Page 138 of Sexting the Boss
“Hi,” I say, because my brain has stopped working.
He steps closer to the bed. “Hi.”
“I can’t believe we made a person,” I whisper.
He nods, still rocking Sofia gently. “We made her.”
I tilt my head. “Are you going to put her down?”
He looks offended. “No.”
I laugh again, then wince. “Okay. Fine. Keep her. I’m not fighting you.”
“Good,” he says, and his voice sounds satisfied in a way that makes me roll my eyes even while my heart does that stupid, dangerous thing.
The first week is a blur.
There are feeds and diapers and those tiny cries that sound like the world is ending. There’s me learning my body again, learning how to sit without cursing, learning how to accept help without turning it into an argument.
Ethan becomes a machine.
He tracks times, he sterilizes bottles, he sets alarms, he orders supplies before we run out, and he doesn’t act like it’s a big deal, which is annoying because it is a big deal and I want to shake him for being so calm.
But he’s not calm, not really.
He just functions through it.
He also becomes, somehow, ridiculously tender. He changes Sofia’s diaper like it’s a sacred ritual, then looks at me like he expects praise for not passing out.
“You want a sticker?” I ask him one night, while he’s swaddling her with the precision of a man wrapping a priceless artifact.
He glances at me. “I want you to sleep.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s not an answer.”
He walks over and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Go to sleep, Lila.”
“I hate when you sound like that,” I mutter.
“I know,” he says, and the smugness is back for half a second.
By the time we hit three months, Sofia has cheeks that make strangers stop us on the street, and she has a tiny frown that looks exactly like Ethan’s when she’s unimpressed.
She also has my lungs.
Which means she can scream.
We’re in the kitchen one afternoon, sunlight on the floor, Sofia in her bouncer with a toy she’s aggressively losing interest in. I’m making coffee, and Ethan’s behind me, working on his phone.
I glance at him. “You’re not going to work.”
“I’m not working,” he says.
“You’re typing.”
“I’m typing.”
I turn, eyebrow raised. “At your office? With your CEO hands? While your daughter is in the room?”
