Page 13 of Rigid

I knew she wouldn’t judge me, but I was still reluctant to tell her the complete truth. I decided to give her part of it, and then try to divert her attention somewhere else.

“We went back to my place, talked for a while, and hung out. Did you know he has a daughter?”

Her eyes shot wide. “Wait. What? Seriously?”

I nodded. “Almost seventeen years old. He’s a single father.”

She shook her head. “I had no idea.”

“Well, he is. I don’t know, maybe don’t tell Cholo about it. If he hasn’t told you, he might not know. Smoke didn’t say not to tell you, but it just seems kind of weird that you don’t know.”

“You know how those guys are, they’re secretive. They don’t tell anyone anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t say much about anything, and they say a lot less about each other,” she said. “It’s probably an oath of silence or something.”

I shot her a look. “Really?”

“I don’t know. I was kidding. Kind of. I’m sure they don’t take an oath, they’re just secretive.”

“Well, he’s got a daughter. Says he can’t be in a relationship because of her.”

“What?” She snapped back. “That sounds like bullshit. Wouldn’t you want to be in a relationship if you were a single father?”

I twisted my mouth to the side and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. He said he was protecting her from being hurt. It made sense.”

She looked at me like my head was on fire. “Being hurt?”

“That’s what he said. He told me about his daughter’s mother, and how she left after the baby was born. He said he wasn’t going to give another woman a chance to hurt her again.”

Her eyes slowly widened. “Oh wow. She left right after the baby was born?”

“He said she left right after, yeah. Like maybe even a few days after, I don’t know. But not like after a month or anything, it was early. He took off work for six months to bottle feed her. Then he fired the first nanny he hired after the first day. He said he was doing construction work, and he started taking her to work with him. Kept it up until kindergarten.”

“Holy crap,” she gasped. “I had no idea. That’s impressive. I mean, it sucks that he won’t be in a relationship, but I understand the position he’s taking.”

“I kind of felt sorry for him.”

She shook her head lightly, and then looked at me. “You did it with him, didn’t you?”

I was out of ammunition to divert her attention. I wondered if she’d think less of me, and then decided she wouldn’t.

I let out a sigh. “Yeah.”

“You skank.” She chuckled. “I knew you would.”

“It’s not being a skank if I’m in control of when, where, and how. II needed it,” I said. “And I really enjoyed it.”

“Your dick fix?”

I chuckled. “Uh huh.”

“So, what now?”

I shrugged. “That’s it. We had sex.”

“You’re okay with that?”