He sounded like a kid on Christmas and she wished she could reach through the phone and squeeze him.
Dylan wandered in with a mug of coffee, tipping his head curiously while she bounced on her toes.
“Congratulations, Josh. And everything is okay? It’s still early.”
“Everything’s fine. She’s tiny and she’s going to have to stay at the hospital a little longer than normal, but no complications. Cat had a C-section, so more bed rest.”
She heard some of his joy slip at that. “She’ll be absolutely fine, Josh. She must be ecstatic.” She looked up at Dylan and mouthed: baby. His face lit up, emerald eyes and dimples shining. “Dylan’s here.”
“I was hoping he was,” Josh said. “Can you both come?”
A tiny cry sounded over the phone and tears blurred Dani’s vision. Everything that had seemed so big over the last few months suddenly felt as small as that cry. “Of course. Yes! We’ll be there right away.”
“Great. Thanks, Dani. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon, Joshy.”
“It’s a girl?” Dylan asked when she tossed her phone on the mattress.
Dani nodded, wiping at the corner of her eye and sniffing. Her heart felt too full for her chest. “We’ve got to go.” She took a mug from him and gulped, then shoved it back into his hands. She grabbed a towel and her robe and headed down the hall.
“Wait,” Dylan called, laughing. “What’s her name?”
“Oh! I didn’t ask.”
“Catia, you really picked another name that your poor husband can’t pronounce?” Dylan ran a finger along the seam of the swaddle blanket, watching it expand with each breath the baby took. She was so tiny. So warm. Her little eyelids fluttered as he bounced her gently in one arm. This was worth the early morning ride, hungover and still uncaffeinated.
Josh looked about as good as Dylan felt, his head tipped back in the wooden chair, his clothes wrinkled from sleeping in them. Or not sleeping in them. He didn’t even open his eyes to fight back. “It was my mother’s name, dick head. I know how to say it. It’s Lucia.” He pronounced the “C” with a “Shh” and Dylan shook his head.
“Lu-chee-ah,” Dylan said. “Your mother was Italian. Say it right.”
Dani and Cat shared a look from Cat’s bed.
“I’m gonna call her Lulu.”
Josh grinded his teeth. “You do that.”
Even in his wrinkled jeans with bags under his eyes, fatherhood already looked good on his best friend. The thought burst into Dylan’s head and he wasn’t sure where to put it. It was strange looking at Josh and knowing he’d be something Dylan’s father had never wanted to be—that he would take this responsibility and treasure it. Like all of a sudden, fatherhood itself had a new face.
Dani nudged his shoulder from her spot sitting on Cat’s bed. “I need another turn.” She held out her arms, and Dylan twisted to pass the baby to Dani. Their gaze caught over Lucia’s tiny pink hat. Dani’s eyes were wet, her mascara smudged in the corners. She was hungover and wearing sweats and so, so happy. The joy on her face hit him square in the chest. This scene they’d found themselves in together was something she wanted one day. He’d made the choice to be there with her knowing that. Today it felt dangerous in a thrill-ride kind of way instead of a dread kind of way.
Dani settled next to Cat and they cooed together over the baby while Josh sat slouched in the chair, half-asleep. Dylan kicked his foot. “Let’s get some coffee.”
Josh pulled himself out of the wooden chair, lumbering over to Cat like he might actually be sleepwalking. He leaned down and with one hand on the back of his daughter’s tiny head, kissed his wife. It was closed-mouthed and lazy, but it felt so intimate that Dylan turned his head away.
“So this is life now?” Dylan asked as they walked the long hospital corridor, toward the cafeteria. “Diapers and spit up.”
A goofy grin spread across Josh’s face. “Weird, huh?”
Dylan nodded. It was weird, but it also felt like the natural order of things; another one of those pressure changes in action.
They found a coffee cart in the hospital lobby and took a seat at a cafe table. “So, how’s it feel?”
Josh ran a hand over his face, yawning. “Like I’m never going to sleep again.”
“Yeah, I hear babies will do that to you.”
“I guess so.” He took a long sip of his coffee, gazing out the glass doors of the lobby. “I don’t mean the diaper changes and feedings, though. I mean so much could go wrong. I don’t know how I’ll ever sleep thinking about it.”
Suddenly Dylan saw the exhaustion on Josh’s face wasn’t only from lack of sleep. He didn’t know much about birth, but he knew Lucia was early, and a C-section wasn’t part of the plan. Even though everyone was all smiles today, the night had probably been stressful, scary.
“Yeah,” he said, following Josh’s gaze to the bright winter morning. “It didn’t go wrong, though. Cat and Lucia are fine. This is all you’ve ever wanted, man. You can’t be afraid to have it now.”
Josh nodded, a resilience Dylan had always envied seeping back into his expression. “What about you?” Josh asked around another sip of coffee. “You seem different with Dani. More regular Dylan, less Dylan Pierce, International Playboy.”
Dylan laughed. “I haven’t gone international in a while.”
“You know what I mean. Where do you see it going? What is it you want?”
“I don’t know,” he said, a cool, easy shrug lifting his shoulders out of habit. But that felt like a lie. He looked again at Josh—eyes bloodshot, scared shitless but not even a hint of turning tail in his steady posture.
“Would it be crazy to say I want it to go here?” He looked around the lobby. “Or, you know, somewhere in this general direction?”
He braced himself for Josh to laugh, or tell him to lower his expectations, but he didn’t. He just kept staring out the window. “No, man. I don’t think it would be crazy at all.”
Forty-two
Three months later
“Where did you decide on?” Dani thumbed two pages of notes written in Cat’s bubbly cursive while Cat checked the temperature of a bottle for the fifth time. In addition to feeding times, she’d written out the exact location of every baby-related item, including a hand-drawn sketch of the nursery. She was so neurotic.