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can't."
    "What?"
    "I'm a father now. I don't want to do casual. I mean Emily's not going to see me as a bad example for a number of years yet, but I don't want to be dishonest with her. It's hard to explain."
    Greg wanted to roll his eyes. "Okay," he said, wondering if he could point out that at the moment, Emily wouldn't have a clue. But it occurred to him that he liked Stefan for taking this stuff sort of seriously. China didn't. He didn't. Mellady hadn't.
    Stefan said, "Anyway, except for Phillip, I haven't done one night stands. He was my first and then we kind of stopped being a one night stand within a week."
    "You're not into casual."
    "Yeah, I like it better after I get to know someone. Dinner. That sort of thing."
    Chocolates and flowers and coaxing. Crap. Greg felt a wave of disappointment and checked his watch. Did he have time to go home, change and go out to a bar?
    Stefan's chair creaked as he leaned forward. "Do you want to stay for dinner? I'd offer to go out, but Emily will be tired and it's always a crapshoot taking her out in the evenings."
    Greg wanted to thank him for the conversation and coffee and walk out, eventually head to that bar. But getting his rocks off could wait for another night.
    "Sure," he said without too much regret. He'd get a chance to see his niece.
    And the dinner tasted great. Emily sat in a car seat thing--nothing this fancy back when Mellady and the others were babies. Emily ate some pear gunk and a bottle.
    Greg handed her a chicken bone and Stefan made a shocked noise.
    "No it's fine. Babies like 'em." Greg insisted. He grinned as he stopped Stefan from snatching back the bone.
    Stefan closed his eyes and gave a dramatic groan. "I'm trying to be less of a neurotic about this baby thing. But honestly, you could do with a few more neuroses."
    Greg realized this was the first non-work related dinner he'd enjoyed for years. He liked his siblings, but there was a tension between them. They expected stuff from him--money, support in other ways. They treated him like a parent, as in any time he tried to offer advice, they acted as if he was trampling all over their rights or, worse, actually listened to him too carefully. Either extreme didn't feel so much like a friend's response.
    Greg told a story about one of his underlings who'd gotten drunk and lost in Prague and how they'd found him in a hotel room with three women and a video camera.
    Stefan laughed so hard that Emily scowled and whimpered. "Quiet, you're frightening the baby," Greg said. Which only made Stefan laugh harder.
    When she started to cry, Greg automatically pulled her out of the seat and bounced her. It felt funny every time he held her. Familiar, yet entirely new, because this baby didn't present an obstacle to his future. He could walk away, so holding her was easy without that old weight of resentment and fear.
    He'd always sworn he'd never do the kid nonsense again and had forgotten how pleasurable the weight of a baby in his hands felt. Even when she didn't stop crying, he ignored Stefan's silent offer to take her .
    STEFAN
    Greg talked to Emily in a normal, pleasant voice, telling her she didn't have to be such a drama queen. "Hey, put in a sock in it," he said, soothingly.
    He was good with babies. Greg had a confidence that seemed to transfer to Emily. He held her like an expert and as the evening crying continued, he bounced her and talked to her without getting frustrated or angry.
    Stefan felt ashamed of the times when sheer frustration forced him to put her down to walk away for a minute or two.
    "I don't get how you can be so patient," he said, then wondered if he'd just made a serious mistake. For the last few hours he'd forgotten that Uncle Greg had been hostile about the adoption during their first meeting.
    Greg flipped Emily onto his arm in what Stefan had read was called the football hold. He tried to imagine Greg holding an actual football. Yeah, it was pretty easy. He'd be the quarterback, not a