“CPR training then,” Connor amends.
“Ryke has already smothered his kid,” Lo jokes, nodding to his brother across our circle.
Ryke just realizes that he has his doll in a blue onesie tucked in his pit. He holds him in one hand by the waist, like a football. “Why do we have to f**king do this again?” Ryke asks, motioning between himself and Daisy. “You all probably won’t let us babysit your kid anyway.”
“If you plan on holding him like that I’m not going to,” Lo tells his brother.
Ryke adjusts the doll again, and I end up smiling at the way he’s cradling the baby, like Lo. They’re both being as gentle as they can be, taking it more seriously. I thought Lo was going to throw jabs at Rose the whole time, but he’s being considerate and looks kinda sexy with a baby in his arms.
“I just can’t see any of you leaving your kid with me,” Ryke suddenly admits.
Connor stares right at Ryke, and they meet each other’s eyes. “You’d be surprised about what I’d let you do,” Connor tells him.
Rose doesn’t even disagree. I try to wipe the mental image of Ryke handling the doll with less care. Now that he pays more attention, it seems like he’d be okay with Maximoff.
Ryke looks to Lo like you don’t want me near your baby, right?
“It’s your choice, man,” Lo says. “You don’t want to be a part of my kid’s life. That’s fine.” The edge in his voice doesn’t match his words.
Ryke scowls. “You know I do.”
“Then that’s why you’re here.”
Daisy bounces on her feet, hugging the doll to her chest. “I’d love to babysit whenever you need me.” She looks to Rose. “You’d let me watch your girl, right?” Her lopsided smile makes the room glow. Her hair helps.
Daisy might as well have kissed Rose’s heels. Our older sister is beaming, so happy that someone else is playing into the idea that she’s having a girl. Personally, I’d love for Rose to have a daughter. Just to see her happy. I think all of us want that. Well, except Lo. He wants her to have a boy in spite.
I expect Rose to flower Daisy with compliments and yes, of course, you can watch her words. Instead, she says, “If you pass.”
Lo lets out a short laugh. “Are you going to make everyone who wants to touch your baby fill out a hundred-page questionnaire?”
“Maybe.” She fixes her hair to one side of her shoulder while Connor studies Rose with more concern, sidling closer to her. He whispers in her ear and she nods to him. The bad thing about nerd stars: they’re so high up that it’s hard to hear or see unless you exist in space with them.
I’m not smart enough to even breach the Earth’s atmosphere, so I just try to watch from down below.
“I actually have something for you Rose…” Lo says, detaching from my side. This can’t be good. He sets his boy doll on the table and heads to the hall closet.
“If it doesn’t come in a jewelry box, you can keep it,” Rose snaps.
“I’m not keeping this.” Lo rummages around for a couple seconds before returning with a flat box wrapped in green, pink, and blue paper. I wear a confused expression, not involved in this plan. Lo must’ve bought that on his way home from work or something.
Rose zeroes in on the colors. “I told everyone no baby gifts.” She didn’t want a baby shower. I think it would’ve overwhelmed her anyway, all the baby things and people staring at her stomach. I’m having one closer to my due date, but it’s not a big event or anything. Just family.
“Which is why I decided to get you one,” Lo says, topping it off with a half-smile. He walks over and shoves the box at her.
She stares at him blankly. “I hate you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he tells her. “Just open it before you start hexing me.”
She huffs and tears the paper gently while Lo returns to my side. I’m more nervous.
I stand on my toes and whisper to him, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem like something that important.”
But I can see that it matters to him.
“You can rip the paper,” Lo tells her.
Rose shoots him a look and continues neatly opening the box. When she lifts the lid and brushes the tissue paper aside, her face softens and her lips part.
I frown further. “What is it?”
Rose holds up a bundle of pastel green onesies and shows off the top one: orange tabby cats printed all over the green cotton. It’s so cute and—
“Unisex,” Lo mentions. “Just in case you have a boy.” He doesn’t add that the cats are just like Sadie, who Connor has already given to Frederick, his therapist, to take care of for a while. Rose was visibly upset the entire day that Sadie left, her eyes reddened like she’d been crying.
“I don’t know what to say,” Rose murmurs, her eyes traversing along the fabric.
“Thanks, Lo, you’re so sweet,” he tells her. “I could hug you but I haven’t oiled my rusted joints this morning.”
She glares and delicately sets the onesies back in the box. “And now I hate you again.”
Lo mockingly touches his heart. “I’ll cherish that hate forever.”
I clear my throat, making sure that none of the bickering goes too far. Lo drops his gaze on me and then brushes his hand against my hip before retrieving his doll. The embrace sends shockwaves down my spine, and he stands very, very close to me.
“We should start,” Connor says, checking his watch.
Rose places a hand on her lower back, like it hurts, but she stays upright with the rest of us. Connor watches her more cautiously but never draws attention to her.
“So what’s the scenario?” Lo asks Connor. “The baby is choking on a button or a penny?”
My eyes widen in horror. “What?”
Lo strokes my head. “It’s pretend, love.”
“I thought we established that pretend things with us become real?” Have we just jinxed ourselves without realizing?
“No scenarios,” Rose pipes in. “It’s bad luck.”
Connor looks affronted by the mention of luck, but he doesn’t rile Rose, most likely because she’s in some sort of pain. “You can do this sitting down, darling.”
She nods and settles in the Queen Anne, pushed by the wall. The doll rests snuggly on her lap.
Connor has his eyes on her for an extended moment before he turns to us. “First, you want to check the baby’s consciousness.”
This sounds hard. “How do we do that?” My doll is certainly unconscious, definitely not alive.
“You tap the baby gently.” Connor demonstrates by tapping the baby’s shoulder and the bottom of her foot. “Magdala. Magdala. Can you hear me?”
Rose scoffs from her chair. “I got rid of my middle name because I hated it, not so we can name our child Magdala.”
“Rose Calloway Cobalt,” Connor says her full name, ditching Magdala and replacing it with Calloway. No hyphenation. She’s been Cobalt since she married Connor. “Like Lo said, this is pretend. I can name our pretend daughter whatever I want.”
She rolls her eyes dramatically and waves him on. “Please, continue. I hope our pretend daughter pukes on your shoulder.”
Connor grins, and before he opens his mouth to respond, I redirect the conversation. “Back to the training,” I announce. This is important to me. I really do want to know the information before Maximoff arrives. “We tap the baby and call out its name. Then what?”