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“We can narrow it down somewhat. It had to have been a man, first of all, and he probably wasn’t eighty?”
I walk with resignation to my laptop. “She was only nineteen when she had me, so I really hope not.”
But I have no idea who my mother was as a person or why she was sleeping with this guy. Would a girl failing a freshman econ class be desperate enough to sleep with a man old enough to be her grandfather? I’m pretty ruthless—she may have been too.
We agree that sixty-five is a reasonable cut-off and spend the next hour in silence looking up names. Searching almost any name along with “Berkeley” and “economics” leads to a thousand worthless results. I sink a little farther into my seat with every false lead.
“So far, I have eight different guys who could potentially have fathered me. And that’s assuming my mom evensleptwith the mystery professor. This is a wild goose chase.”
“It’s not,” she says, stretching her arms overhead. Out of nowhere, exhaustion seems etched across her features.
“Are you okay?”
She smiles and yawns. “Yes. Although I think it may be nap time soon.”
I hesitate. I mostly act as if I’ve forgotten she’s going to be a parent, but I don’t resent her the way I do Lucie and others. It doesn’t feel as if her pregnancy has taken something away from me.
“You must have the nursery all set up by now,” I venture.
“Getting there,” she replies. “If you’d come to our housewarming, you’d have known that already.”
“Sorry. I’d thought it might be awkward with Caleb and Lucie there.”
She leans back in her seat, placing a hand over her baby bump and smiling. “I keep forgetting you were married to him. I can’t see you with anyone but Beck.”
“I’m notwithBeck.”
Her eyes roll and she yawns again. “Are you seriously still pretending that? The two of you weresecondsfrom banging when I walked in. Probably back here.” Her nose wrinkles. “God. Please tell me you don’t have sex on this desk.”
She doesn’t really want the answer to that.
“I’m ignoring you,” I reply, putting the list of names back in the folder. “But you should go home and nap. The rest of this can wait. I’m not even sure I want to know.”
“Fine,” she says, slowly rising, holding a hand to the small of her back, “but I’m not letting you off the hook.”
I nod, though once she has the baby, she won’t have time for any of this. She leaves and I promptly shove the folder in a drawer. I’m back at work and have half-forgotten the whole thing when Beck walks in.
“Any luck?” he asks.
I close the laptop again. “So far, we have a list of twenty guys whomayhave slept with my mom, in violation of university policy. In unrelated news, we also have a list of twenty guys who probably won’t admit they slept with my mom.”
He comes around to my side of the desk and perches on the edge before pulling me up to stand between his legs. “You’re going to find him,” he says, brushing a lock of hair behind my ear. “He probably has no idea and will be thrilled to discover you exist.”
God, he’s sweet. And biased.“I’m not sure an unemployed drug addict is really the kid anyone’s thrilled to find out about.”
His finger lifts my chin so I meet his eye. “Stop that. You’re a gorgeous, brilliant twenty-eight-year-old who grew up in foster care and still managed to get a degree from the best business school in the country. And you’re going to find a better job than this eventually.”
My heart races. As much as I want him to be right, I also...don’t.
The idea of not living with Beck anymore, not working for Beck, terrifies me.
It’s made me soft, these months of leaning on him, and sleeping with him probably hasn’t helped either, but I don’t want to think about that now.
I press my mouth to his as I glide my palms up his thighs. “Did you lock that door, by chance?”
“I didn’t.” He releases me. “Are you asking because you want it, or because you’re trying to change the subject?”
I cup him. He’s hard in the time it takes me to reach his belt. “Can’t it be both?”
