Addicted After All(94)

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.

My heart beats loudly in my chest. Okay, I can do this. I internally nod, boosting some of my self-confidence. I can’t be declared a bad mom until I do something wrong. So Celebrity Crush and their polls can suck it.

I blow out a breath, and then I lightly tap Bert’s foot. “Bert? Bert?” I say. “Can you hear me?”

“Bert?” Lo laughs at my name choice.

My brows pinch. “What’s your baby’s name?” Bert is awesome. He’s already a winner. I can feel it.

Lo holds his doll to his ear, as though listening to him speak. He’s teasing me, and I find myself hooking a finger through Lo’s belt loop, holding Bert in the crook of my arm. “Knew it,” Lo says with a nod, bringing his baby back down.

“What’s his name?” I already feel myself smiling.