“How do you know?”
“Dunno,” she shrugged, tucking some of her black hair behind her small ear before resting her face in her palms again. “Just do.”
“Well, honey, even if she’s okay right now, she should still be burped. Otherwise, any air she swallowed will end up in her gut and then she might have really bad gas pains later on. A lot of times when a baby cries and can’t be comforted, that’s the reason why. They have gas pain and can’t communicate they are in pain, except to cry. And by then, burping might not help very much.”
Rose’s crimson eyes were wide, as if she was absorbing all that information like a sponge. She then looked up at Lily with a serious expression. “Okay, maybe we should burp her.”
I tried not to laugh at how serious she was, because it didn’t match her age at all. I mean, kids could certainly be serious, but Rose was taking this ‘big sister’ thing to a whole new level. I continued when Lily began readjusting the baby.
“Rose, honey, why don’t you grab a dish towel in case she spits up.”
The little girl nodded, jumping up to do so.
“How’s Freya?” Lily asked as she paused what she was doing while waiting on Rose.
I took a deep breath, noticing movement in my second-sight as Heidi appeared at the top of the stairs. “Sound asleep now, although she said she wants ice cream, so I’ll probably run to the store to pick some up.”
“Good,” Lily said with a smile. “I’m glad she’s finally getting some rest. We’ll take good care of Eden while you’re gone.” She then glanced at Heidi when she appeared just at the entrance to the kitchen, her phone in hand. “Hey Heidi, what’s up? Everything alright?”
The youngest Stockton sister nodded, her blonde ponytail bouncing slightly as her lavender eyes focused on me. “Yeah, my sister just messaged me. Sam, she said she tried calling but just got your voicemail.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, pulling it out of my pocket. “I turned it on silent while I was helping Freya get to sleep.”
Heidi nodded. “She just said she needs you to call her back right away.”
I returned the gesture, nodding as I walked over to Lily to kiss her on the forehead, before grabbing my keys off the small entry table by the door, where we stashed that kind of stuff. “I’ll call her on the way. Do you want anything Lily? I might go ahead and do a little underwear shopping while I’m at it, so Freya can be more comfortable.”
Lily shook her head. “No, I’m good. But if you’re going to do that, then get as big as you can. I don’t even know if you’ll be able to find her current size in a regular store.”
“Hey,” Heidi said hesitantly. “Mind if I come along? I might be able to help.”
I shrugged, prompting us both to look at Lily.
She nodded simply. “Yeah, that’s fine. Just keep me updated on where you’re at.”
“Of course,” I agreed, since it was something I did anyway. We all pretty much let everyone else know where we were nowadays, even Lexi and Heidi. “Love you both,” I added, giving Rose a smile too.
“Love you,” the two of them said in sync, both now focused on Eden again.
I couldn’t have been happier.
I gave Heidi a warm smile before turning to head out the door, since my green Mustang was parked in front instead of in the garage, with her hot on my heels. However, the moment I opened it, she realized it was a little chillier than she was expecting, so she decided to grab her leather jacket. The temperature wasn’t too bad in my opinion, but the weather had been a little unpleasant for much of April thus far. However, it seemed as if this weekend was supposed to be nice, so maybe it would continue to warm up and truly begin to feel like spring.
Either way, we’d been kind of lucky to have such a nice day when we were taking pictures, given the weather up until that point.
Once Heidi was ready, dressed in pale skinny jeans, a thin tan sweater over her camisole shirt, along with a black leather jacket, we climbed into my green Mustang and pulled out of our now gated driveway. She also had her snake-bite diamond studs and nose ring in, though she’d taken her earrings out, there being no sign that her ears had ever been pierced – from what I’d seen thus far, she mixed it up a lot, with some days just going without her piercings altogether.
The gate in front felt a little silly at this point, since half of the fencing was left undone on the right side of the house, in preparation for Lexi to have a house built for her and her younger sister right next door – a project that had been put off for a while now, considering everything that happened recently.
I mean, basically ever since the attack at the mall, where Lily almost died trying to protect Lexi, the two sisters had been living with us full-time. And after three weeks now, it was sort of beginning to feel like that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. At the very least, Freya and Lily seemed perfectly content now to have the two women in the house at all hours of the day.
The first thing I did once I got on the road was put my car in autopilot and input a destination – something I could have done from the beginning if it weren’t for habits dying so hard – before giving Lexi a call back.
The conversation was really short.
There were apparently a lot of high-level people who wanted to be involved in the negotiation, in person, and the opportunity to have
