Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16), стр. 31

He looks up. “Okay.” Then back to his game.

Carol sighs, motioning for me to follow her outside to her patio. She and the boys live in a simple little Cape, smaller than her parents' home and definitely more run down, but it's a decent place. Until a few years ago, she didn't have a steady, full-time job with benefits like the one she has with Anterdec. I know Shannon and Declan try to get her to accept their help, but other than help with Tyler’s expensive therapy or access to certain specialists, she turns them down.

Pride is very real in the Jacoby family.

“He's talking to me more,” I say as we settle down, my back groaning from the Adirondack chair. Carol's eyebrow goes up.

“He is. Most of it's nonsense.”

“I thought it was his way of trying to participate in a conversation.”

“It is. It's part of the reason why the specialists say he's not on the autism spectrum. But it's still nonsense half the time.”

“It used to be most of the time, though, so that's progress, right?” Some piece of me needs to be hopeful right now. I'm not sure why, but it's important to think of Tyler as getting better. Progressing.

Improving.

A wan smile is all I get. “You sound like my dad.”

“There are worse things in life than being compared to Jason. I'll take that as a compliment.”

Carol's eyes drift to my growing belly as she takes a sip of wine that I instantly envy. “You're asking me because you're worried.”

I blink. Is it bad manners to admit that? With so much of this pregnancy stuff, and the prospect of actually parenting two little human beings, I feel like I have been dumped into the craziest work project ever without a map or any tools. And there's a looming deadline in twelve weeks that has no room for leeway.

Or mistakes.

“It's normal to be worried,” she adds, as if reading my mind. “Although I wasn't.” She frowns. “When I was pregnant with either of them. I was more worried about Todd than I was about either of my fetuses.”

“He was an actual problem. The kids were just potential ones.” I clap my hand over my mouth before I say more.

See? I was about to call her kids problems.

“I get it. I know what you mean. And Jeffrey was so easy. Smart and talkative and adventurous, and I assumed that's what Tyler would be like. But then we got a totally different kid. He was smart, but wouldn't talk. Didn't seem to listen. Kind of floppy, too. Low energy.”

“I remember when Shannon told me you'd enrolled in early intervention. How scared you were, and how you had to fight Todd about it.”

She groans and rolls her eyes. “He was such a jerk about it. All he kept saying was 'He's fine! I don't produce defective kids.'”

“Ugh.”

“The only thing defective about my children is their father,” she whispers. “He's still in prison and–”

Her turn to clap her hand over her mouth.

Just like that, the tables turn.

“It's okay, Carol. I know. My own father is in prison.”

“I know you know. It's just, you know... your dad–I forget. You never talk about him. I shouldn't have made that crack. And your dad is in for reasons that are really different than Todd’s. Todd was a master at fraud.”

“Leo killed people. Drunk driving,” I say, hearing a robotic tone in my voice. Talking about him hurts. A lot. Having a father in prison is hard, but being rejected when I tried to see him or have contact has been even harder.

“I'm sorry.”

I touch her hand and squeeze. “It's fine. And if Jeffrey ever needs someone to talk to, he can come to me.”

“Why would he–oh.” A long, painful sigh comes out of her as she closes her eyes and winces. “Thank you. My dad is so not the same type–the kind of guy who–” Carol cuts herself off by taking a very long drink from her wine. “I'll shut up now.”

“Jason is the exact opposite of Leo and Todd,” I summarize. “He's been more of a father to me than my own.”

She nods. “Same for Jeffrey and Tyler. My dad is the überdad.”

“You ever wonder if it's too much for him?”

Her expression tells me that idea has never occurred to her.

“Too much?”

“Being a father figure to so many people who aren't his children. It's a big responsibility. Plus he does those workshops at the Maker Center for the after-school program, and he teaches Sunday school. Jeffrey said something about Boy Scouts, too?”

Carol laughs. “He can't seem to help himself. Now he's chaperoning the Boy Scout camp weekends for Jeffrey's troop.”

“Is Tyler in Boy Scouts?”

“Cub Scouts. Yes.” A shadow passes across her face. “But it's not going well.”

“Why not?”

Leaning in, she taps the bottom of her wine glass on the scarred wooden table top. “Because Tyler is weird.”

“Little boys are weird.”

“But Tyler's weirder than the other little boys, and his peers don't know what to do with him. So they either bully him or ignore him. Dad's stepping in to take Tyler, but I think it's hard.”

“Hard?”

“Dad's a softy. He loves Tyler deeply. And he just wants him to fit in. You can't make a kid fit in, you know?”

“Aren't there other kids with special needs in the troop?”

She shakes her head. “Not that I know of.”

“Maybe move to a troop where there are some? Or one with leaders who–”

Her turn to squeeze my hand. “You're trying to fix this. It's not your job.”

“I know. It's just–”

Her palm goes to my belly, our friendship the only permission she needs to touch my babies.

“Your sons have a loving father. A wonderful grandmother. Aunties and uncles who have resources and families and an extended network of people who will help you and Andrew, to make sure they thrive. No matter what.”

Tears fill my eyes.

“My sons have my parents. They have Shannon and Amy. And they have you.”

I'm openly crying now.

“We're all part of a big