Baby Lessons

forget, as was the talk show host’s parting words.
Fired Up in Lovestruck, come out of hiding. The world wants to know who you are!
“You might have a point.” He cursed under his breath. He felt like he had a target on his back and any moment a television news crew might pop out from behind the nearest bush and shove a camera in his face. “But what if she does it? What if she gets the job offer of a lifetime and leaves Lovestruck without a backward glance?”
“I think you’re asking yourself the wrong questions, man.” Wade tilted his head back and looked up at the cloudless blue sky, then offered Jack a knowing grin. “What if she stays? What then?”
Mr. Grant and the staff at the Bee were so thrilled with Madison’s Good Morning Sunshine appearance that they threw her a literal party. After the argument with Jack the night before, she’d sort of hoped to sneak into work the following morning, dash off a column and spend the rest of her day emailing contacts in New York. She wasn’t sure how or why she’d let her job search completely stall in the past couple of weeks, but that ended now.
Jack had done her a favor by accepting her resignation this time around. Now she’d have plenty of time to follow up on the two measly Skype interviews she’d had since moving to Lovestruck and to send messages to the various editors she’d worked with over the years. Thanks to her Good Morning Sunshine appearance, people who she’d never been able to get on the phone might actually take her calls. The next time she saw Jack, she should probably thank him for letting her quit and reminding her where her true priorities lay. Truly, she should. And she would...
But first, she had to deal with the giant black-and-yellow balloon bouquet on her desk and a sheet cake decorated with a buttercream bumblebee and the words Congratulations Queen Bee spelled out in yellow frosting.
“You did good, Madison. I’m proud of you,” Mr. Grant said as he juggled a paper plate sagging beneath a brick of vanilla cake. “All of Lovestruck is proud of you.”
Madison doubted it. She could think of a couple exceptions right off the top of her head—Jack, for one. And her trusty old adversary Fired Up in Lovestruck for another.
“Thank you,” she said. “I guess I thought you might be disappointed that it’s all over.”
“What’s over? Oh, you mean the latest letter?” Mr. Grant waved his fork at her. “Don’t you worry about that. You just keep courting him and he’ll come back around.”
“Keep courting him?” Gross.
Her boss shook his head as he swallowed a bite of cake. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, you know, write another article that might bring him back out of the woodwork. Everyone in America is reading the Bee right now. We have to strike while the iron is hot.”
“Super,” she mumbled, and then she slinked back to her desk and wrote some nonsense about the top ten humorous onesies on the market for infants while her own plate of cake grew hard and stale. She just didn’t feel much like celebrating, and she didn’t even crack a smile at the number-one onesie on her list—Party in the Crib.
The feud with Fired Up in Lovestruck had never been her idea of fun, but now trying to lure him back into writing a letter to the editor was complete and total misery, possibly because she was beginning to think that Jack hadn’t done her a favor, after all. He might have even broken her heart.
All morning she’d been timing her trips to the printer just right, so she could catch sight of him at the station across the street during his morning equipment check. She took her pages from the printer tray one by one and pressed the warm paper to her heart while she craned her neck for the odd glimpse of him going over the massive engine with a soft yellow cloth, buffing it until it glistened like a shiny red apple.
She told herself she was only acting like a creepy stalker because she wanted to make sure Jack was okay. It didn’t take a genius to know why he’d reacted so badly to her casual reference to moving back to New York. In that moment she’d reminded him of his ex. She’d seen it in the way the color had drained right out of his face, and the second the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to reel them back in. She hadn’t even been sure if she’d meant them—everything had been so confusing lately.
But did it even matter why he’d gone so pale? He didn’t want her in the same way she wanted him. He’d made that clear before she’d said a word about leaving Lovestruck. She couldn’t believe she’d nearly tried to kiss him. How could she have misread the situation so badly? Jack had said some nice things to her, and she’d taken them purely out of context. After being his night nanny for just a handful of days, she’d gotten caught up in the fantasy of playing house with him and the twins.
And now it had stopped. She had her life back, thank goodness. No more sleep deprivation. No more dragging herself into work at the paper after taking care of infant twins for half the night. No more getting to the office only to discover she had spit-up on her clothes.
No more Jack Cole.
“You dropped another stitch, dear,” Aunt Alice said, hovering over Madison’s shoulder at knitting class later that evening. Toby stood at her feet, wagging his skinny little tail with just a puff of hair on the end and gazing at Madison in silent judgment.
“I know.” Madison struggled with another simple garter stitch. Jack’s mother was seated right beside her, and she wanted so badly to ask Sarah how he and the twins were doing that she