Was a gray-and-white polka-dotted chicken with a green sucker on the end. “I think she might be looking for this,” I said, holding it aloft. Stuffed animal things lying on the floor by the giant’s boot. The man groaned, and I belatedly noticed one of those pacifier “Are you having an existential crisis? Is that a thing kids do? Do you need alone time? Are your lips chapped? Do you hate my cologne?” “Not stinky,” he confirmed in a deep, raspy voice that did things to me. You’re not stinky…” He lifted the kid gingerly.

Not hungry, ’cause you just drank ten gallons of formula. A pink-and-white striped tote bag sat on the floor next to Like he was carrying a box of pizza or helping her learn the backstroke, and he bent his knees in a kind of next-level Oompa Loompa jig in time to his He held her flat across his outstretched forearms, She had a head full of dark curls, way more than should have been possible for a baby her age, which I’d peg at somewhere around nine months-somewhere past the shriveled-potato stage of early infancy but not nearly at the terrifying walking age. I sure as heck hadn’t seenĪny other guys in this neck of the woods who were so unapologeticallyĪnd if that weren’t enough to pierce my heart, the kidlet in his arms was gorgeous, despite her tears and wiggling.

There was no other explanation for a guy with overlong brown-blond hair, graceful black inked scrolls emerging from the collar of his wrinkled, blue button-down shirt, shiny Dockers that clung to his tree-trunk thighs, and black steel-toed boots to have appeared in this stairwell. The man looked like he’d been torn off the stage at a rock concert, transported to Nowhere, Tennessee, and stuffed into the outfit I once wore to a middle school dance. Something gray? Christ.” He heaved a frustrated sigh. My mouth to protest even though the guy was twice my size, when the baby’s cries quieted for half a second and I caught that the man wasn’t growling. Steps two at a time, skidding to a halt halfway down the staircase when I found the source of the sound-a wriggling baby in a fuzzy pink sweater who was literally crying herself purple, possibly because the giant, tattooed mountain of a man holding her was growling down at her with a ferocious scowl on his

The little stairwell, and I froze for a second, then rushed headlong down the

Liars by Lucy Lennox