Until November

Chapter 22

Ben 

I WINCE from the knowledge that I was zero help the first few weeks. Noelle requires all my focus. Even when she's sleeping, I'm washing her spit-up towels or carting her bag of dirty diapers to the trash without complaint. Noelle is either in my arms feeding and then burping or wiping drool off her tiny chin or changing my shirt from the spit up.

My commentary takes a back seat and my only focus is how I can make Jocelyn's life easier. Party invites are turned down. Drinks are consumed by other golfers. Commitments to play 18 holes are ignored. It is a constant exhausting busyness around the house. From the time I wake up until I crash, it is getting ready for Noelle, making sure she's safe, fed, held. 

The house work piles up between Jocelyn and me. We are a tag team. One off/one on. Close to each other, but never touching unless it's transferring Noelle, but my hands doing anything to feel Jocelyn all the same, unable to ignore the spark when her fingers graze mine or slides against my chest as she transfers Noelle to me.

Soothing away the budding pain at my temple, grumbles slip between my lips but they are quiet enough so Jocelyn doesn't hear. Some days she's on the verge of tears and others steps up and is everything that Noelle needs. My shoulders are sore from the couch. The air mattress I had ordered has been 'out for delivery' for two weeks. My muscles are weak from the fatigue of splitting my time between training and being here. The walls in this house are thin as a tin can. If Jocelyn and Noelle are up, that means I am too. The schedule Jocelyn and I worked out for night feedings allows us each to get a little more sleep, but not much.

I'll give her more money, I vow, giving the shower tiles a loathing glance. Today I skip an invitation to play golf with an actor I have met a couple of times in exchange for fixing things around the house and trying not to think of the cold-hearted stare my father would have given me that this hasn't been done already. My father was a workhorse. His nails were always dirty. His pants were always faded and stained in dust. Let's not overlook the gratifying satisfaction stirring within me with each work order of Jocelyn's that I fill. The problem with her house is like stepping in a pit of fire ants. There's never just one issue.  

Before someone's  retina is damaged, I change the lightbulbs in the nursery, followed by reinforcing several steps on the staircase with new nails and shaking the rail lightly, pulling my mouth to one side. It needs a bolt where the bottom connects to the stair. Working around the clock in this house still wouldn't be enough. I'll deal with the stair rail in a second. The step needs fixing first. 

Working with my hands brings me back to my childhood, to my dad and to Jack. The three of us together on job sites. I miss him. I miss him so much that I cough back the ache in my chest and hammer in one more nail on the top step. Jocelyn doesn't say a word about my minor renovations, but when she looks at me in passing, the shade of stubbornness in her eye is fading, the temperamental frown in her mouth that I want to claim and bend, soften and taste every other minute isn't as determined as it was when I moved back in. 

She appears at the bottom step with the laundry basket. I'm not going to pretend I don't notice all that's feminine about her. How much her body has changed from the pregnancy. What I wouldn't give to see her in a backless dress hugging her curves and then taking it off her, watching her as I strip it off an appreciate how it looks on my bedroom floor. Mia has been the one to accompany me to recent events, but now being around Jocelyn, I admit that boredom had settled in long before I broke things off with her. Friendship was just friendship. Jocelyn shines for exactly who she is. She puts me in my place. She treats my status like an inconvenience and I never thought sitting on a couch with a woman, a beer, and a baby could actually be fun. "Do you need me to move?" I offer like passage will come at a cost, my gaze clinging to her usual leggings and loose shirt that falls in a sexy angle at her thigh.