Seriously.

His chuckle when she handed him a dessert dish of Jell-O topped with a fluffy mountain of whipped cream, however … priceless.

They’d progressed to the family room, ostensibly to watch a film. She’d raided her parents’ stash of DVDs, hauling back everything from old Hepburn-Tracy flicks to Clint Eastwood westerns, vintage Woody Allen to Indiana Jones, eighties-era chick flicks to over-the-top disaster movies. But the slim, colorful cases lay fanned out on the coffee table, temporarily forsaken. Instead, C.J. sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace with Ethan in his lap, halfheartedly fending off the baby’s attempts to steal his whipped cream, and Dana thought, Yeah, it’s like that.

Or could be, anyway.

“I’d forgotten how good this is,” he said.

“Isn’t it crazy?” she said, spooning a big glob into her own mouth. “Mama always used to make Jell-O for me when I was feeling down in the dumps.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “So it’s a comfort food, then?”

“Well, the whipped cream is the comfort food, actually. But squirting whipped cream directly into your mouth is really pathetic.”

“Or efficient,” he said with a grin. “Go away, cat,” he said to Steve, who kept trying to bat at the whipped cream. C.J. held the dish up out of the cat’s reach. “Mine. Mine, mine, mine.” Ethan’s eyes followed the dish, followed by a squawk. C.J. gave her a helpless look, and she giggled.

“Oh, go on, let him have some.”

C.J. blew out a sigh, but lowered the dish anyway. Only the poor cat couldn’t figure out how to attack something that wouldn’t stay still, his head bobbing along with the quivering whipped cream. C.J. laughed, and Ethan chortled, and the cat finally stalked off, thoroughly put out.

“So how’s the writing coming?” C.J. asked. Then frowned. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I hate that question.”

“Oh. Sorry. Why?”

“Because I never know how to answer it. I know you mean well, but—”

“It’s okay, I understand. Well, actually, I don’t, but if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t want to talk about it.” He fed another bite of Jell-O to the baby, then said, “One question, though—does anyone else know you’re writing?”

“Not really. Well, my parents do,” she said on an exhaled breath. “My mother thinks it’s silly.”

His forehead creased. “Has she read any of it?”

“I doubt that would make a difference. It’s all a little too pie in the sky for her. Offends her practical sensibilities.”

“Because it’s a risk, you mean?”

“I suppose. She had enough trouble dealing with me going into business with Mercy and Cass, instead of getting a nice, secure accounting job with some well-established firm.” A smile flickered over her lips. “She worries.”

His dessert finished, C.J. set the dish up on the coffee table, then turned Ethan around to face him. Laughing, the baby dug his feet into the carpet and pushed up, clutching the front of C.J.’s shirt.

“Hey, look at you, hot stuff!” he said, clearly delighted, only to immediately suck in a breath. “Oh, God—when do they start walking?”

“Whenever they’re ready. Around a year, maybe later. He has to crawl first, though. At least, so I gather.”

And will I even be in the picture when that happens?

The thought pricked the haze of contentment she’d let herself be lulled into, propelling her to her feet to gather dessert dishes, which she carted back into the kitchen. C.J. followed, the baby in his arms.

“Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Really,” she said with a forced smile when he frowned at her. “Just one of my moods again.” Then, because melancholy always led to masochism, she said, “So how exactly did you end up with my cousin, anyway?”

Clearly startled, C.J. pushed out a short laugh. “Where on earth did that come from?”

“I’m a chronic scab-picker, what can I tell you?”

He held her gaze in his for several seconds, then sighed.

“Trish had quit, maybe a week before, I don’t really remember. I was the only one in the office when she came in to pick up her last paycheck, except I had a little trouble finding it since Val had put it someplace ‘safe.’ Anyway, by the time I did, your cousin seemed very distraught. So … I asked her if she wanted to go get a drink.” His mouth pulled flat. “And things … took their course.”

She opened the dishwasher, started loading their dinner plates. “I see.”

“I’m not proud of it, Dana,” he finished softly. “It shouldn’t have happened. But I didn’t take advantage of her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if I did take advantage of … the situation. Just so you know, however,” he said, shifting the baby in his arms, “I don’t do that anymore. Start something I have no intention of finishing, I mean.” He smiled tiredly. “It gets old.”

“Yes,” Dana said carefully, once again all too aware of the warning in his words, no matter how mildly they’d been delivered. “I can see how it would. Well. Thanks. For being honest with me.”

“It’s the least I can do,” he said, and she thought, Geez, story of my life or what?

“Like hell you can wear that,” Mercy said, her face a study in horror.

Dana looked down at the black charmeuse tunic and ankle-length skirt, still in its transparent shroud from the cleaners, she was holding up to her front. They’d just locked up for the night, leaving only a couple of spotlights on in the front of the store, and Dana had—in a clearly misdirected moment—decided to show her partners what she was wearing. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You’ll look like a leech?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s even got sparklies. See?” She wiggled the bag in front of Mercy, who recoiled.

“Okay, a leech with a Cher fixation.”

Dana looked to Cass, who was also going to the shindig. Under duress, apparently. Blake had insisted it would “do her good” to get out and mingle, although, according to Cass, all she really wanted to do was stay home and sleep.

“What are you wearing?” Dana now asked the blonde.

“Some red jersey number I’ve had forever.”