Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(27)

Google didn’t tell me that he’s an excellent oldest brother, but it didn’t have to. I can see it.

I wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d had an older brother like West?

Not that he feels anything like brotherly to me. He’s entirely too potently sexy, even in his grumpy pants. Considering I’m the reason he’s grumpy, I feel like I need to help him become ungrumpy.

And lucky for him, I think I know exactly how to do that.

A noise from the baby cabana has all of us turning to look Remy’s way. It’s a yawn—I think—but it’s a noisy yawn that probably means I need to figure out if that bottle warmer works the way Lucinda told me it does before she took off for the rest of the weekend.

“Is that the baby?”

“Can we look?”

“Have you held him? Have you ever held a baby? I don’t think I’ve ever held a baby.”

“Is it like taking care of a dog? Let them run loose, poop in the yard, and then put out some food on the floor?”

That was Luna.

And I think the question was enough to make West nearly stroke out.

I step over to the cabana and pull back the gauzy curtains. Remy waves his fists at me, his face screwed up like he either wants to yell, eat, or poop.

“Oh, those eyes,” Emily, the skincare scientist, sighs.

“Look at his little gummy smile!” Cam, the aeronautical engineer genius, exclaims. “He doesn’t have teeth!”

“What does he need?” Luna, the vegan lifestyle guru, half-reaches for him, then stops. “Does he need to like, go squat in the grass or something?”

West looks in too. “Why’s he half-naked?”

“He likes it.” Despite myself, I’m grinning all dopey too, because he is adorable with his gummy smile and perfect dark eyes, and all that wonder that says he can’t wait until he’s big enough to go conquer the whole damn world. “He might be planning on being a nudist. Which is awesome, if you ask me. He should definitely be comfortable in his own body. Maybe we should have nudist weekends, just for Remy.”

Huh. West’s eyes are back to being that honey-brown color.

The man with the magical color-changing eyes is giving me a take-no-bullshit look that probably served him well in the Marines, though it’s definitely not intimidating to me.

If anything, it’s making me more in favor of nudist weekends.

I could definitely be naked with this man. And I hate when naked and stress relief are a bad idea.

But is it?

Is it really?

Yes, Daisy, it’s a bad idea. I make my inner voice sound like my grandmother, and it almost works to rein in those rampant hormones. He has an almost-girlfriend, remember? He’s off-limits.

“If you want me to stay, you’re going to have to change your tactics,” he tells me.

“What right, exactly, do you have to this child?” Emily asks.

“It’s all in the will.” I wave my hand, not wanting him to go into too much detail. “Julienne and Rafe clearly knew what they were doing when they wrote it, even if none of the rest of us get it, so we’re just figuring this out one day at a time. West comes from a good family, so it’s not like I can object to one more person—or eighty more people—loving the baby. Do you remember May Ella Jaeger, the comedienne?”

“Who?” Luna asks.

“She has a special on Netflix!” Cam exclaims. “Jude and I started watching that the other night.”

Emily glances at her. “Just started? It wasn’t very good?”

Cam grins. “No, it was very good! We got distracted.”

“Good for you,” Luna cheers. “I love distracted.”

“It definitely doesn’t suck,” Emily agrees with a love-sick smile of her own.

None of them seem to notice that West is going pink.

Maybe his mom embarrasses him?

Or maybe he’s not comfortable hearing about my friends having gloriously active and satisfying sex lives.

While watching his mother’s comedy special on Netflix.

“Anyway, May Ella Jaeger is West’s mom,” I say casually. “Which means he’s hilarious too, of course.”

My three friends turn and study him closer again.

He turns up the growly Marine face, and I suddenly feel the need to fan myself.

Grumpy doesn’t usually do it for me, but I’m so damn grateful that he’s here, for so many reasons, and honestly, what kind of man agrees to move in and take care of a baby on a temporary basis that could be a very long temporary, when he has his own life to live?

The rare kind, that’s who.

“How did you end up in the will again?” Emily repeats.

“They got drunk and drew names out of a hat,” he deadpans like the good son of a comedienne that he is.

“I can see it,” Cam says slowly. “Logical explanation.”

Remy squeals again, and I slip into the cabana, which is nice and cool with the fans blowing over ice buckets. “Hey, there, you handsome devil. You ready for some yum-yum milky-milk? Yes? Yes, you are? Who’s a good boy? Remy’s a good boy.”

“It is like having a dog!” Luna exclaims.

West mutters something again.

And I decide I’m doing it. I’m doing whatever I can to help the man out.