Page 44 of How We Loved

I pouted.

“You’re loud. You’re very, very, very loud.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“No,” his arms reached out and snagged me to him. Hope squished between us, which was fine with her because it meant she got to go for two lots of hair at once. “I love you because this, us, everything we are is perfect.”

Well, fuck. Make it harder, why don’t you, Chambers. I kissed him. Of course. I can’t not. Hope started to fuss, obviously put out that Ben was now kissing me and not her. To make it even, she put a mouthful of my hair into her mouth, which, to be fair, kind of played nicely into the point I wanted to make.

“Anyway, I had an idea,” I started.

“Always a worry.”

“Hey!”

“Only because I might not be able to handle the awesomeness of it.”

“Well, now you’re just sucking up. I’m not putting out again today; I’m not sure my fanny can take it.”

Ben stared at me wide-eyed for a moment and then burst out laughing. “So what were you thinking?”

“I think Hope and I should stay here and not finish the tour.” There, I’d said it. Put it out there into the universe. Now the universe could do whatever the fuck it liked with it.

Ben’s gaze didn’t waver. “No. All of us or none. That was the agreement.”

I took the bottle from the warmer and gave it a shake, mainly because I’m a scaredy-cat and didn’t want to make eye contact. “Lilah.” Ben’s voice was gentle.

I shrugged, “Just an idea.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Hope was fussing. She was probably hungry, but I just wanted a moment with Ben. With a bit of a jiggle, I turned her in my arms and held her facing outward with the bottle. To be fair, she grabbed it most of the time anyway now—yet another useful piece of evidence.

“Ben.” I waited for him to meet my gaze and then pulled a bit of an ‘are you going to listen to me or not?’ face. “We’ve got to start weaning her.”

Now, in truth, and I had no plans to make it obvious, I didn’t really know what weaning a baby was, apart from the transition from milk to solid food. What you did or how you did it, I didn’t have a clue. Not yet anyway. “I think her eating our hair is a sign she’s probably a little bit hungry.”

Both of our gazes dropped to where our daughter had a death grip on her Tommeee Tippee bottle and was draining the life out of it the way I once sucked every last drop out of a bottle of Bud.

Ben’s gaze lifted to mine. “Know much about weaning, do you, Lilah?”

“No, but I want to learn, want to know. And I think I should start taking her to some baby groups or something. Has she even seen another baby before?” His mouth opened, and I held my hand up. “And cousins don’t count.”

“I want to do those things with you.” All of Ben’s smirkiness evaporated, and for a brief moment, it was just him and I in a kitchen, barefoot, like it was when we first met and he used to cook a spag bowl, and I fell head over heels in love with him.

“I know. But, Ben. If you were anyone else other than you, other than The Benjamin Chambers, you’d be out at work, bringing in the bacon, and I’d be doing all this by myself.”

“You don’t want me around?”

I stared at him unblinking for a long moment. “Seriously? Your number one stalker wouldn’t want you around?”

“That’s true.” His easy smile slipped back into place.

“I just think I need to focus on being a mum, do you get it? You’ll always be her amazing rock star of a Dad. But I need to carve out my role for her. We’ve been so lucky you’ve been around as much as you have. Believe me, I know how lucky I am, but we’ve got to find this new normal we keep talking about.”

He nodded slowly, and I searched for shadows within the depths of his cornflower blues. “Okay, I get it.” His mouth tilted at the edges. “But you do realize baby weaning involves cooking, right?”