Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance

by Black, Natasha L.

  “Fine,” Matt said sarcastically. “Best not to anger the beast. Did he tell you about tossing some kids out of the bar the other day?”

  “As much as I love hearing these stories, no, he has not graced me with any of them recently,” Luke said.

  Matt went into a detailed description, with a few extra details I didn’t remember happening at all, about the incident at the bar. I laughed at some of his exaggerations but didn’t correct him.

  “So, what do you think about this whole Portland thing?” Matt asked Luke. “I’ve had some time to think about it, and I want to know what you two think first.”

  “I think it would be fun for the both of you,” Luke said. “It’s only about an hour and a half away. I’m sure we could see each other about as often as we do now anyway. It wouldn’t be any worse than when you were in the service.”

  “True,” I said.

  “Besides,” Luke said, taking a sip of his drink, “more fish in the sea, right?” He grinned as he swallowed, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I think he’s right,” Matt said, surprising me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I think Luke’s right. More fish in the sea. Adventure. Fun. All that stuff,” he said.

  “But what about the other day?” I asked. “You were so upset, I thought you were going to blow a gasket.”

  He waved me off and thanked the waiter as the fries came to the table. Picking one up and shoving it into his mouth, he took a moment to let the heat out before chewing it and swallowing.

  “That was then,” he said. “This is now. It could be a lot of fun, and there is a whole town full of women neither one of us has had yet. Imagine the possibilities.”

  Again, I rolled my eyes and dug into the fries.

  “Can we talk about literally anything else?” I asked.

  10

  Hannah

  I couldn’t seem to get my brain on track a couple of days later. There wasn’t anything in particular that was keeping me from focusing, nothing specific bothering me. It was just one of those days when it felt like I was a couple of steps behind myself and couldn’t catch up. That left me scrambling to get ready for work.

  My phone rang as I was doing my makeup, and my stomach sank a little bit. I worried I was even more behind than I thought I was and was now late for my shift. A glance at the clock sitting on my nightstand confirmed that wasn’t the case. That was also when I realized I didn’t know where my phone was.

  Usually, I kept my phone within arm’s reach or at least sitting on the charger. But it wasn’t in either place. Just another example of my brain being jostled and out of sorts that morning. I could hear it ringing clearly, so obviously it wasn’t too far away.

  I could have just ignored it. I could have just let it ring, and Samantha could have left me a message. But there was that little voice in the back of my mind that said this could be the time there was an emergency.

  I finally found my phone in the kitchen and snapped it up. It wasn’t Samantha. In fact, I didn’t recognize the number at all. Talking the phone against my ear, I made my way back to the bathroom attached to my bedroom to keep working on my makeup.

  “Hello? This is Hannah.”

  “I miss you,” a somewhat garbled voice said through the line.

  It made me go still, an uncomfortable feeling shivering up my spine.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I miss you,” the voice said again. “Hannah, why did you leave me?”

  Ethan. I let out a sigh and shook my head as I leaned closer to the mirror so I could put on the last of my makeup. I needed to get this call over with as quickly as possible. Not just because I needed to get to work, but also because I had no interest in talking to him.

  Especially considering he sounded drunk. The slurring of his words and the distinct whine in the back of his voice weren’t unfamiliar to me. Unfortunately, I knew it all too well. It was in the middle of the afternoon, so Ethan sounding drunk would be about right.

  “Hannah,” he said again, the whine getting sharper. “Answer me.”

  Those last words had a bit more force behind them, like the anger was starting to creep into them. That was enough for me. I hung up and set my phone down on the counter to finish getting ready. Within seconds, he called me back. I rejected it, but he called again.

  “How did you get my number, Ethan?” I demanded when I snatched the phone up from the counter.

  “We’re meant to be together, Hannah. You can’t think that something like a new phone number is going to keep me away from you,” he said.

  Again, that was enough. I hung up again, and just as I expected him to, Ethan called me back instantly. I rejected the call and blocked his number. I didn’t have time for this nonsense. He might have been able to find my number, but that didn’t mean he knew where I was. I had a life here in Astoria now, and I wasn’t going to let him mess it up.

  After blocking his number, I managed to finish getting ready for work and was just grabbing my purse and keys when my phone alerted that I got a new email. I read it as I headed toward my car. Predictably, it was from Ethan. I could almost hear the slurring in the words as I read them. But it wasn’t the same whininess. He was getting angry. The message told me he just wanted to talk, and I needed to stop behaving like a child.

  That was far from the first time I’d heard him say that to me. Accusing me of acting like a child and telling me I needed to grow up was a favorite go-to of his. Anytime I didn’t go along with what he wanted or tried to demand he show me more respect, he told me I was acting like a child and needed to grow up. As if there was a level of maturity I needed to reach when I would come to the conclusion that being mistreated was acceptable, and that there was no such thing as an actual happy relationship.

  I didn’t bother to respond. There was nothing for me to say to him, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of any more of my attention. Sitting in my car, I blocked his email address, then tossed my phone onto the passenger seat and drove to work. On the way, I wondered if I should change my phone number and email address again.

  Going through all that was so much of a hassle, and it made me angry and feel even more out of sorts to think about having to do it all again because of Ethan. I was still fuming when I got to The Hollow and stomped up to the bar. Ava was standing behind it, and she stopped what she was doing to look at me.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “It’s just one of those days,” I told her.

  “Don’t I know it.” She shook her head as she went back to cleaning the glasses. “Our little one is sick, so Mason is home taking care of him. This place was a mess when I got here, and there were all kinds of things wrong, and I had to fire the guy who had been coming in to help behind the bar.”

  “Let’s just blow it all off and run for the border,” I suggested.

  Ava laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Canada it is.” That brought a little bit of a laugh, and she smiled at me. “So, what’s going on with you? Did something happen?”

  “My ex called me,” I said. “I haven’t talked to him since I left and moved here. He was drunk and obnoxious, which is kind of him most of the time, but it really got to me. Now I have to change my phone number and email address again. Which seriously pisses me off. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I don’t even know how he got them, and I had to go through all that when I moved here.

  “It’s not even the phone number that bothers me that much. It’s not like I hand that out to a lot of people anyway. It’s the email address. I’m going to have to go to everything and change it. My bills. My landlord. My bank.” I looked at Ava and saw her staring at me, one eyebrow cocked up. I let out a sigh. “I sound like a crazy person right now, don’t I?”

  “I mean… a little. But I get it. It’s justifiable crazy. It’s not so much about the email address. It’s about him coming back into your life and causing disruption.”

  I nodded, but before I could say anything else, the
office door opened, and Matt came out. He was shaking his head.

  “None of them are available,” he said. “I called everybody.”

  “Damn it,” Ava said, shaking her head. “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’re short two bartenders tonight, and it’s going to be a busy night. We were trying to find one of the people who sometimes comes in to fill in, but there isn’t anybody. Mason is home to take care of Robert, and Mom is sick too, so he can’t come in. It’s just a mess,” Ava said.

  “What’s going on?” Jordan asked, coming through the door, and looking at us with a questioning expression.

  Ava explained the situation, and Jordan pointed at me. “What about Hannah? I’ve been helping her behind the bar. Tonight would be a great chance for her to try everything out.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s not like you’ve taught me everything, and I’ve definitely never done anything on a night that’s going to be busy like tonight. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

  “You can do it,” Jordan said. “You’ve been doing great.”

  “Please help us out,” Ava said. “It will be a disaster here if we are short two bartenders all night. I’ll be right here with you, and Jordan is working behind the bar tonight, too.”

  They were all looking at me hopefully, and I finally relented. “Alright. I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything. Honestly, it might be a disaster anyway.”

  Ava laughed. “It’s going to be fine. I know it.”

  It wasn’t fine. At least, it didn’t start that way. I was frazzled, distracted, and nervous, and the first several attempts at making drinks were complete failures. But finally, Jordan stepped in and reminded me of everything he’d already taught me. I relaxed and settled into the rhythm of the night, deciding to just let myself enjoy it rather than worrying so much about it.

  It turned out to be a really fun shift that let me push Ethan out of my head and get my thoughts back to this life rather than the one I’d left behind. By the end of the night, I had a pocket stuffed with tips that far outweighed even my serving tips, and Ava was already asking me to be backup for the bar more often. I left smiling and felt much better heading back home than I had on the way to work.

  11

  Jordan

  Tom was in town again, so that meant dinner at Mom’s. I was starting to get a little tired of the “Tom is here, that means everyone has to drop everything” routine, but at the same time it wasn’t like I had anything to drop. It was more just jealousy that he had essentially done everything he wanted to do, had a wife and a kid, and was super successful, and I was just a jarhead who worked in the family bar. At least that’s how I let myself see it when I was in the process of beating myself up.

  Still, seeing Mom and all my brothers was always a good thing, and Tom couldn’t help that I chose the military when he chose to go be great at whatever it was he did. I was still unsure of all that. Computers and video games were never really my thing, so when he started talking, I tended to tune out. It wasn’t that it wasn’t cool, I just wasn’t into it.

  When I got there, I had to find somewhere to park and noted that it was becoming a bigger hassle to do so. As the family grew, so did the size of the cars and the number of them too. Ava and Mason often drove separately since one of them would be at the bar pretty often. This time around Becca and Tyler had also seemingly come separately. Combined with Tom’s minivan that he drove in from his adventures on the coast after he and his wife popped out a kid, and the driveway and street in front of the house were packed.

  As I stepped inside, nostalgia hit me in the gut pretty hard. The house always had the same smell to it, a warm, freshly baked food smell. It made my stomach rumble and my heart squeeze at the same time. Instinctively, I looked to the left, where the living room was and where Dad would sit in his easy chair reading a book or watching TV for years and years. That chair was empty now. It looked like it did the last time Dad had sat in it, a book he’d never finished sitting open on the arm. Mom had never had the heart to move it. She only moved the glass of water that he’d mostly finished a few weeks ago. She was a mess all day after cleaning that glass.

  It was good to see Mom happy, though. She was bouncing between the kitchen and the dining room, talking in that overly loud way she always did when she got overwhelmed with joy. Seeing all her boys and their partners and kids did that for her. The way her mouth curved up in an ever-rising smile with each son that walked through the door lifted my own heart, and when she saw me and wrapped me in a hug, it was like eating from an endless bowl of love.

  “Oh, my boy, how are you today?” she asked while pushing my cheeks together and kissing my head. I had to lean down for her to do it, but I always did.

  “I’m fine, Ma,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Tired,” she said, “but good tired. I had a girls’ night last night.” She pursed her lips, and her eyebrows rose until the creases of her forehead looked like rivers running across her face. She seemed so pleased.

  “Really? How was that?” I asked.

  “Don’t get her started,” Mason said from behind me in the dining room.

  “No, please, get her started,” Ava said. Mason rolled his eyes and let his head fall back in what I assumed was mock frustration. Mom giggled.

  “It got a little wild,” she said, and I noticed most of my brothers laughing. Tom was in the corner of the room, and I gave him a short wave that he returned.

  “Tell him where you went, Mom,” Becca asked. Mom turned to her, and her cheeks went red. I knew part of it was her Becca calling her “Mom,” but it was also because of whatever she had been up to. I cocked my head to one side.

  “Yeah, Mom, where did you go?”

  “The Banana Hammock,” she said, covering her face with her hands.

  “The what?” I asked.

  “The male strip club up in Portland,” Matt said.

  “Oh God,” I replied. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “See?” Mason said, raising his hands over his head.

  “I think it’s great,” Ava said. “You go, Mom.”

  “Mom?” I asked, laughing in spite of myself.

  “It was all that Carrie’s fault,” she said, at least having the decency to feign embarrassment. “She drove us out there saying we were going somewhere with dancing. She didn’t tell us it would be nearly naked men dancing at us!”

  The rest of the room laughed heartily, and I sat down, listening to Mom as she tried to desperately explain how chaste and confused she had been inside the club that she had admittedly spent several hours in and had multiple cocktails at. Considering she had multiple children, I was wary of how confused she actually could have been by it all, but I let her talk because it was hilarious to watch her try to talk her way out of it.

  Eventually, she seemed to get to the point where she was too flustered to continue and made her way back into the kitchen. When she came back, she immediately launched into another conversation, signaling that our discussion of her lively night was over. Instead, she eyed both Matt and me with a desperately critical eye.

  “So, do either of you have someone coming to join you tonight?” she asked leadingly.

  “No, Mom,” Matt said.

  “Me either,” I said.

  “What about Hannah?” Ava blurted out, and then her eyes went wide, and she turned to look at Mason, who laughed loudly.

  “Hey, yeah, what about Hannah?” Matt asked, turning on me.

  “Judas,” I said. “You talk about Judas and yet here you are.”

  “I prefer Brutus, but hey, whichever backstabber you want to go with,” he said.

  “Who is Hannah?” Mom asked.

  I shook my head and looked back to Ava.

  “Nicely done,” I said quietly.

  “Who is Hannah?” Mom repeated.

  “She’s just a girl we work with,” I answered.


  “Who you flirt with constantly,” Ava added.

  “She’s adorable,” Becca interjected, clearly helping to pile on and get Mom excited over a girl who I hadn’t even asked on a date. “Really funny, really smart. I saw some paintings she’s done, too. She’s super talented.”

  “Well, how come I haven’t heard about her, then?” Mom asked.

  “Because he hasn’t asked her out yet,” Mason said. I wasn’t sure whose side he was on, but he was grinning, so my guess was he was enjoying playing both sides and stirring the pot.

  “Why not?” Tom asked from the corner of the room.

  “Yeah, why not?” Ava asked.

  I sighed. “Uh, because she’s an employee,” I said. There was an uproar in the room, and I held my hands out for silence. “Hold on, hold on! Seriously, she probably wouldn’t go for it anyway. She just got out of a really bad relationship that she was deeply unhappy in. She’s a friend, and she’s fun to talk to, and yes, maybe we flirt some. But that’s it.”

  “Ava,” Mom said with the seriousness of a general “set him up.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” I said uselessly to a room of cackling hyenas. Mom had spoken. Ava had her orders, and now all I could do was sit back and let it happen.

  Dinner talk moved to Tom after that, and when dinner was finished, I decided to go outside for a breath of fresh air. A million thoughts were swirling through my mind, not the least of which was a combination of anxiety and excitement about whatever was going to happen with Hannah. As I got out onto the porch, a new beer in hand, I heard the door behind me. One by one, my brothers followed me out.

  “Ahh, time for business talk?” I asked.

  “Nothing formal,” Tom said. “I just wanted to keep you guys informed. I know it sometimes seems like I make decisions and then expect things to happen, and I don’t want you to feel that way.”

  “Fair,” Matt said. He didn’t dispute it, which Tom seemed to take in stride, but none of us said anything either. In reality, we all kind of looked to Mason as the on-the-ground leader of our merry band of brothers. He ran the bar day to day with Ava. Tom owned it all, sure, and made some decisions that were his way or the highway, but after some initial saltiness, we had all pretty well settled on the hierarchy in the bar.