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~November~
Bryce opens the door, calls Jared’s name. Doesn’t get an answer, which is weird.
He kicks off his boots and pads down the hall, through the living room and kitchen, into what he’s started calling the family room (just in his head!), and—oh.
Jared is sitting on the squishy couch, bare toes gripping the edge of the coffee table, nose in a book. There’s an even fatter book on the couch next to him, with a picture of a chubby-cheeked baby on it, and a whole stack of books on the coffee table—none of them look like they have anything to do with hockey ops—and a notebook and pen on his lap. It looks like a library exploded in their den. Or like, one of those used bookstores with cats in it, since Mini-J and Turtle are snoozing in a fluff-pile at one end of the couch.
“J,” Bryce says again, stepping closer. Jared frowns at his book, puts it down, picks up his phone and pokes at it. “Babe, what are you doing?”
“Research,” says Jared. He doesn’t look up, but when Bryce leans over the back of the couch to kiss him on the head, he leans into it.
*
“I hate this,” Jared says. His nest of baby-themed books and notepads has been growing all week, and he’s very frowny.
“What?” says Bryce, alarmed. “You’re not changing your—”
“No!” Jared sits up straight. “No, fuck, of course not. I mean like—” he waves his hands around at all the books. “These books all say different shit, and so do the websites and videos and stuff, and I don’t know which ones are right. Or what if none of them are right, then what the fuck do we do?”
“Um,” says Bryce. He knows Jared is a lot smarter than him—he’s always known that, and it’s only gotten clearer over the years—but sometimes Jared gets tangled up in all of those smart thoughts he has, and this definitely looks like one of those times. Not that this is the first rant he’s heard recently about what’s in all those books, but this time Jared sounds, like, actually upset.
Bryce carefully clears a space on the couch and sits down, a stack of books bristling with post-it notes in his lap.
“Like what?” he says. “Tell me some of the different shit?”
Jared does a big huffy sigh. He pokes through the book stack.
“Like,” he says, tapping a book with a pale blue cover, “ this one says you have to get your baby on a feeding schedule right away, but this one—” he points to a fat red spine in a different stack— “says to just feed them when they’re hungry. And then that one on the bottom says you should feed them when they’re hungry except never feed them right before nap time, and there’s another one that says you have to do eat-wake-sleep and a couple that say to do wake-eat-sleep.”
“Okay—”
“And then there’s one that says you can feed them at nap time but make sure they don’t fall asleep while they’re eating.” Jared’s voice is getting faster and louder as the rant goes on, and Bryce is maybe a little worried about his blood pressure.
“And there’s like, fights online about how many naps babies are supposed to take and how long they should be!” Jared practically yells. “And whether pacifiers are the best thing ever, or like, will trash their teeth! And what kind of pacifiers are the best!
“And, babe.” Jared clutches Bryce’s arm, looking kind of feral now. “Babe, do you have any idea how many different kinds of baby bottles there are?”
Bryce doesn’t know, and he is definitely not going to ask.
Also, though, he’s getting an idea. Might be a good idea. Might also suck, though.
“So, um,” he starts. “Do you think … maybe … this might be like training plans?”
“What?” says Jared, blankly.
“Well, like. Yours wasn’t the same as mine, because we don’t play the same and your body’s different from mine.” He sees Jared looking down his own body like he’s dissing it, and catches his chin with a finger: “I didn’t say mine’s better, babe, I just said they’re different. Okay?”
Jared makes a face—Bryce concluded a while back that Jared is just never going to understand how smoking hot he is, no matter what anyone else says about it—but nods, so: point to Bryce, ha .
“So what if, like … different books are kind of … talking about different babies?” he says. “Because babies are different people, just … really small? And what if maybe we have to see what our baby’s like before we can figure out what the right thing to do for them is?”
He should’ve guessed that wasn’t exactly the right way to say it—now Jared looks like he understands the concept, but also like having no way to plan in advance is freaking him the fuck out.
Which … well, fair, actually.
“Hey,” Bryce says, and leans his forehead against Jared’s. “Hey, J. We’ll figure it out, okay? If we could figure out how to get married, and then figure out how to end up finishing our careers on the same team, we can figure out our baby, too.”
Jared does not look convinced, but he does smile a little bit, and it looks real. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess you’re right.”
~December~
“You don’t have to let them throw you guys a baby shower if it freaks you out, Math,” says Gabe. Gabe always sounds so reasonable, and right now Bryce appreciates him a lot .
At least, until he says, “Nothing wrong with being superstitious,” and then Bryce wants to scream.
“I’m not being superstitious,” says Jared, all stiff and prickly. “I just— I know it’s dumb, okay, but I just—”
“Math,” says Gabe. “Bud, I get it. It’s literally my people’s whole thing to not let any baby stuff cross the threshold until after the baby’s born.”
“Your p— oh, you mean a Jewish thing?” says Jared, and oh, okay.
“Yeah,” says Gabe. “Gotta keep the evil eye off the baby, you know? Like, just in case there is one, because you never know.”
He gives Jared a hug, and Jared lets him, and Bryce is back to appreciating Gabe.
Not Stephen, though, because Stephen is sitting at the dining-room table with his laptop, ignoring this whole conversation, and Bryce just saw him roll his eyes.
“It’s not dumb,” Gabe says, when Jared is done hugging. “Your baby, your decision, okay? I’ll talk to Oksana and Maddie.”
“And tell them what?” Bryce asks, because every single baby-related thought him and Jared have seems to attract a whole crowd of people with strong and loud opinions about it, and if Gabe has some magic words to make them back off, Bryce would love to know what they are.
“Uh, that you guys aren’t into it and they can do a shower slash meet-the-baby thing later instead?” says Gabe, like it’s that easy.
Well. Now that Bryce thinks about it? It probably is that easy for Gabe. Gabe says things, and people listen to him—and not just when he’s talking hockey.
“That would be great,” says Jared, and Bryce adds, “Thanks, Marksy.”
“No problem, bud.”
And then Gabe suddenly grins at them, and reaches out to ruffle their hair—Bryce’s with one hand, Jared’s with the other. “Anything for our children, right, Stephen?”
“Sure, Grandpa,” says Stephen, rolling his eyes again.
“Wait,” says Gabe, the grin sliding off his face, and Jared cracks up .
So, okay: at this specific moment, Bryce really, really appreciates Stephen.
~January~
They’re sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, and it’s not even light out yet, when both their phones buzz.
Bryce picks his phone up, and Jared reaches for his, and Bryce sees the group chat notification right as Jared says, “It’s Natalie. She’s heading for the hospital.”
Jared’s voice is shaky. Bryce can’t even make words come out of his mouth. They stare at each other across the table.
“Holy shit, babe,” Bryce finally manages, and reaches for Jared’s hand.
They squeeze tight for a second while Bryce gets his breathing under control.
Then they break, abandoning their coffee, and Bryce grabs his car keys while Jared grabs the baby bag, and then they’re grabbing jackets and jamming feet in boots and dashing out the door to Jared’s car.
*
Look, Bryce was a professional hockey player, Bryce has played through injuries, Bryce has had shoulder surgery. He likes to think he’s not a complete wuss.
But Natalie? Natalie is fucking baller .
Like, she’s been awesome from the beginning, keeping them updated on every little thing so Jared wouldn’t freak out, inviting them to every appointment and explaining shit to Bryce that she knew about from having her own kids and from being a surrogate once before, calling them all excited when she first felt the baby kick and later on, sitting patiently on their couch and letting them put their hands on her belly so they could feel it, promising to pump milk for the baby. She’s one of the few people who never said What do you mean you don’t want to know the sex of the baby? or You think that now, but just wait . Although Bryce is sure she’s thought that second thing enough times.
But this? Holy shit. Like, of course Bryce knew what childbirth involves—he may not be into women, but he did get basic sex education, plus Jared made him watch videos and Dima has told them all about the births of all of his kids in way too much detail—but it’s different, like, being there when it’s actually happening. Bryce’s entire body hurts just from watching.
… although, also, Natalie is squeezing his hand pretty hard whenever a contraction happens. That’s cool. She’s literally having their baby for them, so.
“OK, big push, Natalie!” the midwife says, and Natalie yells some more and squeezes Bryce’s hand even harder, and then—
*
They have a baby. Bryce and Jared have a baby girl, and she’s so small .
Baby Marcus-Matheson (“Marcus-Matheson” takes up basically all the beads on the weird little necklace the hospital put on her) weighs 8 pounds, 7 ounces, and is 22 inches long, and the midwife said “What a big girl!” and Bryce knows because Jared told him that the average weight of a newborn is 7 pounds so technically she is kind of big, but—
She’s so, so small .
Jared is holding her very carefully, all wrapped up in a pale yellow blanket with little yellow ducks on it, sitting very still like he’s afraid he’ll drop her if he moves, and mom and Susan are hovering behind the chair he’s sitting in, waiting their turns, Bryce guesses? And Bryce just. He can’t .
“She’s so little,” he says, staring. He knows it’s a dumb thing to say, but he doesn’t know how to say all of what he’s thinking right now: that he knew he’d love her but he didn’t understand how much and how fast , that he doesn’t know how he’s going to live with this amount of responsibility for the rest of her life, that he wants everything in her life to be happy and perfect and he knows that’s impossible and he doesn’t know what to do about that, that he wishes his dad were here to see his new granddaughter, that he knows two dads are just as good as a mom and dad but what if he’s wrong about that, that there’s so much bad stuff in the world that he’ll have to protect her from, like what if people give her shit for having two dads, or—
“Oh, Bear,” his mom says. She’s standing right in front of him now, and they hug each other hard. “It’s a lot, huh?”
Bryce raises his head and stares at Jared and the baby ( their baby!! ) some more, through happy-scared-awestruck tears.
“C’mere, B,” Jared says. And just like at their wedding, he’s crying but pretending not to, and just like at their wedding, Bryce feels like the luckiest man in the world.
*
Blythe does not want to be at this party. Bryce knows this because she is yelling at Jared.
To be fair, that seems to be how Blythe feels about, like, 90% of situations she’s been in since being born. She also does not want to be in her carseat, her stroller, her crib, or the baby bathtub. Or be held sideways, or be on the floor. She doesn’t like having a wet diaper, or having her diaper changed, or being swaddled. She hates get dressed or undressed, and getting her snowsuit put on. She doesn't like when whoever’s holding her stands still for too long.
But Jared is also starting to look like he doesn’t want to be at this party, so Bryce goes to the rescue. Because he’s a good husband like that.
“C’mere, little buddy,” he says, and gently transfers Blythe from Jared’s shoulder to his own. “I bet Papa wants something to eat, right, J?”
There’s a brief pause, like Blythe is distracted by the change but still deciding whether or not to be mad about it. Jared looks briefly relieved, but also a tiny bit hurt, so Bryce isn’t as disappointed as he’d have expected when Blythe starts fussing again.
“C’mon, let’s go see Nana,” he says. He does the kind of bouncy walk that Blythe usually likes, and by the time he’s found his mom, it doesn’t seem that ridiculous to hear her coo, “Look at my sweet little girl!”
Bryce hands Blythe over to her nana, and him and Jared get in a good five minutes of shoving party food into their faces before they hear her start yelling again. Not that he would ever say this to Jared, but Bryce is starting to understand why people host baby showers before the baby arrives.
~February~
“... huh?” Bryce heard Jared say something, but he was kinda zoned out and didn’t hear what it was.
“I said, I ordered some more pacifiers,” Jared says, putting down his phone. He yawns. “Like eight more different kinds. There’s gotta be one in the universe that she doesn’t hate.”
Bryce, starting another circuit of the living room, looks down at Blythe. She’s sucking on his index finger.
“Sure, babe,” he says. “Sounds good.”
*
The ten new pacifiers arrive. Blythe hates all of them.
*
“I just don’t get it.” Jared throws up his hands in frustration, not for the first time today. “Everybody says if your baby won’t sleep, take them for a ride in the car or a walk in the stroller. Even Elaine said that works. Are they all lying? Or like, remembering wrong? Or is our baby just weird?”
“Let me guess,” says Susan’s voice from Jared’s laptop. Bryce, who’s walking around and around the house with Blythe on his shoulder, angles his path towards Jared so he can hear better. “As soon as any part of her body touches the carseat, she starts screaming like someone’s sticking her with pins? And the longer she’s in the car, the harder she screams, and you can’t focus on the road because of all the screaming?”
“... how did you know,” Jared says, flat.
“Well, honey,” says Susan, “like father, like daughter.”
“Oh my god ,” says Jared. He looks up at Bryce with a horrified face. “And then you had another baby?”
Susan laughs so hard, Bryce bets the whole neighbourhood can hear her.
*
Jared has a spreadsheet of bottle, pacifier and diaper brands, with all the ones Blythe has rejected highlighted in red. It’s a lot of red, especially on the pacifier tab.
“I dunno, babe,” Bryce says. He’s talking to Jared, but looking at Blythe, propped up on his bent knees and staring at him like she’s working on her hypnotism powers. Every so often her eyes fall closed, but she determinedly blinks them open again. “Maybe she’s just not gonna be a pacifier baby.”
“But babies need to suck on things,” says Jared, like Bryce is not aware of the baby currently trying to suck all the skin off his finger. “And breastfed babies can comfort nurse but we can’t just give her a bottle whenever she wants to suck on something, milk comes out of bottles faster and she’ll eat too much and throw up, and—”
“J.” Bryce nudges Jared’s shoulder, nods down at Blythe. She’s finally released her hold on his finger and gone to sleep, her round cheeks flushed pink, her tiny mouth just slightly open.
Bryce holds up his left pinky finger, pink and wrinkly from Blythe’s mouth. “Just call me Mr Binky, I guess?” he says, and shrugs.
“You better have washed your hands before you let her do that,” says Jared.
“Always do, babe.”
Jared heaves a deep sigh and closes his laptop, finally. He looks at Bryce. “Do you want to try putting her in the crib again?”
Bryce really doesn’t, but like, he can’t actually sleep in this position, and it’s not safe for Blythe to stay there if he might nod off, which is kind of a constant possibility right now because it turns out if your baby never sleeps for more than two hours at a time, neither do you. But like, if they put her in the crib and she wakes up screaming five minutes later…
“... or she can stay in here,” says Jared, obviously reading all of that in Bryce’s face somehow.
He gently lifts her up from her spot on Bryce’s thighs, and they rearrange themselves so she’s on her back between them and there’s no pillows or anything nearby, because safety. Some of Jared’s books say to never ever ever let the baby sleep in your bed with you, either because it’s dangerous or because you’ll never get them to sleep in their own bed, but some of them say it’s fine, and Natalie and the midwife both say that the best place for baby to sleep is wherever everyone gets the most sleep, so.
Also, Susan recently informed them that when Jared was a new baby he would only sleep at night if he was tummy-down on her chest with his head right under her chin, which took a lot of the steam out of Jared’s pro-crib arguments.
Blythe sighs in her sleep and turns her tiny head towards Jared.
Bryce looks from her to Jared, wanting to share a smile about how cute she is.
But Jared’s already asleep, one hand under his cheek and the other covering Blythe’s tiny foot, like he just has to be touching her.
Bryce knows the feeling.
~March~
Bryce blinks awake because Jared is saying his name.
“Whuh?” he says. Swallows, tries again: “What’s wrong?”
Because something must be wrong, or Jared wouldn’t be waking him up .
Bryce sits up very suddenly, swinging his legs off the couch, and Jared has to jerk back to avoid getting brained. He sits down hard on the coffee table.
“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong,” he says. “I just wanted—”
“Are you serious?”
It takes a second for Jared to figure it out and go, “Oh my god , Bryce, not that ,” so oops, apparently not that.
… although now that Bryce has had the idea, he actually wouldn’t say no.
“Okay, so why did you wake me up?” he says, a little grumpy about it.
Instead of answering, Jared sticks the baby monitor in Bryce’s face. The video one that Jared insisted on “for safety” and “just in case” even though Stephen told him it was creepy and Mom and Susan assured him that an audio monitor would work just fine.
The weird black-and-white image (Stephen’s right, it is kind of creepy, like their six-week-old baby is in a heist movie) shows Blythe in her crib, sleeping. There are two different pacifiers clipped to her sleeper, one hanging off each side of her chubby little body, and she’s got most of one hand in her mouth.
“She was all squirmy,” Jared says, “and I was gonna go in and check on her, because she’s already been out for like 45 minutes, but then I thought, I’ll just watch for a sec, and she kind of got her hand near her mouth and … figured out she can suck on her own fingers, I guess? And now she’s asleep again.”
“Hey, we had to get lucky sometime,” says Bryce, through a yawn. He takes the monitor out of Jared’s hand, makes sure the audio is only on one way, and puts it on the end table. “So uh … speaking of getting lucky … you wanna?”
Jared looks at him for a long second or two. “I’m so tired,” he says. “... but also, fuck yes.”
Bryce reaches for him, and Jared reaches back, and it’s quick and uncomplicated and definitely not their best sex ever, but they’re done by the time the sounds of Blythe gearing up for a big yell come out of the baby monitor, and really, what more could they ask for?
*
“Absolutely not,” says Jared, when Bryce tells him the plan for this month’s date night.
“Babe, I think you’re being a bit—”
“Bryce,” says Jared. “I said no, I’m gonna keep saying no. No, as in absolutely the fuck not.”
Bryce puts his hand over Blythe’s one exposed ear and hisses, “ Jared!! ”
“No,” Jared goes on, rolling his eyes like he didn’t just swear in front of their child , “as in, there is no universe in which I am going to leave a Kurmazov alone with our baby.”
“Okay, but think of how much we babysat for them,” says Bryce. “And I know you think Dima’s irresponsible, or whatever, but all his kids are like, nice people? So he and Oksana obviously did something right.”
“You’re assuming facts not in evidence,” says Jared, in this super grim voice, like Bryce has more than a vague clue what that means. “You know people can turn out okay in spite of their parents, right?”
“Anyway, we’re not leaving her with Dima,” says Bryce, ignoring that. “Zoya is super responsible, and she knows infant CPR, and she does a ton of babysitting.”
Jared doesn’t answer, just pets Blythe’s head with one finger, very careful, and Bryce is pretty annoyed with him right now but also just … loves him so much .
“Fine,” Bryce says. He can be devious, too, so there . “So do you want to wait until my mom gets back from Curaçao in two weeks, or do you want to just take Blythe out to dinner with us?”
Which is when Blythe wakes up, and as usual when Blythe wakes up, she is not happy about it.
“Fine,” Jared says back, his voice raised a little bit so Bryce can hear him over Blythe yelling like the entire world is doing everything it can to piss her off. “Fine. You can tell Zoya to come over at six-thirty.”
~April~
“Mathematics,” Dima says, pointing a finger right at Jared. “You need to relax .”
Jared glares at Dima. Bryce glares at him, too, because how long has he known Jared? Has telling him he needs to relax ever once actually worked? No, it has not. Bryce doesn’t know why Dima keeps trying it, although to be fair, Dima’s not the only one.
Dima doesn’t seem to notice the glaring. “Nothing wrong with your baby,” he says, gently tickling Blythe’s tummy. “Don’t say ‘but the book says,’ Mathematics. She’ll laugh when something is funny enough for her.”
Blythe continues to stare at Dima, looking very serious. Her serious face is an exact copy of Jared’s, and Bryce makes a mental note to text Erin a picture because unlike Jared (or, apparently, Blythe), she’ll find it hilarious.
*
“I promise, Blythe is absolutely fine,” Dr Arora says. “You’re right, three months is the typical age for laughing, but that doesn’t mean every single baby laughs at exactly three months.”
She sounds patient, like she’s had to say stuff like this to a lot of anxious first-time parents, but she doesn’t laugh at Jared, which Bryce appreciates. Jared’s biting his lip, but he doesn’t say anything.
“While you’re here,” says Dr Arora, “anything else you’re concerned about, or any questions you’d like to ask?”
Of course Jared has questions—he’s got a list on his phone. Is it bad that she sleeps with them sometimes, is her feeding schedule as weird as it seems, is she growing enough, should she be sleeping longer by now, is it normal how much she hates tummy time, is it normal that she hates the stroller and carseat so much, will her new thing of sticking her entire fist in her mouth fuck up her teeth.
The answers, apparently, are no, no, yes, every baby is different, yes, again every baby is different, and probably not.
“Think of it this way,” Dr Arora says. “She can’t drop her fist out the side of the stroller when you’re jogging through Stanley Park, right? It can’t get lost under the seat of your car or accidentally get thrown in the garbage or eaten by the dog—oh, sorry, by the cats, in your case. So actually, this is a win.”
And even Jared has to admit that that’s true.
*
Parenting may be exhausting, but Bryce stands by his opinion that holding a sleepy baby is one of the world’s absolute best feelings. He always loved babysitting their friends’ kids (the Maia Crib Incident aside, and that was not Maia’s fault), but cuddling your own baby is like … the best. Just the absolute best.
Blythe stretches her little arms, turns her head towards Bryce’s chest. The tiny corners of her tiny mouth quirk up in a tiny, tiny smile. Bryce smiles back—like, how could you not?—and watches her settle back into sleep.
So what if she hasn’t laughed yet? She’s perfect just the way she is.
*
This weather is bullshit . It’s April , and they live in Vancouver , and it fucking snowed last night. And not just a little bit of snow, either.
“Babe, do we have a snow shovel?” Bryce calls over his shoulder.
There’s a pointed silence from the kitchen. That probably means that yes, they do have one, and Jared is unimpressed by Bryce not knowing exactly where they keep it.
Bryce closes the front door and looks down at the top of Blythe’s head in her tiny Canucks toque. “Let’s go check the garage, bud,” he says, and turns back into the house.
He finds the snow shovel hanging on the wall of the garage, takes it down, and tromps back through the house and into the front hall.
He opens the door. Yep, snow’s still there.
Opening the screen door is harder, since he has to push it outwards against the snow.
Shovelling snow isn’t an activity Bryce has a ton of experience with—like, the whole time he lived in Calgary, it was in a condo building, and someone else got paid to shovel the snow—but if he wants to go outside today, he’s gonna have to do it. Because Jared took one look out their bedroom window this morning and announced that it looks like a great day to stay indoors, make a pot of chili, and work on his capstone project.
Wearing a baby in a carrier inside his coat makes it trickier for sure, and the snow is wet and heavy, like Vancouver snow usually is. Bryce gets into a pretty good rhythm, though, and Blythe seems to be enjoying herself—it’s not actually that cold out, and she’s kicking her legs and making happy little noises.
A few of their neighbours are out shovelling, too, and Bryce waves to Sam across the street and Harbir two doors down. He gets to the end of their driveway, tromps back up to the sidewalk, and turns towards Harbir’s house, figuring between them they can deal with the sidewalk in front of Meg and Yue-Hon’s place since they’re out of town this week.
Jared, who said he was staying indoors and keeping warm today, turns out to be standing on their front porch in his boots and an unzipped ski jacket, either ogling Bryce’s ass while he shovels or supervising to make sure he isn’t letting their baby freeze to death—Bryce genuinely has no clue which.
Whatever Jared’s deal is, everything’s going fine until Bryce hits a hidden ice patch and falls on his ass in the piled-up snow—snow down his pants, snow down his neck, snow in his ears. The shovel goes flying as he grabs for Blythe, keeping her head and back steady against his chest. It’s a soft landing, at least, and nobody’s head hits anything hard.
Harbir comes running from one direction—well, wallowing through the snow as fast as a five-foot-one woman in ski pants can—and Jared, much faster down the shovelled driveway, from another. They’re both yelling, but Bryce’s ears are full of snow, so it’s hard to hear any words.
The main thing is: Blythe is fine. She’s not even crying!
Jared hauls Bryce and Blythe up out of the snow, fussing like something terrible happened.
“Are you okay? Is Blythe okay? What the hell were you thinking ?” he demands, like he wasn’t standing right there the whole time.
And Blythe laughs.
The sound bubbles up out of her tiny self, bright and happy and delighted, like she can’t believe how hilarious her Papa is.
Bryce starts laughing, too—he can’t help it—and then Harbir starts laughing, and finally Jared, shaking his head, caves in and joins them.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says. “Blythe Marcus-Matheson, you are the most ridiculous baby in the world.”
~May~
Sleep training fucking sucks.
Dima told Bryce it wasn’t a big deal, that his kids all fussed a little bit for a few nights and then started sleeping through and it was awesome. Ash told Jared that she was worried about it at first but it actually went fine with Maia, and with Nico and Jenny it was barely even a thing. Grace said it was a little rough, but totally worth it.
Susan told Bryce that it fucking sucked. Well, what she actually said was It was such a nightmare with Jared that we almost didn’t even try it with Erin, but she surprised us! It’s worth a try, probably . Jared just kind of ignored everything but that last part, and now they’re paying the price.
Like, Bryce doesn’t think their friends were lying, or trying to mislead them? And they’re all great parents, all of their kids are great. Susan and Don were obviously good parents, Jared and Erin are awesome. It’s just …
It’s just, like he said way back before Blythe was even born (it’s been a few months, it sometimes feels like a few decades ), you need different plans for different babies, and he had a feeling Blythe was not going to be a “fuss a little bit then fall asleep” kind of baby.
Bryce was right about that, it turns out, and it fucking sucks.
*
“Bryce, the book says we should wait at least—”
“I don’t care what the book says.” Bryce cups one hand around Blythe’s tiny head, rocking from foot to foot as she hiccup-screams against his shoulder, and stares Jared down. Blythe is so much bigger than she used to be, but she’s still so small, and she’s crying so hard. “She’s a little baby, and I’m not leaving her in here all by herself when she’s this upset.”
He ducks his head to whisper against Blythe’s hair: “Ssssh, Brown Bear, Daddy’s here. Papa’s here. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
“Bryce,” Jared says, but Bryce can tell his heart’s not in it anymore. Even Jared Matheson isn’t gonna be mean to his own baby.
Blythe’s wails gradually quiet down to whimpers, and finally she gets her fist in her mouth and starts to relax in Bryce’s arms. Who knew all that upper body conditioning was just prep for holding a crying baby for hours at a time? Not Bryce, that’s for sure. He’s learned a lot since becoming a dad.
He looks up, and Jared’s still there, looking at him and Blythe with the softest expression on his face. Bryce wishes he had a camera—or like, a free hand—to capture it forever.
Jared catches him looking, blushes, does this little one-shoulder shrug like he can just erase how mushy-in-love he is, but Bryce sees. Bryce knows.
“Love you too, babe,” he whispers to Jared, and tilts his head again so he can rest his cheek against Blythe’s warm soft baby head.