5. Levi

5

LEVI

L evi led the way into the house, turning on lights as he went. He felt strangely embarrassed, seeing the place through her eyes.

Lily cared about making the world beautiful. She was always wearing the prettiest pink clothes, and she decorated her shop so that it looked like a child’s colorful fantasy.

His office and home were stark in comparison. It had never bothered him before, but tonight he really felt the lack of any paintings or even prints up on the walls of the office.

And the apartment in the back was even worse. At least he could say he was trying to keep the office space professional. But what kind of person didn’t have so much as a single family photo up on the walls of their home?

When they got back to the kitchen, he realized that the only touch of color in the whole place was the invitation to Emma’s wedding that he’d affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet from the post office. It invited Levi plus one to join Emma and Baz to celebrate their marriage. And even though it was a joyful occasion, every time he looked at it, he got the same empty feeling.

There was only one plus one he would ever want to bring to something like that. Ironically, she was with him right now, and they had just had a really lovely conversation.

Yet he seemed to be no closer to asking her out than he was back in the days when they hadn’t exchanged two words, and he had only observed her actions and her friendly smile.

I have a baby to look after, he told himself. And besides, she wouldn’t want to be with a guy like me. Girls like Lily Hathaway want glamor and adventure, not someone who sits around all night looking over property contracts and land surveys.

Though now that he thought about it, literally nothing she had told him tonight made that feel true. Had he gotten her all wrong somehow?

This was the problem with admiring a woman from afar. He definitely should have gotten up close a lot sooner. Lily had unexpected layers, and getting to know her was surprisingly easy. She seemed to be more than happy not just to talk to him, but to roll up her sleeves and help him every way she knew how.

We’re not in high school anymore. She’s not a cheerleader and I’m not a chess nerd.

But he would always be a chess nerd, no matter how many other things he might have become since his school days. And he strongly suspected that Lily would always be a cheerleader at heart.

“I guess we should start setting up the pack-and-play,” Lily said softly, rousing him from his thoughts.

“Right,” he said. “Are you okay carrying her up the stairs?”

“Of course,” she told him with a smile.

He opened the door to the staircase and headed up carefully, trying not to hit the walls with any of the shocking amount of baby stuff Lily had thrown together for him.

He was going to have to find a polite way to pay her for all of it. It was kind of her to want to help out, but she was already helping out more than enough just giving him so much of her time and expertise tonight. He made a mental note to be sure to check all the price tags on the packaging before throwing anything away.

“Okay,” he said, opening the door to what he had thought of as the guest room. “I guess this will be her room.”

Lily followed him in quietly and he watched her take it in.

The second floor had a rear dormer, so while the front wall that faced the street was steeply sloped, the back of the room was large and squared off. There was a big window on the back wall that looked out over the backyard. In the daytime, the space was bright and sunny. For now, the nicest thing about it was the bright color of the roses on the wallpaper.

He hadn’t had a chance to get any furniture in the space yet, so there was only a floor lamp that came on with the light switch.

“This is really nice,” she said with a smile. “There’s a lot you could do with this to make it cozy for her.”

He tried to picture it and couldn’t really.

“Maybe you could help me with some ideas,” he said. “Though I guess she’s only here temporarily.”

“How long?” she asked.

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” he admitted, feeling a little silly for not nailing down that important piece of information. “Her mom is going… for some help.”

The words hung in the air between them for a moment. He could see the moment the realization sunk in for Lily, and was glad he didn’t have to explain any more than that.

“I’m so glad you can be there for Flora,” she said quietly. “And for Andrea.”

“Me too,” he said, nodding.

“You’re a good friend,” she told him earnestly. “A good person. But I always knew that.”

Her eyes were so serious. He wondered what she was talking about, but she busied herself with the pack-and-play before he could ask.

“I guess we should set that up by the window,” she said, pointing to the back of the room where the ceiling wasn’t sloped. “You’ll be less likely to hit your head when you go to pick her up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he teased, rolling his eyes. “I know I’m tall.”

“Being tall is a good thing,” she protested .

“Sure,” he said. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d hit your head on as many things as I have.”

“At least you can reach stuff out of the top cabinet,” she teased back. “And you can always see at the movies.”

“Fine, shorty,” he laughed. “You win.”

“Shorty,” she muttered, shaking her head in mock offense.

He crouched down and got to work unpacking everything. Lily carefully lowered herself to sit on the floor with him, and it actually was kind of cozy in the lamp-lit room.

Since she had Flora in her arms, Lily explained to him how to lay everything out and he followed her instructions.

It was honestly a little harder than he would have expected, but with Lily’s help, he had it set up for Flora pretty quickly. Thankfully, the little one was snoozing, so she didn’t interfere with their work.

“It looks good there,” he said, nodding to himself.

“You did a great job,” Lily told him.

He felt a bloom of pride in his chest, and tried and failed not to grin.

She smiled back at him, and he forgot to breathe for a second. She was so beautiful that it was almost hard to look at her. For just an instant, a fantasy flashed through his head that they were married, and that the baby sleeping on her shoulder was theirs.

Where did that come from?

“Why don’t you unpack the bag,” Lily offered softly, breaking the spell.

“Oh, good idea,” he said, remembering to breathe again. “You can tell me what everything is.”

“Maybe run and grab the bag her mom left, too?” Lily asked.

“Of course,” he said.

Get it together, Williams , he scolded himself as he jogged down the stairs and headed through the house to grab the tattered backpack. She’s here for the baby, not for you.

He grabbed the bag and headed back up slowly, trying to take his own advice and pull himself together. She was far from the first girl he’d ever talked to. Since the Army put muscles on him and gave him some confidence, he’d had no trouble at all getting girls’ attention.

But Lily was different. He’d thought maybe spending time with her would cure him of his crush, but she was honestly so much kinder and so much more interesting and thoughtful than he had ever imagined she might be. He could feel himself getting more hung up on her by the minute.

“Here we go,” he said, wincing at how his voice bounced off the walls of the empty room. Being tall with a deep, booming voice was supposed to be exactly what every man wanted, but sometimes it made it hard to be subtle.

Thankfully, the baby kept right on sleeping in Lily’s arms.

“Great,” Lily said. “Let’s spread everything out on the floor so we can look it over.”

He took the backpack and handed her the shopping bag, and they laid out the contents of both .

He recognized the can of formula as he pulled it out, and there was a tube of some kind of cream, a pack of wipes, a half-full bag of diapers, and what looked like a puffy, rolled-up place mat, as well as a plastic lidded cup and a baby bottle. Two or three dirty onesies were crammed in at the bottom, along with a cardboard baby book called Lil’ Army Soldier .

A plastic zipper bag under the book held a few documents. He opened it to reveal a folded sheet of paper with a tiny footprint and blood type, as well as a birth certificate confirming that Flora was just a little more than six months old.

Thinking about Andrea packing this up and then traveling who knows how long to get Flora to him made his chest ache. She loved her baby enough to do this for her, even when her own mental and physical health were at rock bottom.

“She loves her so much,” Lily whispered, as if echoing his thoughts.

“It didn’t seem that way when she was leaving,” Levi said. “But I’m starting to get it now.”

“She’s brave to be doing what she has to do to get help,” Lily said, a fierce note in her voice he hadn’t heard before. “It’s not easy to struggle that way, but she got Flora to a safe place. That’s a whole lot more than plenty of parents can say.”

“You’re right,” he said plainly. “I’m ashamed for not fully understanding before.”

Andrea had taken him by surprise, but that was no excuse.

“She was an amazing soldier,” he said after a moment. “I should have given her the benefit of the doubt as soon as I realized it was her.”

“As soon as you realized it was her?” Lily echoed.

“She tried to just leave Flora on my front porch,” he said. “I had to chase her down to find out what was going on.”

“Oh,” Lily said, her eyes wide now.

“I know she was trying to do what was best for the baby,” he said. “It was just… unexpected.”

Lily nodded, her lips pressed together. He couldn’t help noticing that one of her hands had slid up to cradle Flora’s head, as if the idea of her being left on a doorstep gave Lily the same fiercely protective instincts it had awoken in him.

“Well, I’m glad it worked out the way it did,” Lily said, her eyes on the window, where snow flurries had begun drifting down.

He shivered at the thought of the baby sitting on his porch in her carrier. What if he had eaten his dinner at the pizza shop instead of coming right home? She had been bundled up, but his heart broke at the idea of her out there crying, all alone and scared.

“Okay,” Lily said brightly, as if she didn’t want to think about dark things anymore. “You’ve actually got a decent amount of stuff to get started with. You know what the formula and the bottle are for, right?”

“I’ll just read the instructions on the can,” he said.

“Exactly,” she told him. “And I’m guessing that lidded cup is so you can shake it up easily to mix it.”

“Got it,” he said. “What’s with the place mat?”

“That’s a diaper pad,” she said, looking like she was trying not to laugh. “So if you’re out somewhere and you need to change her, you can put it down to lay her on.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s smart.”

“It is,” she agreed, still smiling. “The cream is for if she gets diaper rash. When you change her you need to clean her carefully with wipes. If you see redness, put a little cream on it and pay attention to that area until it gets better.”

“Wow,” he said. “Okay.”

“The clothes are self-explanatory,” she said. “And I’ve got a few more for you, since those are dirty. They’re just pajamas, but no one will care. She’s not going on a job interview or anything.”

He laughed and nodded.

“This is a blanket sleeper,” she said, lifting up the pink fleece thing with little Christmas trees on it. “You put her in here in her pajamas and zip it up and she’ll stay toasty warm all night since she can’t accidentally kick it off like a regular blanket.”

“That’s really cute,” he said, smiling down at it.

“These are snacks,” she told him, pointing to the little plastic sacks of fruit and the can of puffs. “You’ll want to get more of this kind of thing at the baby store, so you can keep some around the house and carry some with you whenever you’re out. Her pediatrician can talk to you about a feeding schedule for her if her mom didn’t share that. You want to be sure to feed her before she has a chance to get too hungry. That will help her stay cheerful.”

“You know a lot about babies,” he said.

“I pick up some of it at the store,” she told him, looking down at the blanket sleeper in her hands. “And a lot of my friends have kids by now.”

He could have sworn there was a note of sadness in her voice.

“Let’s fix her some formula,” she said brightly, her tone turned upside down again. “Then we can change her and put her to bed.”

“Okay,” he said, scrambling up.

He reached down and offered a hand to Lily. She placed hers in his, the soft warmth of her hand sending a lightning bolt of magic through his veins so intense that he almost forgot to actually pull her up.

She was so close to him when she got to her feet. The moonlight from the window made her blonde hair glow like a beam of pure sunshine. She looked up at him with an almost dazed expression as he breathed in her light vanilla scent.

His eyes moved to her lips, and she sucked in a breath, but didn’t step back.

“ Hello? ” Sloane’s voice called from the stairwell. “ Levi, are you there? ”

Lily let go of his hand and stepped away quickly, the spell broken.

“Hey, Sloane,” Levi called back, causing Flora to stir with a sad whimper. “Hang on, and we’ll come to you.”

He turned back to Lily, uncertain if he should apologize or not. He hadn’t actually done anything, but he still felt off balance.

“Want me to take her?” he offered.

“Sure,” she said. “We want her to wake up now anyway. I’ll grab her stuff. ”

As he took the baby from Lily, their hands touched again, and he was grateful to have little Flora to distract him from overthinking things.

Flora whimpered a little more at being transferred from Lily’s arms, and Levi could hardly blame her. But she gave him a dreamy little smile as she tried to settle back into his chest.

“Hey, little princess,” he said to her softly. “We need you to stay awake. It’s time to have some supper, and put on your pretty new pajamas.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lily smiling to herself, but he wasn’t ashamed. Flora was definitely a little princess. Anyone could see that.

He headed downstairs, telling himself that he was just overwhelmed with all the emotion of the eventful night, and that everything would seem less confusing in the light of the morning.