"What are you thinking, cherry or chocolate?" He looked at Noah who stared back at him. "You're right, they both suck. I can make better stuff than this." He placed them back on the shelf and continued browsing lazily down the aisle. He turned to Noah. "What's your view on fresh cream? Too fattening?"
"He's really cute."
"Huh?" Boone asked, turning to face a rather attractive woman who was looking at Noah.
"Your baby, he's cute," she replied. "He is your baby, right?"
Boone turned back to Noah. "Oh, yeah, he's mine," he answered, giving Noah a smile.
"What's his name?"
Boone turned back to the woman and straightened himself up. "Noah. His name's Noah."
"Hi, Noah," she said, leaning down to him.
Boone couldn't help but give her a slightly bemused look. Why the hell was she talking to him? Did having a baby mean people had a free ticket to converse with him whenever they wanted?
"You must be a pretty great husband," she commented, turned back to face him. "Looking after the baby, doing the shopping. Lucky wife, huh?"
"Oh, I don't have a wife," Boone replied.
The woman raised her eyebrows a little. "Really?"
And Boone suddenly clicked why this woman was talking to him. So the baby thing really worked? He figured that was one of those stupid urban legends, why would a woman want to join a family already in progress? But, hey, if someone had told him this was effective when he was single he would have seriously considered borrowing a baby from someone.
"I'm gay," Boone said, cursing himself for how blunt that came out.
"Oh, okay," the woman replied, clearly a little unsure what to make of that.
"I'm not really gay," Boone found himself saying. "Well, I am. I'm bi. I have a boyfriend. I'm in a relationship. I have a baby."
"Yeah, so I see," she responded.
"Right, yeah, that's why you were talking to me," Boone nodded, kind of wishing the earth would swallow him up right now.
"Anyway, I'll let you get on," she said, making a move to leave.
"Yeah, bye," Boone smiled, hoping it didn't look too fake.
He watched her leave the aisle and then sighed heavily, leaning back down to Noah. "What do you have to go and be so cute for, making random girls wanna do me, huh?" Boone cooed at him. But then he realised exactly what he cooed and remembered his 'no sex talk in front of the baby' rule that he was so obsessed with and felt a little guilty. He reasoned that Noah wouldn't know what it meant when someone wanted to 'do' someone. But then Noah didn't even know what 'sex' meant anyway. Or 'dog' for that matter, so Boone was probably okay. Still, best not to get into bad habits, because the day would come when Noah would understand everything they said around him. "Don't tell Jack that I said that, okay? He'll rub it in my face and I'll never hear the end of it. Deal?"
Noah once again looked at him rather blankly.
"I'm gonna take that as a yes," Boone continued. He tickled Noah's stomach a little and placed a kiss on the top of his head before continuing down the aisle once again.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
When he got home, Boone placed Noah in his rocker chair in the kitchen so that he could put away the groceries. He leaned down to him, holding two stuffed toys.
"Now, I know it's getting near feeding time but I'm sure you'll let me know when you're feeling hungry so how about for now I put these groceries away and you can sit here and chill," he said. "But, I do have some friends to keep you company. So, do you want Mr. Rabbit?" he asked, holding up a stuffed rabbit. "Or do you want...?" He looked at the other toy. "Something that looks like no discernible animal." He turned the stuffed toy around to get a closer look at it. "Okay, I have no idea what that's supposed to be," he said, frowning. He tossed the toy to one side and held up the rabbit again. "I suggest you go with Mr. Rabbit personally. He looks like a friendly fellow, wouldn't you say?"
He danced the rabbit in front of Noah, watching the baby's eyes follow the stuffed animal. He smiled. "There's a book about rabbits called Watership Down," Boone told him. "I think it's probably a little beyond you right now but I'll read it to you when you get older. I think you'll like it. I used to love it when I was a kid. I still love it. Sawyer stole my copy. He did give it back though. Eventually. In a round about way. It was pretty wrecked though. But Jack bought me a new one. A really expensive hardback edition. But that one's too nice to read so I still read the paperback. And I'll read it to you. When you get older."
He smiled at Noah again, thinking about all the times they had ahead of them. All the years that Boone would have to show Noah all the things that he loved when he was little. Noah would probably hate them all of course, kids always seem to hate the stuff their parents liked. Boone considered himself fairly young and hip and down with it but he was sure that, when Noah got older, he'd just be another out of touch parent. Which didn't really bother him as much as he figured it might. In fact, nothing that he figured would scare him or exasperate him about parenthood really did. The pressure, the dependency, the sleepless nights, the responsibility, the dirty diapers, the loss of identity, the compromise of relationship... the list went on forever. But all he had to do was look at Noah and he couldn't even comprehend why any of those things would be a problem.
Boone sighed and shook his head a little, bringing himself out of his thoughts. "Okay, Mr. Rabbit it is then," he declared, placing the rabbit in the seat with Noah. "Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell you to yell if you need me, huh?" Boone smiled, placing another kiss on Noah's head. "I love you, okay?"
He turned around and headed over to the counter, starting to unpack the bags, and the thought kind of dawned on him that, yeah, he was a total housewife. But who cared? He was a happy housewife. And if he had to be a housewife there was no one he'd rather play the role for than Jack. What the hell did labels matter anyway? Who cared if he was Jack's lover or boyfriend or husband or wife? The point was that he was Jack's. And as for the mother/father debate, that was another one that he could spend forever worrying about if he wanted to but he found that he really didn't want to. Noah was his son, Noah was a Carlyle, a Carlyle with Jack's DNA, which made him the most special Carlyle that Boone had ever come across, and so who cared what Boone's label was? Boone was pretty much Boone, that's all Boone was and Boone was happy with that. He was Jack's Boone and he was Noah's Boone and, perhaps more importantly, he was Boone's Boone. He was exactly the Boone that he wanted to be. And who could ask for more in life than that?
He finished with the groceries and was just thinking about making a cup of coffee when Noah let him know it was time for his bottle. Boone smiled. "You have impeccable timing, you know that?" he asked, lifting Noah out of his seat. "You are just the best kid ever."
So he fed him, burped him, changed him and put him down for a nap. And as he placed Noah down and looked at his eyelids getting heavy he felt like everything was just fitting so well into place. When he was growing up he always felt like there was something missing, like there was something that should be there that wasn't. He thought that maybe it was because he was an only child and had no father figure but when Adam and Shannon came along, the feeling still wouldn't go away. So he figured that maybe he needed to fall in love. But Sapphire came and went and he never managed to find what he needed with her. And then, for the longest time, he thought that Shannon was what he needed to complete him. He thought that if she would just love him back then everything would be okay. But in retrospect he always knew he was kidding himself, looking for an easy fix. He spent years hating himself for these feelings of lust and it was all for nothing. She wasn't the one after all. Sydney proved that.
But now, now it was different. Now he felt like he'd found that missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle. He felt like he could see what everyone else saw, the reason that everyone else made living look so easy. There was no emptiness inside him, no hole that he felt the need to fill with destructive things, no hurting, no pain. He felt like a real person, like a regular guy. No secrets, no shame, no looking in the mirror and not feeling like he knew the person who was looking back. He felt like his life had come full circle and he was where he was supposed to be all along. He was where he belonged.
He placed a final kiss on Noah's head and went to make that coffee.