‘I do. He’s learned to anticipate it. He loved doing this with Ally. She used to string it out for ages.’ She blew a raspberry on the baby’s tummy, making him laugh, and handed him to Dylan. ‘Your turn.’
‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,’ Dylan intoned, feeling absolutely ridiculous and wishing he were a hundred miles away. Or, better still, back at his desk—where at least he knew what he was doing. ‘Humpty Dumpty had a great...’ He glanced at Emmy, who nodded. ‘Fall,’ he finished, and straightened his legs, letting the baby whoosh downwards but supporting him so he didn’t fall.
Tyler laughed.
And something around Dylan’s heart felt as if it had cracked.
* * *
There was a look of sheer wonder on Dylan’s face as Tyler laughed up at him. He really hadn’t been exaggerating about being a hands-off godfather, and this was obviously the first time he’d actually sat down with the baby and played with him. Emmy had the feeling that Dylan Harper, the stuffiest man in the world, kept everyone at arm’s length. Well, you couldn’t do that when you lived with a baby. So this was really going to change Dylan. It might make him human, instead of being a judgemental, formal machine.
When he did the Humpty Dumpty game for the third time, and laughed at the same time as the baby, she knew he was definitely changing. Tyler was about to turn Dylan Harper’s life upside down again—but this time, in a good way.
‘OK for me to go to work?’ she asked.
‘Sure. And, um, thanks for the lesson.’ He still looked awkward and embarrassed, but at least they’d managed to be civil to each other.
Hopefully they could keep it up.
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in Pete’s study if you get stuck with anything.’
DYLAN WAS SURPRISED to discover how much he enjoyed playing with the baby. How good it was to hear that rich chuckle and know that he’d given Tyler a moment of pure happiness. If anyone had told him three weeks ago that he’d be having fun waving a toy duck around and quacking loudly, he would’ve dismissed it as utter insanity. But, this afternoon, it was a revelation.
He was actually disappointed when Tyler fell asleep.
Though it wasn’t for long. The baby woke again and started crying, and Dylan picked him up almost on instinct. Then he wrinkled his nose. Revolting. It looked as if he needed another lesson from Emmy. He went to find her in Pete’s study.
‘Problem?’ she asked.
‘He needs a nappy change. Can you show me how to do it?’
‘Ah, no. You’re the one who said, “I do and I understand” is the best. I’ll talk you through it.’
When they went upstairs to the nursery, Emmy did at least help Dylan get the baby out of his little all-in-one suit, for which he was grateful. But then she stood back and talked him through the actual process of nappy-changing.
How could someone so small produce something so—so stinky? he wondered.
He used wipe after wipe to clean the baby.
And it was only when he realised Emmy was grinning that he thought there might’ve been another way of doing it—one that maybe didn’t use half a box of wipes at a time. ‘So you’re perfect at this, are you?’ he asked, slightly put out.
‘No—it usually takes me three or four wipes. Though Ally used to be able to do it in one.’ Her smile faded, and she helped him put Tyler back in his Babygro.
‘I’m going to do some work,’ she said. ‘Call me when Tyler needs a bath. His routine’s on the board in the kitchen, so you’ll know when he’s due for a feed. If he’s grizzly before then, try him with a drink. There’s some cooled boiled water in sterilised bottles in the fridge.’
Again, Dylan was surprised by Emmy’s efficiency. Maybe he’d misjudged her really badly, or he’d just seen her on bad days in the past—a lot of bad days—and taken her the wrong way.
‘Oh, and you need to wind him after a feed,’ she added. ‘Hold him upright against your shoulder, rub his back, and he’ll burp for you.’
‘Got it.’
‘Are you sure you can do this?’
No. He wasn’t sure at all. But he didn’t want Emmy to think that he was bailing out already. ‘Sure,’ he lied.
He carried Tyler downstairs and checked the routine board in the kitchen—which Emmy had somehow managed to get written up properly and laminated while he’d been at work. Apparently the baby needed a nap for about an hour; then he’d need a bath and then finally a feed.
And it was also his turn to make dinner.
He hadn’t even thought about buying food. He’d only focused on the fact that he’d needed to get everything done and leave the office ridiculously early. He opened the fridge door, and was relieved to discover that there were ingredients for a stir-fry. And there were noodles and soy sauce in the cupboard. OK. He could work with that.
Now, how did you get a baby to sleep?
He sat down, settling Tyler against his arm. Sure, he’d given his godson a brief cuddle before, but Ally had understood that he wasn’t used to babies and wasn’t much good at this, so she hadn’t given him a hard time about it. But it also meant she hadn’t talked to him about baby stuff. And Emmy had just left him to it.
‘I have no idea what to do now,’ he said to the baby.
Tyler just gave him a gummy smile.
‘Emmy seems to know what to do with you. But I don’t.’ OK, so he’d enjoyed playing with the baby, but was that all you were supposed to do?
‘She’s abandoned us,’ he said, and then grimaced. ‘And that’s not very fair of me. If she’d stayed, I would’ve assumed she didn’t trust me to do a good enough job with you and was being a control freak. So she can’t win, whatever she does.’
Maybe he needed a new approach to Emmy. And she had given up some of her work time to show him how to care for Tyler. As she’d pointed out, she could’ve left him to muddle through and fall flat on his face, then gloated when he’d made a mess of things. But she hadn’t. She’d played nice.
Maybe she was nice. Maybe he hadn’t really given her a chance, before.
‘I don’t know any nursery rhymes,’ he told the baby. Except for “Humpty Dumpty”. He made a mental note to buy a book and learn some. ‘I could tell you about computer programming.’
Another gummy smile.
‘Binary code. Fibonacci sequence. Debugging.’ He could talk for hours about that. ‘Algorhythms.’
Well, the baby wasn’t crying. That was a good thing, right? Dylan carried on talking softly to Tyler, until eventually the baby’s eyes closed.
Now what? Did he just sit here until the baby woke up again? Or did he put the baby to sleep in his cot? He wished he’d thought to ask Emmy earlier. It wouldn’t be fair to disturb her now. She needed time to get on with her work. And he could really do with checking his emails. OK. He’d put the baby down.
Gingerly, he managed to move out of the chair and placed the baby on his playmat. The mat was nice and soft, and Tyler would be safe there. Did he need a blanket? But his little hands felt warm. Maybe not, then.
While Tyler slept, Dylan caught up with some work on his laptop.
Not that it was easy to concentrate. He kept glancing over at the baby to