Dirty Sexy Games

by Laurelin Paige

  I fiddled again with the gift. “Should we have asked for it not to be wrapped with a ribbon? Is that dangerous? Could he choke on it?”

  Elizabeth twisted her lip. “I can’t remember the exact age that strings stop being a concern. But it’s not going to be a problem. We’re going to throw away the wrapping as soon as he opens it. Stop worrying, honey. He’s going to love the present and he’s going to love you.” Her phone buzzed, and she looked down at the cell, her face falling at whatever she read on the screen.

  “Is it him again?” I asked, grateful for the distraction of something else toward which to aim my anxiety.

  “Yeah.” She slid her fingers across the screen, declining the call, and tucked the phone away. “I told him I’d get back to him when we were done with the honeymoon, and I still haven’t.”

  She was talking about her cousin, Darrell. He’d called a few times since he dropped the news about the gossip site that had outed me as a dad, but she’d declined all the calls. “Why don’t you just respond to him? Let him know it’s not a concern.”

  She hesitated, taking a slow breath, then letting it out before she answered. “I don’t know.”

  I could understand. How long had I waited to tell her things because it was easier not to deal with it? She already had so much on her mind, it made sense that she didn’t want to have a confrontation with her cousin right now as well. “Give yourself a few days then. Talk to him after the holidays.”

  She opened her mouth, but the car was slowing, so she asked, “Are we here?”

  “We are.” I looked again at the time. “We’re really early. Almost half an hour early.” I must’ve been really anxious when we left.

  “Well, we can’t sit in here. And it’s too cold to stand outside.”

  “I’ll let her know we’re here.”

  Elizabeth settled up the cab fare while I texted Callie. We climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for her to respond. A tall, muscular woman with thick, straight, dirty blond hair brushed past us and headed up the steps of the brownstone, her arms full of groceries. She glanced back at us, her expression wary.

  “You’re right that we can’t just hang out here. This is the kind of neighborhood where people call the cops on loiterers,” I said. Luckily, just then Callie responded.

  No problem. Come on in.

  “Here we go, Mrs. King.” I shifted the gift under my arm so I could take her hand again.

  “Here we go. Daddy.” Her smile was the confidence I needed. We walked up the steps together.

  “Sorry again that we’re so early,” I apologized as we walked across the threshold into Callie’s apartment a few minutes later.

  “It’s fine. Really. Let me take that, then I can get your coats.” She reached for the gift in my hand and set it on the coffee table.

  I turned to help Elizabeth with her coat, covertly checking out the room for Sebastian. I didn’t see him but saw the woman from outside, the one who’d been carrying the groceries. She was in the kitchen now, putting them away. She must be Dana—Callie’s roommate.

  I handed Elizabeth’s coat over to our hostess, then began to work on taking off my own jacket as I continued to take in my surroundings. When I caught Callie’s eye, she said, “He’s not up from his nap yet. He should be awake any minute. I can go get him, but he might be cranky.”

  Maybe I hadn’t been so sly in my search for him after all. “Let him sleep,” I said, hard as it was to let even another second go by without meeting him. “It will give us time to get the introductions out of the way. Callie, this is my wife, Elizabeth.” I put my hand on Elizabeth’s lower back, where her waist cinched in just above her luscious ass, and displayed her proudly. I still wasn’t used to her being my wife. Wasn’t used to having a wife. I liked saying it as often as I could.

  I noticed Elizabeth checking Callie out, her gaze moving up the length of my ex-lover’s body before it hit her face. I was sure it was supposed to be as covert as my own examination of the room, and I hoped that Callie hadn’t seen it, but my chest broadened and puffed at the obvious hint of jealousy.

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Callie said, shifting the coats to her other arm so that she could shake Elizabeth’s hand. “You must hate me. Showing up in your life the way I did.”

  “I don’t hate you. I don’t know you.” Elizabeth’s honest answer was somehow warm with honesty rather than snappy. “I hope that we can get to know each other, though.”

  “I’d like that.” Callie smiled, then slipped inside the coat closet to hang up our things. When she turned back, she said, “I really hope I didn’t ruin the honeymoon. I’ve had a lot of regret about the way that I approached Weston. I really didn’t think I had another way of reaching him, but in hindsight, it was a crappy thing to do to you.”

  “I suppose…” Elizabeth glanced from Callie to me. “It did change the dynamic of the trip, in a way. But I didn’t know about any of this until the internet article came up.”

  Callie’s jaw dropped, and I could feel my neck heat with embarrassment. “Weston! You didn’t tell her?” Her eyes cut back to my wife. “And you didn’t murder him? Maybe my father is right—miracles do happen.”

  “I was a coward and an asshole. I didn’t want to—” I broke off, realizing that Callie didn’t need my excuses, and Elizabeth had already heard enough of them. “Let’s just leave it at—cowardly asshole. Thank God, Elizabeth is the most amazing woman I know, and she’s been very supportive about all of this.” I tugged that amazing woman to my side, wrapping my arm around her waist, hoping she could feel just how much I loved her, how much I appreciated her in this moment.

  “You must be an amazing woman to have tamed this notorious player,” Callie said, agreeing.

  The woman in the kitchen snorted, as if trying to hold back a laugh.

  “Oh. That’s Dana.” She twisted her neck toward the kitchen. “Get out here and be friendly, will you?”

  “Fine.” Dana hung up her reusable grocery bag on a hook on the wall, and then headed over to us. “Nice to finally meet you,” she said shaking my hand, eyeing me much the same way that Elizabeth had eyed Callie.

  Callie had said she’d been a big help to her, and very supportive. Nannied a bit, if I was recalling correctly. It was nice to see that the mother of my child had someone on her side, so I tried not to take offense.

  Elizabeth had a different reaction. “Oh,” she said suddenly, as if understanding something that she didn’t before. Then her lips pursed together tightly, as though hiding a smile, until it was her turn to shake Dana’s hand.

  “A real pleasure to meet you,” she said to her, even more enthusiastically than she had to Callie. Maybe she was relaxing into the situation. I was too. Though my nerves hadn’t calmed completely, the pleasant introductions combined with the scent of fresh coffee brewing made me feel better. It felt like one by one, the unknown factors were fading, and now there was really just the one left.

  One big one.

  But this was good. Really good, getting all the adult stuff out of the way before Sebastian woke up.

  “You haven’t had any trouble because of the article, have you?” I asked, since we’d recently been on the topic. “No one tried to bother you or ask more questions?”

  “Only person I know who saw it was my father,” Callie said. “He’s left me two messages, which I haven’t returned yet. ‘That’s the King who knocked you up?’ I hadn’t bothered giving him details before so he’d assumed you were no one he’d know of.”

  I cleared my throat, trying not to appear too concerned while simultaneously offering up a prayer that our fathers had never done business together. “It doesn’t necessarily sound like he’s happy now that he does know.”

  “Nah. He’s probably glad the press is linking me to a father at all, for once. Especially a guy as reputable as you. It’s like a Christmas present for him. Better than whatever no-name ‘loser’ everyone is assuming knocked me u
p and left me to do this alone. Or, just as bad in his eyes, getting pregnant from a sperm bank. “

  Yikes. Her conservative senator father had more issues than Forbes magazine. That had to be tough to deal with for Callie in this day and age, where so many children came without a wedding first. Where women chose to become single mothers for no other reason than the fact that they wanted a child. The man really needed to loosen up.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Callie offered. “We have coffee, tea, eggnog—”

  “Is it too early for hot toddies?” Dana asked, already heading back to the kitchen.

  “It’s two in the afternoon, so yes,” Callie said.

  “But it’s the holidays. Anyone interested?”

  A little alcohol sure did sound like a nice way to ease the rest of the knots in my shoulders, but I wanted to be a responsible parent.

  “I’d like one,” Elizabeth said, surprising me.

  “Fine. I’ll have one too,” Callie conceded.

  Well, if everyone else was doing it… “Me too.”

  Dana grinned triumphantly as she put the kettle on.

  “Since you opened the door to the conversation,” Elizabeth said, crossing one jeans-clad leg over the other as she sat on the couch, “might I ask why you decided to tell Weston at all? He’s explained to me your reasons for not telling him in the beginning. What made you change your mind?”

  I appreciated my wife for this question. I knew it had to be hard for her to understand Callie’s decision. Elizabeth would have been eager to unite a father with his baby, and keeping her pregnancy away from me was not a choice she could easily relate to.

  Callie tucked one leg underneath her on the loveseat as she sat down, then glanced at her roommate. “Actually, Dana convinced me.”

  Elizabeth and I both looked toward Dana, who beamed and said, “Guilty.”

  “She pointed out that I was being selfish by not giving you a chance,” Callie continued. “She also reminded me that this was the age that Sebastian would start realizing that other kids have dads. The most helpful thing she said, probably, was when she pointed out that keeping Sebastian from his father wouldn’t change any of the things that happened with me and my father. Which, I guess was when I realized I was thinking of myself. Not of Sebastian. And not about Weston. So I reached out.” She smiled knowingly again at Dana before changing her focus back to me.

  Me, with my own problem father. To think how close I was to never knowing…

  “I’m really grateful that you changed your mind. And really grateful to you, Dana, for being such a positive influence, and I can tell you’re very important in Callie and Sebastian’s life. I’m very grateful to that. For what it’s worth.”

  Next to me, Elizabeth made a little sound, but I didn’t understand what she was trying to say, or what she might’ve been trying to warn me about, so I just took her hand again and squeezed it, guessing maybe she was just moved by the whole situation, much like I was.

  “Then this means you’re on board? That you’re going to be part of Sebastian’s life?” Dana was the one who asked, as she brought the first two mugs of hot honeyed bourbon over to us.

  I let go of Elizabeth’s hand to take my drink, then lifted it to my lips for a sip, delaying my answer. Of course, it was too hot, and I burned my mouth. I had to put it down on the coffee table right away to fan my tongue.

  Also, since I’d been asked a question, all eyes were on me through the entire mishap. Dana stood with her arms crossed across her chest, biting back a laugh.

  “When they say hot, they mean hot. Thank you. I’ll let that cool.” I watched as Elizabeth wisely set hers down right away. “And yes, I definitely want to do the dad thing.” I still was not quite ready to talk about all the details. My dream was to ask Callie to come back to France with us, but I needed to feel out her situation first. As tight as she was with her friend Dana, it was starting to seem like maybe that wasn’t the route to go. Besides, it wouldn’t be very nice of me to take my son away from his favorite babysitter.

  And that left the option of once a month, full-week visits. I wasn’t sure how Callie was going to feel about that one either.

  “I’d like to try to work out some arrangements before we leave today. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be right this second.” I looked around the room, at the faces of all the women, hoping someone would be able to steer the conversation in a different direction.

  But nobody had anything to say. “Or we can do it now. First of all, though, I want to be able to reassure Elizabeth.” My wife sat up straighter next to me, and it almost seemed as though she shook her head, but the movement was so slight I might’ve misread it. “We are newlyweds and all. I need her to realize that there isn’t going to be anything between you and me, Callie. That you have no intentions of creating the family that the internet scandal says exists.”

  “Weston,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  I couldn’t ignore that; she definitely was trying to get my attention.

  “Honey, this is important. I want you to hear it from Callie. You don’t mind reassuring her, do you?” Callie had told me to my face that I was a narcissistic asshole. All she had to do was repeat that for Elizabeth.

  It even seemed she’d be happy to say it, considering the laugh she was stifling.

  Dana was also stifling a laugh, not so successfully.

  Elizabeth shook her head more noticeably now.

  “What? What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Weston,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not worried.”

  I smiled patiently. “You say that now. But you’ll feel better if you hear it.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “I mean, Dana and Callie are together.”

  Right. Together. Good friends.

  “Together, Weston.”

  Oh.

  More than friends.

  No way. “No way,” I said. “You’re a lesbian?”

  Callie nodded.

  That explained why there was only one other bedroom besides Sebastian’s. “Or, I guess, bi. Because you slept with me.” It was important to get the labels correct these days. And bi made me feel better, for some reason.

  “Lesbian is really more accurate,” Callie said.

  “You were the last guy she was with,” Dana said proudly. “And she’s not going back.”

  “I—turned you lesbian?” No, no. This was not happening.

  Elizabeth took one look at my face and started laughing so hard she was shaking.

  “This is terrible. Really, really terrible.” I’d never felt so much a champion for the disenfranchised minority as I did right then in a room full of women laughing at me and my sexuality.

  “No, it’s not,” Elizabeth reassured me, through her mirth. “This is good.”

  “Yeah,” Dana confirmed. “I guess I owe you too, Weston King.” She pivoted on her boot heel and headed back to the kitchen to pour another two mugs of toddies.

  Thankfully mine had cooled enough to drink because, goddammit, I needed it.

  As I brought the mug to my lips, I realized what else Dana and Callie’s “together” meant—Callie was tied to Dana in a way that was far stronger than friendship. And Dana was a lot more to Sebastian than his favorite babysitter. That meant that asking them to move to France for me was a lot harder. Impossible, probably.

  Not that I was ready to give up the idea.

  “Dana, so, do you…work?” It wasn’t the best attempt at casual conversation, but it was what I had.

  “Look at him; he’s seeing if you’re worthy of me,” Callie said. “Better than my father who won’t even acknowledge Dana’s existence.”

  I felt a painful stab between my ribs of sympathy for her situation, for being so estranged from her family. I could definitely relate to that. At least they didn’t see any ulterior motives in the question.

  “Yes, I do.” Dana returned with a mug for her partner then sat down next to her on the loveseat. “I work for the State Departme
nt. It’s actually how we met.” She looked at Callie the same way I was sure I looked at Elizabeth. “We were at a party hosted by the state for the senators and representatives and their families.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Callie said. “My father actually brought us together in a way. I’d probably cut off all ties if it wasn’t for Sebastian. It’s seemed really important to have my family around since he’s been born, whether we all get along or not.”

  The pain in my ribs increased and twisted. My parents still didn’t know about Sebastian. I had to tell them, too. Add that to the list of issues to deal with.

  “I’m so sorry your family isn’t understanding or supportive. My father was a misogynistic asshole,” Elizabeth said, “if that helps. He wouldn’t let me have my company until I was married.”

  The women exchanged appropriate sounds of horror and sympathy while I silently tucked away the idea of having my family all together in one country. The State Department was not the kind of job where you could just fill out some papers and transfer from one place to another. You went where they sent you. Besides, people who worked in politics generally liked their politics. It wasn’t like Dana could find an easy replacement for that in France.

  “Now that she’s going to run the company though,” I said, using the opportunity to drop the next bombshell, “we have to move to where Dyson Media is headquartered. Which is Paris.” I paused a moment, letting that settle. “I know that throws a wrench in what you want in terms of me being available as a father. But I do still want to be involved in his life.”

  Callie stiffened, and next to her, so did Dana. “How do you intend to make this work from a different country?” Callie asked. “Skype? That’s not really the kind of involvement I was thinking when I said I wanted you involved in his life, Weston.”

  “I know. I know,” I rushed to calm her. “I’ve already thought about that and talked it over with Elizabeth. We’ve decided that I will travel back and forth frequently. I’m going to get an apartment in Brooklyn and spend a week here each month. I was hoping you would agree to let Sebastian be in my care for the full week. After he gets to know me better, of course.”