Mia invites me to the playroom afterward. I know I probably shouldn’t go. Carly’s plan to hide makes the most sense, but Dom peers at me over Mia’s shoulders, beckoning me with his little brown eyes to come and play. I can’t say no to that.
There’s no shortage of baby activity mats and toys in the playroom. Mia hands me Dom and drags a bunch of them out of the closet. She spreads one of the mats out and takes Dom for something called “tummy time.” Apparently it’s just him lying on his tummy. Pretty straightforward. He does a baby push-up and cranes his neck, sticking his tongue out at me.
“Is there a point to this?” I ask, curiously.
Mia smiles. “Building up his strength. Think of it like a baby workout. He’s strength training.”
I hunch down to look at him. “Are you getting ripped?”
“Neck muscles for days,” Mia says.
“He can’t crawl yet, huh?”
“No, not for a few more months. He’s gotta train and work up to that.” Mia scoots down on her belly. “You’re building that Morelli shoulder strength, huh?”
“I can’t believe we have a baby.”
Mia glances up at me uncertainly for a second. I didn’t mean to say it, I just can’t quite get over it. She’s had months to adjust to her role, to Dom’s existence, but I had no idea. I didn’t even know she got married, let alone that she had a baby—and my baby, not Mateo’s.
“It’s weird not knowing what’s going on in your life,” I tell her. “I know I had a whole life before you, but you became such a big part of everything.”
“I know,” she agrees, her voice soft. “It is a little weird.”
I know it has to be that way for us, but I don’t exactly like it. It’s too hard not to drift back into her orbit when I’m around her, it’s too hard to see Mateo raising Dom, it’s too hard to see her with Mateo. I got to a place where I could be cool with it, but then Mia started being nice to me again and drew me right back in. I know it’s not her fault. I realize now she doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s just who she is. It’s what drew me to her in the first place, but it’s the same thing that draws other fucked up men to her. I could’ve only kept Mia if I kept her in a cage.
Mateo keeps her in a cage, though, and somehow she’s happy with him.
“Do you have an open marriage?”
That startles her. Wide blue eyes dart to me, floored that I would ask such a thing. “No!”
“All right.” I hold up a hand to halt her shock, but she’s still gaping at me. “I was just asking. I keep hearing things.”
“Things like I have an open marriage?” she demands. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry, I was just curious.”
Mia buries her face in her hands. Dom sees her hiding and cranes, bobbing a bit as he tries to get to her to see what’s wrong. I can’t help smiling. I’m glad he looks out for her already.
Since he can’t get to her, he braces his hands on the ground and squeals, then babbles at her until she lifts her head up to look at him. She wrinkles up her nose at him and crawls forward on her tummy to brush noses with him. He grabs her face and slobbers all over her as he delivers his open-mouth kisses.
I join her on my stomach. Mimicking Mia’s position scores me some of his attention. He falls down on his side, grinning up at me as he grabs a red bird toy and shoves it in his mouth.
“I made you a carrot,” Mia announces, now that she’s recovered from her fit of embarrassment.
I look over at her and blink. “Thank you?”
“A craft carrot,” she specifies. “It’s an Easter decoration. It was Carly’s idea. I made it with Dom’s footprint, that way you have something to take with you when you leave.”
“Oh. That is nice. Thank you,” I say, with a little less confusion and a little more sincerity.
Mia nods. “You still talk to Cherie?”
“Yeah. Not as much as I used to, but yeah.”
She nods some more. “Well, I don’t talk to Cherie much, but I do send pictures of Dom to Maria sometimes. She’s the closest thing to a grandmother as he really has.”
“He doesn’t see your mom?”
“She saw him when he was first born, but no, Mateo doesn’t like to bring her around. He seems to prefer Maria filling the grandma outlet.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes. “Well, it’s not his call, is it? Dom’s yours, not his.”
“That’s not how our family works,” she says, shaking her head. “We aren’t possessive over the kids. We all love them, we all raise them. It’s a village effort here. Besides, Dom is Mateo’s in every way that counts.” Cutting a look my way, she adds, “I’m not saying that to be mean, it’s just the truth. He’s the one who supported me through my pregnancy, he’s the one who held my hand through labor and cut the umbilical cord—”