Chapter Seven

Oliver

The flight to Chicago was overbooked, but I made it in on time. Mom and Dad were eager to see me as I had missed the last two Christmases due to my crazy as hell work schedule. My sister and her husband were in town with their new baby. They lived in the burbs, only an hour away, so it wasn’t that big of a deal for them to be here. Me, on the other hand, you would’ve thought I was the pope coming to town the way Mom acted.

“Oliver, you’ve changed.”

“No, Mom, I’m your same old nerdy son.”

“You were never nerdy. Only smart.”

“You had blinders on, Mom.”

She still did. Mom never saw how I hung out with all the geeks and was one myself. Even my pocket protector didn’t give me away. I guess that’s what’s so great about moms. They only see what they want to see.

“So how’s work? I do wish you would find that dream job of yours,” she said.

“It’s fine. I actually like it.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t know how you can. Working on computers at a hospital. Whatever gave you the idea you should take that job?”

“The idea was a landing point until I found a better one, Mom.”

She patted my shoulder like she had since I was five. “My Oliver deserves so much better.”

I nodded and rushed up the steps to my room on the pretense of putting my bag up there. In reality, I wanted to escape the topic. If she only knew that I was an undercover agent for the Department of Homeland Security, she would have a massive freak the fuck out attack. That’s why she thought I worked for a hospital maintaining their electronic medical records. With the way things were going on the Michelle front, I sometimes wished I were. She was poking into my personal life and the story I told her about my family was starting to burn a hole in my cover. Michelle wasn’t stupid. She knew I was hiding something. The problem was I liked her. More than a whole fucking lot. The last thing I was supposed to do was get involved with someone. Everyone had warned me, but did I listen. Hell no. The reason was, I never thought it would amount to much more than a casual fuck every now and again. But dammit, I’d been so wrong. Every time I’d thought about ending things, an image of her on top of me, rocking her hips with my dick shoved deep in her pussy came to mind and no fucking way was I going to give that up to another man.

The truth was I had fallen for her … and hard. It had happened that night when she was dancing with her roommate. Long silky dark hair that swayed in motion with her body set me walking in her direction and I didn’t stop until I stood face-to-face with the gorgeous creature that she is. Ever since then, we’d spent almost every night together. When we hadn’t, I’d woken up doing the five-knuckle shuffle, dreaming about fucking her. I have to say, my dick has been one happy dude since she sailed into my life.

Only now, things were on the down swing. I needed to figure this shit out before I lost the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’d even toyed with the idea of telling her the truth about me. But what if she didn’t believe me? Or worse yet, what if she somehow got hurt by it? I couldn’t live with that. There had to be some happy median and I was going to figure it out.

Mom knocked on my door and poked her head inside.

“Deanna’s here with the baby.” Her voice was laced with a sigh that only a grandmother could breathe. She was so excited about that little girl. I couldn’t blame her. It would be years before I gave her any grandkids. Best not to burst that little bubble of hers. She’d probably already bought tiny pocket protectors for the thing.

I heard my sister scream my name at the top of her lungs, so I tore down the steps like a mad man. If she continued to yell like that around her daughter, that child would need hearing aids before the age of two.

“Get your ass over here, you big goon.” She passed the squirming baby to her husband, Randy, and held out her arms. I hugged the crap out of her and realized exactly how much I’d missed my family in that moment.

“Damn, you look pretty good for popping out a kid not too long ago.”

“Yeah, but you should see my boobs. Right, Rand?”

“Leave me out of this brother-sister talk,” Randy said.

“That’s disgusting. Why would you mention your boobs to me?” I acted like I was gagging.

“But it’s the truth. I can show you later when I breastfeed.”

Now I was totally disgusted. Holding up my hand like I was warding off evil, I said, “You have gone past what’s socially acceptable. I’m your brother.”

“It’s breastfeeding. Get over it, you big geek.”

“Bleh.” I shuddered.

“You need to get into the current century. Anyway, here.”

She grabbed the baby from her husband and handed her to me. I had no idea what to do with the thing.

“Jesus, Oliver. You’re like a block of wood. Relax. She’s not going to eat you or anything.”

“Yeah, but what if she …”

“What if she what?” Deanna asked.

“You know. Pukes or poops.”

“Then you get to clean it up.”

“You’re gross. When did you get to be so gross? The last time I saw you, you were prim and proper.”

“Yeah, well, try pushing an eight pound human out of your vagina and see what happens to prim and proper.”

I looked at my brother-in-law and said, “Dude, you need to rein her in.”

“Not happening, man. Been there, tried that. Epic fail.”

I stood there and gaped at my sister. This was clearly not the same person I remembered. She used to be so shy and would barely even say any unmentionable word around me. I recalled one time Mom asked me to help fold clothes and Deanna nearly had a heart attack because I folded a pair of her panties. Now look at her. She was spouting off about her boobs and vagina.

Mom sprinted into the room and caught sight of me holding little Ariana. “Aww, look how sweet Ollie looks holding the baby.”

“Uh, yeah, just say a prayer she doesn’t vom all over me.”

“Oliver. She’s only a tiny thing. She can’t help it. You used to throw up on me all the time.” Mom looked at me with a stern expression. I immediately felt like I was an adolescent again.

“Jeez. Sorry. But this is all new to me.” I gazed down at the tiny bundle in my arms and her face was all puckered up. She was kind of cute, I supposed, if you counted the squished up bald look as cute. She actually resembled an old man, but I didn’t let my sister know that.

“Why are you looking her like that?” Deanna asked.

“Like what?”

“Like something’s wrong with her?”

“I was just checking her out. It’s not often I get to look at a baby,” I told her. They were kind of creepy looking now that I thought about it.

“Okay. At least she doesn’t look like Mary Jo Carmichael’s baby,” my sister said.

“What does her baby look like?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t believe it. It looks exactly like an old man.”

I nearly dropped baby Ariana. “No way.” Those were the only words that came to mind. I couldn’t possibly tell her I’d been thinking the exact same thing about her own baby. She’d stab me in the eyes with one of Mom’s cooking knives. Then I’d never work again, not to mention my family would disown me for thinking such awful things.

Mom grabbed the baby from me and started making squawking noises. “Mom, you don’t need to act like a bird,” Deanna said.

“I’m not. She likes it. Look.”

Sure enough. Ariana had a lopsided grin on her face.

“That’s just gas,” Deanna said. “The doctor said at this age when they smile they have gas. She probably only farted.”

Mom tickled Ariana’s chin. “Deanna, she knows a sound she likes when she hears one.”

But then the room filled with an awful smell and my sister said, “Told ya. Gas.”

Babies were gross. There was no getting around it. Only it got worse. The smell I mean.

“Deanna, honey, I think she needs to be changed.”

My sister’s expression changed from happy to one that looked like she cashed in on the lottery. “That’s fabulous. Oliver can do it.”

“What? No! I don’t know the first thing about changing diapers.”

Deanna clapped her hands while Mom shoved Ariana into my arms. “It’s time you learned, Ollie. Besides, you need to bond with your niece.”

Taking a quick glance around the room, I noticed my brother-in-law had conveniently disappeared. Fuck me. Deanna was on her knees, digging through a gigantic duffle bag that was decorated with flowers and butterflies. It had to belong to baby Ariana.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Getting your supplies.”

Supplies? I need supplies to change a diaper? Don’t I just whip off one and put the other on? Apparently, I was way off base on that one. My sister ripped out a whole shit load of stuff. Then she laid out some fancy blanket thing on the floor and told me to set the baby down on it.

As soon as I did, Ariana let out a cry that made me scream. That made her cry even louder.

“Why’d you go and scare her like that?” Deanna asked.

“She scared the shit out of me!”

“Don’t curse around her. It might offend her.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, she’s only eight weeks old.”

“So? You don’t know what they pick up at that age.”

Ariana was still screeching so I patted her belly, trying to calm her down. Deanna told me I needed to get her outfit off so I could change her. I stared at it for a moment trying to figure that one out. It was an all-in-one number so I rolled her over hunting for the buttons.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the buttons,” I said.

“Good lord, you are helpless. There are snaps along the legs,” Deanna huffed.

“Well I’m sorry, miss know-it-all. I’ve never changed a diaper before, much less undressed a baby. How was I to know?”

“Um, maybe those little white tabs would’ve given it away.”

Sure enough, along the legs were snaps so I undid them and pulled the little cotton thing up to find--holy mother of all shits. The poop had exploded out of the diaper.

“UGH.” I covered my mouth, ran out of the room, and didn’t stop until I hit the back yard. That was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. How in the world a little baby could produce all that, I’ll never know. I do know one thing—kids were not going to be high on my agenda, unless whomever I married would sign up for all diaper changes. If not, I would have to carry around a vomit bag with me. I wonder if Michelle would be good with that. What the fuck. Why am I even thinking along those lines? And then it hit me. I was crazy ass in love with her. What a great time to figure that one out—after finding a load of crap in my niece’s diaper. That’s one thing that I’d never share with her. Some secrets are meant to be kept.