Baby Lessons

of the most popular TV shows in the country.
The words from her text message flashed in his head like a neon sign. There’s something I need to tell you. He was beginning to think he might know what it was.
“So, Madison, tell us why you’ve been writing your column for the Lovestruck Bee under a pen name.” Meghan Ashley smiled from ear to ear as the bottom dropped right out of Jack’s world.
A little bar that read Madison Jules, Lovestruck, Vermont’s Queen Bee, flashed across the bottom of the television screen while Madison answered Meghan’s question. Jack tried to concentrate on what she was saying, but his heart was suddenly beating so hard that a terrible roar pulsed in his ears. Letters were popping up on the screen—his letters—one, then another and another, until they filled up the entire space.
“Wow, that’s more than just a line or two. This person seems almost obsessed with what you’ve been writing.” Meghan pulled a face.
Jack closed his eyes. What was happening?
“I can’t believe your night nanny is Queen Bee. I had no idea.” Jack’s mom shook her head. “Did you?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he didn’t.
Because deep down, he’d had a pretty good inkling as to Queen Bee’s identity. He’d just managed to convince himself otherwise, especially after the diaper article.
Actually, that wasn’t completely true. On some level, he’d known since that fateful day in the library when she’d dropped the truth at his feet. He’d somehow hoped he could wish it away, because he wasn’t sure where to go from here.
You have to tell her you’re Fired Up from Lovestruck.
He ground his teeth as he watched more of his words flash across the picture. Taken altogether, they looked so much worse than he could have possibly imagined. No wonder Wade had been worried about him. Now everyone in America would know what he’d been up to in his spare time.
At least they didn’t know who he was. It was his only saving grace.
“Jack, sweetheart. Are you okay?” His mom eyed him with concern.
Say something.
“Fine,” he lied. He wasn’t fine at all. He was a mess.
She scrunched her face. “You smell like a campfire.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said absently, still mesmerized by what was playing out on his television screen.
His mother was only half paying attention, now that the interview was drawing to a close. She cleaned the twins’ messy hands with a damp cloth and replaced their mashed bananas with sippy cups of apple juice. “Why don’t you take a quick shower and get cleaned up before I head out?”
“Sounds good. Thanks, Mom,” he muttered, reaching to turn the television off.
Maybe a blast of cold water could help him forget what he’d just seen. Then again, maybe not. Because in the moment before the screen went dark, Meghan Ashley had a special message, just for him.
“Fired Up in Lovestruck, come out of hiding. The world wants to know who you are!”

Chapter Ten
Madison slumped in the backseat of the taxi that was hauling her from Burlington back to Lovestruck after her Good Morning Sunshine appearance. The fifty miles was sure to cost a fortune, but picking up the tab was the least the Bee could do after forcing her to confront every single one of Fired Up in Lovestruck’s insults in front of millions of television viewers. If she ended up staying in Vermont permanently, she’d probably need to learn how to drive. Lovestruck was small enough to navigate on foot or via her antique cruiser bike, but getting to the airport was another story. If she became an actual Lovestruck resident, she’d occasionally need to travel more than a handful of miles, and as of now, she couldn’t even rent a car.
Wait. She frowned at the dreamy, mist-covered mountains through the car window. What was she thinking? She wasn’t going to stay in Lovestruck. Staying had never been her Plan B. It had never even been her Plan C or D. Since the day Anna Wintour had oh-so-fashionably handed Madison her pink slip, she’d had one plan and one plan only: New York or bust. Lovestruck was nothing more than a layover.
She was just tired; that was all. It had been almost ten o’clock by the time she’d gotten all settled into her hotel near Times Square the night before, and her call time at the NBC studios this morning had been 4 a.m. Plus, she’d barely slept a wink. It was funny, really. When she’d first moved to Vermont, she’d missed the city noises of Manhattan so much that she’d resorted to using an app on her phone at bedtime. It had been weeks since she’d needed the wail of sirens and honking horns to lull her to sleep, though.
She blamed Ella and Emma for the fact that she now preferred lullabies and bedtime stories to ambient noise. As challenging as it could be to get two infants to sleep at the same time, there was something undeniably comforting about their soothing bedtime ritual. It was growing on Madison. A lot of things were.
She’d been dreading the Good Morning Sunshine segment with every fiber of her being, but the closer her flight had gotten to JFK, the more excited she’d been to set foot in her beloved Big Apple once again. The lights of Manhattan glowed beneath the airplane window like starlight, luminous and beautiful in the velvety darkness.
But she’d forgotten how gritty and overheated summer in the city could be. She’d forgotten how the rumble of the subway beneath her feet sometimes made her feel sick to her stomach, just like she’d forgotten how packed the sidewalks of Times Square always were. The simple act of getting from the airport to her hotel had been so sticky and exhausting that she’d found herself inexplicably homesick for Lovestruck.
And now here she was, sitting in the backseat of a cab on its way to Jack’s house, glancing at the time on her phone every few seconds in anticipation.
Or maybe