Chapter 36

Emily had woken up in the middle of the night with a healthy yell, waking both Paul and Lana.

"Stay there," he yawned. "Let me get her."

Lana shook her head with a sigh. "No, you get some rest," she said. "I'll get Emily."

"Your ass is worn out as it is. Just stay there; I can handle this. At least Danny didn't wake up."

"All right, if you insist," she said sleepily, wondering with amusement how he was going to pull off the part of nursing their eight-week-old daughter.

Paul made his way into the nursery and turned on the lamp by the crib, causing Emily to look over and quiet a little.

"What's going on in here, little missy?" he asked, picking her up gently. "The way you were yelling, you could wake up the whole neighborhood. I'm surprised your brother isn't up; then again, someone could drop a bomb in this place and Danny would never know what hit him."

Paul then wrinkled his nose. "Uh huh, I think I know what part of the problem is. How can such a pretty little girl be so stinky? What the hell does your mami have in that breast milk that is so damn lethal anyway?"

He set the baby down on the changing table, holding his breath as he changed the offensive diaper, cleaning Emily thoroughly before putting on a fresh diaper and dressing her again.

"There we go," he said, picking her up. "Now that your ass is nice and clean, let's see about getting something in your belly. For that, though, we need to pay a visit to Mami; otherwise, I can't help you there, kid."

Emily looked up at her father as Paul carried her back to the bedroom. He glanced back down at her for a moment, noticing what appeared to be a smile.

"Are you trying to laugh at your papi?" he grinned at the baby and tickling her a little. "Okay, I'm kind of a funny looking, hairy beast, but at two in the morning, nobody's going to look their finest. Remember that."

Emily gave a wider smile at both the tickling and chatter Paul was directing toward her.

"Damn it, that is a smile!" he said cheerfully. "And Mami better not even think about saying that you have gas. For one, if you let a toot, I'd known about it by now, and second, I know plenty about gas from traveling with Uncle Brian."

"What are you going on about?" Lana smiled as he handed Emily to her in the bedroom.

"She's hungry, but has a dry ass. And she just smiled."

"Paul, she probably has a little gas in her tummy. It just looks like they're smiling when they do."

"Hey, if you farted, you'd smile too. I'm telling you, baby, she was smiling while I talked to her."

Lana shook her head as she held Emily up to nurse, which the baby did greedily.

"I think some little lady was hungry," she cooed gently.

"Jesus, when isn't that kid hungry? I think she eats more than Dan did when he was that age. Then again, there's nothing wrong with a woman that eats."

She chuckled. "Only you would say something like that."

Paul raised an eyebrow. "Did I also mention that there is something both beautiful and sexy about a woman nursing?"

"Now why doesn't that surprise me, considering it's coming from the one person that would find nursing a child 'sexy'?"

Paul shrugged. "I'm a tit man; what can I say?"

Lana just shook her head and smiled.

"Hey," he said, pointing down at Emily. "Look there. She's doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Just look!"

"Oh my God," she breathed. "She is smiling!"

"Yeah, well, she didn't have gas like you thought, did she?"

"I guess not, at least I haven't smelled anything," Lana replied, laughing.

"And she smiled at her papi first," Paul gloated. "Neener."

"Good, that means you have the honor of burping Emily then," she said, handing over the baby to him and laying a burp cloth on him.

"Great, it wasn't enough I had to change a loaded diaper that could have passed for toxic waste."

"Well, you said you wanted to spend more quality time with your children. There you go."

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