Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(78)

“Maybe.” She fixes her hair to one side of her shoulder while Connor studies Rose with more concern, sidling closer to her. He whispers in her ear and she nods to him. The bad thing about nerd stars: they’re so high up that it’s hard to hear or see unless you exist in space with them.

I’m not smart enough to even breach the Earth’s atmosphere, so I just try to watch from down below.

“I actually have something for you Rose…” Lo says, detaching from my side. This can’t be good. He sets his boy doll on the table and heads to the hall closet.

“If it doesn’t come in a jewelry box, you can keep it,” Rose snaps.

“I’m not keeping this.” Lo rummages around for a couple seconds before returning with a flat box wrapped in green, pink, and blue paper. I wear a confused expression, not involved in this plan. Lo must’ve bought that on his way home from work or something.

Rose zeroes in on the colors. “I told everyone no baby gifts.” She didn’t want a baby shower. I think it would’ve overwhelmed her anyway, all the baby things and people staring at her stomach. I’m having one closer to my due date, but it’s not a big event or anything. Just family.

“Which is why I decided to get you one,” Lo says, topping it off with a half-smile. He walks over and shoves the box at her.

She stares at him blankly. “I hate you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he tells her. “Just open it before you start hexing me.”

She huffs and tears the paper gently while Lo returns to my side. I’m more nervous.

I stand on my toes and whisper to him, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem like something that important.”

But I can see that it matters to him.

“You can rip the paper,” Lo tells her.

Rose shoots him a look and continues neatly opening the box. When she lifts the lid and brushes the tissue paper aside, her face softens and her lips part.

I frown further. “What is it?”

Rose holds up a bundle of pastel green onesies and shows off the top one: orange tabby cats printed all over the green cotton. It’s so cute and—

“Unisex,” Lo mentions. “Just in case you have a boy.” He doesn’t add that the cats are just like Sadie, who Connor has already given to Frederick, his therapist, to take care of for a while. Rose was visibly upset the entire day that Sadie left, her eyes reddened like she’d been crying.

“I don’t know what to say,” Rose murmurs, her eyes traversing along the fabric.

“Thanks, Lo, you’re so sweet,” he tells her. “I could hug you but I haven’t oiled my rusted joints this morning.”

She glares and delicately sets the onesies back in the box. “And now I hate you again.”

Lo mockingly touches his heart. “I’ll cherish that hate forever.”

I clear my throat, making sure that none of the bickering goes too far. Lo drops his gaze on me and then brushes his hand against my hip before retrieving his doll. The embrace sends shockwaves down my spine, and he stands very, very close to me.

“We should start,” Connor says, checking his watch.

Rose places a hand on her lower back, like it hurts, but she stays upright with the rest of us. Connor watches her more cautiously but never draws attention to her.

“So what’s the scenario?” Lo asks Connor. “The baby is choking on a button or a penny?”

My eyes widen in horror. “What?”

Lo strokes my head. “It’s pretend, love.”

“I thought we established that pretend things with us become real?” Have we just jinxed ourselves without realizing?

“No scenarios,” Rose pipes in. “It’s bad luck.”

Connor looks affronted by the mention of luck, but he doesn’t rile Rose, most likely because she’s in some sort of pain. “You can do this sitting down, darling.”

She nods and settles in the Queen Anne, pushed by the wall. The doll rests snuggly on her lap.

Connor has his eyes on her for an extended moment before he turns to us. “First, you want to check the baby’s consciousness.”

This sounds hard. “How do we do that?” My doll is certainly unconscious, definitely not alive.

“You tap the baby gently.” Connor demonstrates by tapping the baby’s shoulder and the bottom of her foot. “Magdala. Magdala. Can you hear me?”

Rose scoffs from her chair. “I got rid of my middle name because I hated it, not so we can name our child Magdala.”

“Rose Calloway Cobalt,” Connor says her full name, ditching Magdala and replacing it with Calloway. No hyphenation. She’s been Cobalt since she married Connor. “Like Lo said, this is pretend. I can name our pretend daughter whatever I want.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically and waves him on. “Please, continue. I hope our pretend daughter pukes on your shoulder.”

Connor grins, and before he opens his mouth to respond, I redirect the conversation. “Back to the training,” I announce. This is important to me. I really do want to know the information before Maximoff arrives. “We tap the baby and call out its name. Then what?”

“If the baby is unresponsive, you call 911. And then you place him or her on a hard flat surface.” He motions to the coffee table in the middle of the circle. “And you start CPR.” Connor takes us through the steps: thirty chest compressions with our fingers, opening the airway, and administering rescue breaths. I file all the information into the important—don’t ever forget folder in my head.