Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(43)

We’d been wandering around for an hour, making fairly quick work of our registry. It was unconventional to register at fifteen weeks, but I’d insisted we do it now rather than wait. Primarily so I could sleep at night. Knowing we had to compile this one master list for the baby registry was a task that had been following me around for weeks. We’d done our research, and that list needed to be inputted into the database so I could be rid of the damn thing.

Theo had, of course, agreed without question, though he was irritated to be standing in the gleaming white aisles of the big-box store that so many New Yorkers despised despite the aforementioned convenience. He’d rather buy overpriced, off-brand toothpaste from a bodega than step foot in a corporate chain.

Until I’d asked. And then, like seemingly everything else, he’d complied for the sake of my peace of mind.

The last two weeks had been far smoother than I could have anticipated. Once I got past the initial strangeness of living in an unfamiliar place, that was. It had been a long, long time since I woke up in a place that wasn’t my room in the old brownstone, and it’d been nearly ten years since I lived with strangers.

But Theo had been right about that, too. It didn’t feel like we were strangers at all.

We’d found a routine—a simple one, but a routine nonetheless. He made breakfast every morning and packed me a lunch. Cooked us all dinner and spent evenings on the couch with me. Sometimes, we chatted about our days. Sometimes, we watched TV. Occasionally, we sat side by side with our laptops, researching strollers and cribs and the like.

Once, I’d walked in to find him sitting on the couch with music playing over the speakers, his face drawn in concentration and a book about ancient Mayans split open in his lap.

Never in my life had I seen something so gorgeous as that man in that tailored shirt and those slacks with his feet propped on the coffee table and a book on an ancient civilization resting where I would have liked to sit.

But rules were rules. I’d sat next to him where I belonged and just imagined I was that hardbound beast.

As we walked toward the bottles in companionable silence, I was reminded again of just how fortunate I was to have a partner like him. I pictured for a moment that he’d bowed out when I told him I was pregnant. Imagined walking these aisles on my own. And I was so thankful I wasn’t.

I couldn’t imagine being here with anyone but him. Not even my friends. Because with them, I was always the one who had it together. They’d be swooning and soft over the tiny clothes and miniature shoes, and I’d be shepherding us through the ordeal to keep us from having to permanently take up residence in the sippy cup aisle.

But with Theo, I didn’t have to be the mother hen. I didn’t have to have a schedule and itinerary.

I didn’t have to be strong. And the feeling was both a relief and a curse. As blissful as it was to lean on him, the release from sole responsibility left me unsure of myself. I was too used to leading.

But he’d taught me to follow, starting with a dance in a swing club.

Living with Theo had unveiled two surprises—how easy it was and how badly I wanted him. We’d been busy with work, and I’d been exhausted from growing a person, I supposed, and so we really only saw each other at dinner and for a bit at night. He was terribly easy to get along with and terribly painful to look at. Because, heaven help me, I couldn’t even glance in his direction without wanting to throw all the rules out the window in exchange for getting to kiss him whenever I wanted.

We stopped in front of shelf after shelf of bottles. Bottles with liners and bottles without. Fast and slow-flow bottle nipples. Four ounces, six, twelve. Bottles for babies with reflux and bottles with vents and bottles that were just bottles. Glass bottles, plastic bottles, boxes and boxes and boxes of bottles.

I frantically scanned them. I hadn’t researched bottles. I didn’t know how it had happened, but something in my brain had disconnected it from choice, deeming it too simple to require research. But as I stood there in front of an insurmountable choice, my throat squeezed shut, my feet stuck to the spot, and my eyes scrambled for recognition where I knew there was none.

Theo frowned at the boxes, shaking his head. “This is what I mean. No one needs this many choices. Have you been to the paper towel aisle? Who the hell needs twelve rolls of paper towels at once? Where do you even put that many paper towels in Manhattan? And don’t even get me started on the toilet paper. The math on double rolls is enough to undo the fabric of space. I just can’t understand why the fuck…” He paused.

I thought he might have been looking at me, but I couldn’t stop my mind.

“Kate, what’s wrong?”

The question was so tender, so worried, that tears nipped the corners of my eyes. I looked down at two boxes, one in each hand, that I didn’t remember picking up.

“This one says it’s number one doctor approved, but this one says it’s number one mother approved, and I don’t know which one to choose, but I’m not sure what to do…I don’t know how to choose.” The final word of the rambling run-on broke in my throat, and the vision of the boxes in my hands shimmered through a curtain of tears.

His hand, big and warm, cupped my cheek. He’d moved to stand in front of me, all that shiny white gone and replaced with the black of his suit.

With his free hand, he reached for the scanner. “Gimme the gun, Kate,” he said gently.