“Jesus, Carrie,” he muttered, pushing up while looking at me, lips quirking, one hand to his stomach.

“Sorry,” I whispered, then grinned, “Travis is home.”

I got a return grin that said more than his lips quirking that he wasn’t angry with me, so I bent in, grabbed his head on either side, gave him a quick kiss, let him go, and ran to the door.

The bell rang right when I got to it.

I unlocked it and pulled it open.

And there was Aaron, not Tory, holding Travis in his arm, his diaper bag looped on Aaron’s shoulder.

Aaron stood tall, as usual, but he’d taken off his suit and was in jeans and a nice shirt that was pink and worked well with his coloring.

I saw this but mostly I saw my baby.

Lifting up my hands, I clapped them quietly in front of me, smiling at my son.

Then I held my hands out to him. “Hey, Googly. Welcome to your new home.”

Travis smiled a wet, open-mouthed smile back to his mommy, twisted in his father’s arms, and lurched toward me.

Catching him and pulling him to me, I hoped I’d never forget moments like these. Seeing my baby’s eyes light up when he saw his mommy. Seeing him reach to me. Catching his little warm body in my arms. Little moments that could be easy to forget, but they were so precious they should always be remembered.

I cuddled him to me, kissing his neck, giving him squeezes, listening to his baby giggles as he latched on to my hair and tugged.

It felt wonderful.

I turned away from the door, muttering, “You can drop the bag by the door. Thanks, Aaron.”

“Jesus, I knew I knew you,” Aaron said, and I turned back to see him looking at Joker. “Fuck, you’re Carson Steele.”

I looked Joker’s way to see he was on his feet.

His eyes were on Aaron.

“Yep,” he answered.

Okay, I hadn’t expected that moment to come, since I hadn’t expected Aaron to return Travis. Though I knew it would eventually happen, but I didn’t know that eventuality would come so quickly.

But now it was done and it was family time, Travis, Joker, and me, so it was also time to move on.

“Thanks for bringing him,” I said to Aaron firmly and repeated, “You can drop the bag by the door.”

Aaron looked to me and his brows went up. “You’re dating Carson Steele?”

I looked to Joker then back to Aaron, answering, “Well… yeah.” When he looked at a loss for words, and considering I didn’t really care what he had to say whatever it might be, I again repeated, “Just throw the bag by the door. I’ll sort it out later.”

“You told me I didn’t know who he was,” Aaron pointed out, not taking my not-very-veiled hint that he should go.

I wasn’t going to explain my mess-up to my ex-husband.