Page 12 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

So… That happened, I think as I pull the pins out of my hair over the sink, one by one, small metallic pings on the ceramic in the quiet. The adrenaline drains. There’s a pleasant ache everywhere. When I reach for my facial cloth, I see the silk-burns on my wrists.

And smile.

The ghost of a low voice against the back of my neck, informing me that a birthmark I’ve had for twenty-seven years is under new management. So delightfully cocky of him.

Klaus never noticed that birthmark. Eight months, and he never once found it. A stranger located it inside an hour and claimed it.

He claimed me.

It was a calculated risk to go bareback with Max, but I didn’t see anything worrisome on his skin, and I’ve been on the pill since I was fifteen, so I’m not too concerned. I should schedule a blood test just in case, though.

It’s odd—I never go bare with a guy on the first night.

But I had a… gut feeling about Max. Like he wouldn’t hurt me like that.

Naïve in the extreme, I know. But still. He called himself dangerous, and I believe that, but there was something about him that made me drop my guard.

Maybe that’s the real dangerous part.

That’s tomorrow’s problem. Correction—today. Today is going to be a problem, and it’s already today.

In all fairness to me, Klaus told me to handle the stranger, and the stranger has been handled. Distracted, comprehensively, for hours, kept far away from Klaus the entire time.

If anything, I over-delivered, which is what my performance reviews always say.

But I vanished from an event I was running. I never cleared the ballroom, never supervised the breakdown, never signed the final vendor sheet. The hotel staff can do all of it without me, and none of it is technically fatal, and every bit of it is unlike me, because I’m the one who handles everything, always.

For once, I was unreliable, and it was everything I dreamed it could be.

I check my phone. Forty-one notifications. Vendors, the banquet manager, a rental company confirming a pickup window I already confirmed twice, one from Mandy at 1:14 a.m. that says only “girl.”

Nothing from Klaus. Not one message.

I was his to send across a ballroom at nine, not around for the rest of the night, and there it is, eight months summarized on one screen. He truly never gave a shit about me.

Potato finishes eating and begins his post-meal project of pushing a pen toward the counter’s edge, one patient paw at a time, watching me while he does it.

I don’t regret what I did tonight. Not long ago, I sat in a dentist’s parking lot with half my face numb, reading a breakup text. Then I got up the next morning and worked on my ex’s party because I handle my shit. That’s who I am.

But tonight, for a few hours, I wasn’t the woman who handles things. Somebody looked at all of me, every soft inch I’ve spent years apologizing for in fitting-room mirrors and called it magnificent in a voice that closed the discussion, then spent hours proving he meant it.

I deserve a treat. One without guilt. So, screw it. I needed some fun, and I had some. Case closed.

The pen goes over the edge. Potato peers down after it, satisfied with gravity’s performance, tail tip flicking.

I shower off the evening, wincing in a way I don’t mind, and climb into my own bed with the dent in the correct place. Potato lands beside me and starts up his purr, a small brown motor settling in for his shift. Out the window, Queens is going from charcoal to slate, and I wonder whether my morally gray hookup had a good time.

He sure seemed to. I dare say I wore him out.

I smirk as I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

6

MAXIM

I wake to an empty bed.

The pillow adjacent to mine still bears the impression of her head. The tie remains coiled on the nightstand where I left it. A washcloth has dried into a stiff curl on the carpet near the sofa. Concerning the woman herself, only a faint warmth on the distant sheets persists, which may be merely my imagination. A single hairpin is placed on the bathroom counter, which I discover upon entering to shave.