Jack unfastened the plastic snaps on the diaper and slid it out from underneath the baby. "Damn, son, this one smells ripe. How long you been marinating in your own pee, buddy? You need a bath, but for now this'll have to do."
He opened the package of wipes and pulled one out, touching it to the baby's skin to try to remove some of the smell. The baby pulled his legs in in response and curled up. "Sorry little dude, I wouldn't want something that cold touching my pecker either."
Riley scoffed with mock disgust, "Jeez, Jack! Language. And please don't refer to any of the baby's body parts with words you'd use to describe any of your own again. He's a perfect little innocent baby, and you're...Jack Dalton."
Jack rolled his eyes as he dropped the wipe on the floor and pulled out a fresh one, warming it between his palms. Unexpectedly, the baby peed straight up into the air. Amazed by the distance the kid was getting, Jack barely realized how big of a mess was being sprayed around. He panicked and cupped his hand over the stream; it splashed back onto the baby's onesie. "That was the wrong plan of action. Mac, you're the improvisation king, help!"
Mac shrugged, "I've got nothing."
Once Johnny finished his business, Jack removed the soiled onesie and started his clean up process again. There were no pajamas in the diaper bag, so the spare onesie would have to do. Jack contemplated what to do with his own wet jeans and shirt, debating just leaving them on. Mac saw that look of defeated acceptance in Jack's eye and made a suggestion, "I think you have a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt in the guest room dresser. I'll take the little guy, and you go wash up."
"Baby-3 Adults-0." Jack held up 3 fingers on one hand an a formed a zero with his other thumb and forefinger as he retreated to the guest room.
When Jack returned to the family room in fresh comfortable loungewear, Bozer was wearing long pink kitchen gloves and sanitizing the wet spot on the couch. Mac had the baby propped up in the far corner of the couch and was wiggling his fingers to amuse the child who was giggling at Mac's silly faces.
"Aw dude, don't get him all wound up, we're trying to get him ready for bed." Jack commented.
Mac put his arms up in surrender, "sorry, man." The baby mimicked him and put his pudgy arms into the air giggling at Mac before leaning forward and slamming his hands on the couch in a fit of infectious infant laughter. Mac followed suit, but in a much more melodramatic fashion. He arched back and flung himself forward to smash his hands onto the cushion so that his hair whipped back and then forward into his eyes. They both laughed.
"Well that was adorable. Forget what I just said, carry on." Jack told them as he sat down on top of the towel Bozer had just placed on the couch to draw out the moisture. He rifled through the diaper bag in search of a blanket since the one in his car seat smelled of smoke, an unpleasant reminder of the fate of the poor child's parents. Jack unfolded a thin blanket decorated with green baby giraffes and held it up in front of his face, "this doesn't look very warm and cozy, I can see through it."
Bozer was already back on his phone perusing the mommy boards, "it looks like those muslin blankets are pretty popular with the moms these days. It's not too hot, but keeps them warm. I noticed the little guy sweats a good bit when he sleeps when he was napping earlier."
"Ok then, Mary Poppins. Thanks for the input. Why don't you research which Beethoven album is best to put kids to sleep next?" Jack said as he inhaled the baby detergent smell wafting off the blanket.
"Actually," Bozer hesitated, "I found something you'd probably like, Jack." After a few taps on his screen, Bozer cast the lullabies to the speaker next to the tv.
Jack knitted his eyebrows together as the music started, "is that...Enter Sandman...in lullaby form?" his smile reaching his eyes upon realization.
"Yes, Jack. There's an entire album of Metallica lullabies, there's also Iron Maiden, Chili Peppers, Van Halen…" Bozer was cut off by Jack motioning for him to hand over the phone.
Jack's eyes widened as he read the list, "The Stones, Zepp, Sabbath, GNR, CCR, Beastie Boys! Shit, had I known this existed, we may have been able to avoid the Ambien Incident."
The three other adults in the room groaned at the mention of it. Jack tossed the phone back to Bozer who was caught off guard and fumbled it a few times before stabilizing his grip. "Cue up everything." Jack demanded, "and send the playlist to my phone too."
As Mac stood to leave the room, ceasing their play, the huge smile on Johnny's face cracked and melted into a frown of betrayal reminiscent of the look on Stay Puft's face as the Ghostbusters opened fire on him with their proton packs.
"Oh no!" Jack tried to soothe, scooting over to pick him up. "Uncle Mac will be back. Right now it's time for some milk." He sat the infant on his lap as he bent to retrieve the bottle from the coffee table and toss a burp cloth over his shoulder. Upon seeing the bottle, the baby stopped crying and put his arms out to grab at the bottle.
Jack nestled himself into the corner of the couch with his legs extended across the seat and scooped the baby up, cradling him in one arm as he popped the bottle into his mouth all in one smooth motion.
"Where's he gonna sleep?" Riley asked, "You can't sit there holding him all night."
"Watch me." Jack threatened, yanking the old crocheted blanket off the back of the couch with his socked feet and covering his own legs with it without even using his hands.
Mac interjected, "how about we put the baby in the guest bed? I'll put pillows and blankets down on the floor surrounding the bed in case he tries to roll off. It's pretty big, so that's not likely, but still not worth risking."
"Go for it." Riley agreed, and Mac hurried to the guest room to prepare the bed with Bozer right behind him to make sure it was up to Mommy Board standards.
Jack watched the tiny human in his arms start to doze off and decided to attempt to burp him one time before he actually fell asleep since the bottle was halfway emptied. He propped the little guy up on his chest and patted him gently on the back. The pats were increasingly stronger until he produced a quiet belch followed by a massive one. "That's my boy." Jack lowered him back into a cradled position and pulled the light blanket over his charge to finish the bottle.
He couldn't help but smile at the lullaby rendition of Free Fallin'by Tom Petty and Hotel California by the Eagles, but also felt the pull of sleep brought on by the dulcet tones playing his childhood music. Jack slid down a couple inches to relax and rested his head on the back of the couch with his cheek pressed onto the top of the baby's head.
"That's gonna hurt like hell when he wakes up." Riley said to herself as she snapped a picture of Jack and the baby with her phone. She wasn't sure how to approach him to wake him up since he was holding a child, she didn't want to startle them. Jack couldn't have been asleep too long, so she wasn't afraid of him freaking out and going defensive, but he was Jack who cherishes and protects everyone he knows and everything he owns, so he may put up a fight.
"Jack," she whispered, but didn't draw his attention. The entire six weeks he was on medical leave, he spent a lot of time napping and even more time actually sleeping. It was a sore spot that accentuated the generational gap between him and his best friends, but they stopped teasing him about it once Matty laid into them, reminding them that his body needed the rest to heal. She told them that "maybe it would be nice to not constantly draw attention to the fact that it's happening, as if the healing joints and cuts weren't reminder enough of what he'd been through. You saw it too, it's not like anyone can forget fast enough. So drop it!"
Riley had adopted her own "wake up Jack" routine, calling his name first then approaching slowly and gently ruffling his uncharacteristically longer hair with her hand. After he'd shaved it, it was more like petting a soft puppy, but he was conditioned quickly to recognize Riley's touch, rousing him for dinner or to head out somewhere.
She approached him from the side and fluffed his hair with her hand, "hey, Jack, Mac's got the bed ready, why don't you go put him down in the guest room."
Jack lifted his head and nodded sleepily, bending his knees and rotating to get up from the couch. His movements were slow and deliberate. She wanted to believe it was all to not wake the baby, but knew he was still stiff and sore, unable to bounce back from getting hurt like he used to. He shuffled slowly to the room and placed the baby in the center of the bed, covering him with the light blanket. As soon as his chunky limbs unfurled from their previously cuddled up position he woke up wailing.
Riley was in the doorway quickly with the pacifier as Jack picked him back up, twisting his torso back and forth to rock and soothe the youngster. Bozer showed up next with his phone and new favorite online resource. "Did you try swaddling him?" Bozer asked as he consulted his phone.
"He's almost a year old," Jack countered, voice soft and gentle once the child had settled. "I thought that was a newborn thing."
"Worth a shot?" Bozer shrugged.
"Ok. Riles, fold that blanket in half," Jack instructed as she grabbed the blanket and folded it in half on top of the bed that was stripped down to a single sheet, "no, not that way, triangle ways." She nodded in understanding. "Ok now at the long edge, um, how do I explain this? Sort of drag the top triangle up the middle so the blanket is in the shape of the Superman emblem. Yeah, just like that. Perfect."
Jack laid the child on the blanket, wrapping and tucking corners until the baby burrito was swaddled tight. After a little more rocking and swaying, Jack placed him again in the center of the mattress and admired his handiwork. He spoke softly, "I'm sure Mac's already making a baby monitor out of tinfoil and macaroni, so I'll just hang out here for a little bit in case junior wakes up."
"Good night, Jack." Riley and Bozer whispered together, knowing full well that Jack was going to camp out on the floor next to the bed despite his verbalized intentions.
Afraid that any sound breaking the still silence of the room would wake the child, Jack turned on a small fan for white noise. While the quiet hum was enough for him, it didn't feel like enough to cover the footsteps in the hallway or the inevitable birds chirping and garbage truck route in the morning. His phone still sitting on the nightstand from his earlier wardrobe change, was blinking with notification of the playlist Bozer had shared.
Jack started the music as he unfolded the discarded comforter turned floor landing pad into his own little cot. He'd definitely slept on worse. He grabbed a pillow and the top sheet from the protective fluff moat around the bed and dozed off surprisingly quickly.
Disturbed by the quiet from the guest room most of the night, Bozer didn't sleep soundly. He'd spent another hour reading the mommy boards, fully expecting an awful night of screaming and separation anxiety, spitup and wet diapers, teething and growing pains, but he heard barely more than a few whimpers and Jack's snoring.
Bozer tiptoed to the guest room just after sunup, silently opening the door slowly to avoid the inevitable creak and squeak of the old hinges, making a mental note to address that at some point with Mac. The coo that escaped his lips was inadvertent, but not loud enough to disturb them. He closed the door as gently as he'd opened it and couldn't wait to report his findings to the others once they were awake.
Sensing they would wake hungry sooner than later, Bozer pulled out a pound of bacon and a half frozen bag of milk from the fridge, his paternal instincts kicking into overdrive.
Summoned by the smell of bacon and coffee, Mac emerged from his bedroom hair askew, in gray sweatpants and a t-shirt so worn that the school logo previously emblazoned on the front was unidentifiable. "Boze, it's like barely 6 a.m."
"Yes, I also can read a clock." His best friend mused as he sipped his coffee while turning bacon and manning the waffle iron. "It's 6:13 actually, and waffle number three will be finished in approximately 30 seconds."
"Isn't it a little...early for all this?" Mac stifled a yawn as he stretched one elbow above his head and the other arm straight out to the side while shuffling toward the kitchen.
"No?" He was indignant. "Bacon is always appropriate, any time of day. Plus the little guy seemed to sleep pretty well most of the night. He'll be waking up hungry soon, I'm sure of it."
"Are you talking about the baby or Jack?" Mac no longer wondered why he wasn't tagged in to assist with minding a fussy infant overnight.
"Little bit from column A, little bit from column B." Bozer shrugged. "By the way, your Bastard of Frankenstein's Orange Juicer™ is on the fritz. It tried to take off my finger. And you should also see about greasing up some of the door hinges around here, but I'll just add that to the Honey-do list on the fridge."
Mac raised his eyebrow at the level of domesticity in their perpetual bachelor pad reaching its peak in less than a day. He grabbed a piece of bacon on the plate next to the stove while Bozer tended to the waffle iron, and Mac was rewarded with a smack on the hand.
"I thought it was too early for this," Bozer teased as Mac pulled his hand back, his face expressing mock offense followed by a childish pout. "Squeeze some of that OJ and then I might let you have some bacon." Mac palmed an orange half and looked at the Bastard Juicer, not willing to risk his own fingers, he unplugged it and examined it's mismatched parts.
Riley moaned from under a blanket on the couch, "would you two stop bickering like an old married couple? Some of us are trying to sleep." She covered her head with the blanket and burrowed into the back of the couch.
Mac quietly announced to Bozer, "I have to go to the garage to get some stuff to fix the Bastard Juicer, I'll be back in a few." As he left the kitchen, he snatched a piece of bacon with a cobra-like strike. "I'll check on the other two on the way out." He spun on his heel to face his roommate and shoved the entire piece of bacon in his mouth with a satisfied smirk.
The creaky floorboards were much more apparent to Mac as he tried to approach the guest room quietly, something else to add to the new found Honey-do list. He peeked his head into the door as he slowly opened it, the sun from a crack in the curtains illuminating the floor by the foot of the bed. Mac couldn't help by smile at the sight on the bed. Jack was sprawled across the bed with the baby burrito cradled in his left arm. Johnny was tucked under Jack's chin with his squishy cheek pressed into the older man's shoulder. Jack had a kill count higher than any other person Mac had ever known, but more than that, he was a nurturer, and it was becoming more apparent as time passed. It could be said that the nurturing was penance for the high body count, but Mac knew that Jack did what he had to do to protect people-people he loved, brothers in arms, people he'd never met. It weighed on Jack's soul; he played at being silly, aloof, but Jack was truly a nurturer.
Not wanting the invading sunlight to disturb the heartwarming scene, he crept across the room to close the gap between the curtains, a squeaky floorboard not quite rousing the two, the pacifier wiggling in the baby's mouth as he self soothed himself back to a deeper sleep. Jack rolled onto his side, curling up around the infant without moving him. On his way out, Mac picked up the sheet from the makeshift bed on the ground and covered Jack's legs, exiting without a another sound.