Adrian’s POV
"Your bottle angle is wrong."
I glance up from where I'm trying to feed Amelia.
Lolita sits on the couch with a glass of wine—my wine, from my kitchen, that she apparently helped herself to while I was in the nursery. She's settled in with the kind of proprietary ease that suggests she's been here a while.
"What?" I adjust Amelia in my arms, frustration already building. The baby has been refusing the bottle for fifteen minutes.
"The angle." Lolita gestures with her wine glass. "You're holding it too flat. See how she keeps pulling away? You'll give her gas that way."
I tilt the bottle higher. Amelia latches for approximately three seconds before pulling away and crying louder.
"Better," Lolita observes with detached amusement. "Though now the formula isn't warm enough. See how she fusses? Babies are particular about temperature."
"I tested it." My voice comes out sharper than intended. "It was fine."
"Was it?" Her eyebrow arches in that way I remember too well—the expression that says she knows better and I'm being deliberately obtuse. "Test it again."
I shake a few drops onto my wrist. Cold. Somehow the formula has cooled while I've been fighting with Amelia.
"How did you even get in here?" I demand, standing with the screaming baby.
"The door was unlocked, and you looked like you needed help."
Lolita takes a delicate sip of wine, watching me with that theatrical amusement like she's observing a performance.
"Sophie must be out. Where's your lovely bodyguard?"
"Bellamy took a few hours off. Sophie's with my Mom." I carry Amelia to the kitchen, her cries intensifying. "And I didn't need help. I was managing fine."
"Were you?"
I ignore her, focus on heating the bottle. Run it under warm water, test, run again. Behind me, Lolita offers commentary like a sports announcer providing play-by-play.
"Not too hot now. You'll burn her mouth."
Test again. Still too cool.
"Honestly, Adrian. It's not that complicated. Babies have been fed for millennia."
"Then you do it," I snap.
"Oh no." Lolita takes another sip of wine. "This is far too entertaining to interrupt."
Finally the temperature is right. I return to Amelia, lift her from where I'd set her in the swing, try again with the bottle.
She takes it, actually drinks. Relief floods through me.
"There we go," I murmur. "See? That wasn't so hard."
But she only drinks for a minute before pulling away again. I glance at the bottle—still half full. She needs more than this.
"I should make more formula." I set Amelia back in the swing, move to the kitchen counter where the containers sit.
I reach for what I think is the formula powder, start measuring it out.
"Adrian." Lolita's voice cuts sharp. "Stop."
I freeze, spoon halfway to the bottle. "What?"
"That's your protein shake mix."
I look down at the container in my hand. White powder. Blue label. Whey Protein Isolate.
"Formula is the blue container." Lolita points to the one beside it. "That one. The one that says 'infant formula' in large letters you apparently can't read."
Horror crashes through me. I almost fed my daughter protein powder. Could have made her sick, caused digestive issues, hurt her through sheer incompetence.
My hands shake as I set down the wrong container, reach for the correct one. "I knew that. I just wasn't paying attention."
"Clearly." Lolita's voice is silk, smooth and devastating. "You just don't look natural at this, do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing at all." She examines her wine glass with studied disinterest. "Just an observation. Some people simply aren't cut out for domesticity."
My irritation flares into actual anger. "I am natural. Just… adapting."
"For three months?"
Lolita gestures vaguely at the kitchen, at me, at the crying baby I can't properly feed.
"Because from where I'm sitting, you look like a man drowning in a life he never wanted. Going through motions he doesn't understand, performing fatherhood rather than living it."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" She stands, moves closer with that predatory grace I recognize from our years together. "Adrian, darling. It's me. You can't lie to me the way you lie to Sophie, to your mother, to yourself. I see you. I know you."
"Then you know I'm trying."
"Trying isn't the same as succeeding." Lolita's hand finds my shoulder, thumb tracing idle patterns. "And you look exhausted from the effort. Wouldn't it be easier to just... admit this isn't working?"
I pull away from her touch. "What are you getting at?"
"Nothing!" She bats her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence. "Can't I simply express concern for an old friend? You've been more tense than usual lately, clearly struggling. If you need to talk, I'm here to listen. Sometimes sharing the burden helps."
I mix the formula properly now, too aware of her watching. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."
"Is it?" Lolita returns to the couch, settles back into her elegant sprawl. "All of this," She gestures around the apartment. "Family life. Domesticity. Being tied down to a woman and a baby. Doesn't it feel alien? Like wearing someone else's skin?"
"No." The denial is automatic, defensive. "I just haven't adjusted yet. It takes time."
"Of course." Lolita's smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Time solves everything. I'm sure eventually you'll wake up feeling like a devoted father instead of a trapped man performing an obligation."
The mockery in her tone makes my jaw clench. "I don't need your commentary on my life."
"No, you need competent childcare." Lolita stands, prepares to leave with that same fluid grace. "But since you're determined to fumble through this yourself, I'll leave you to it."
She pauses at the door, turns back with a thoughtful expression. "I've been thinking about Amelia's future, you know. Planning for when the time is right."
"What time?"
"When she's old enough to benefit from proper guidance. Proper education." Lolita's eyes gleam. "Someone should be thinking long-term about the child's development, making sure she has opportunities you and Sophie clearly can't provide."
Warning bells ring somewhere in my head, but I'm too shaken by my own failures to fully process what she's implying. "She's only three months old, Lolita."
"Never too early to plan." She blows me a kiss. "Give her my love."
The door closes behind her, leaving me alone with Amelia who's started crying again, and a bottle of properly prepared formula I'm no longer certain how to use.
I look down at my daughter, try to feed her the way Lolita corrected. She takes the bottle this time, drinks properly, settles.
But Lolita's observation echoes in my head like a verdict: You just don't look natural at this.
She's right. I know she's right. Have known it since the moment Amelia was born and I felt nothing looking at her.
Every day since has only confirmed what I've been avoiding: I'm not built for this. Not wired for fatherhood. Going through motions without the instinct that makes it work.
Sophie has that instinct. I've watched it develop in her over the past weeks—slow and painful, but real. She knows what Amelia needs. Responds automatically. Bonds in ways I can't manufacture no matter how hard I try.
I'm just... performing. Playing the role of father without feeling it. And everyone can see it—Lolita, my mother, Sophie, probably even Bellamy who watches with that careful neutral expression that somehow feels like judgment.
The realization brings no optimism about improvement. No hope that time will fix what's fundamentally broken in me. Just deepening dread that maybe I'll never be the father my daughter deserves.
Maybe some people really aren't cut out for domesticity.
And maybe I'm one of them.