by Eden Finley
“All good parents think they’re screwing their kid up at some point. It’s better than not worrying at all. It means you actually care. I think I mess up about ten times on a daily basis.”
“You must be doing something right. Cody’s an awesome kid.”
“He has his moments. Trust me. I’m sure you’ll see it now we’re moving in. When he was two, we were all ‘It’s okay. It’s the terrible twos.’ Then he hit three, and we were all ‘Shouldn’t he be over the tantrums by now? Damn threenager!’ Four, I labelled the ‘fuck you fours’ because there were often moments where Cody would storm off, and like the good parent I am, I’d give him the finger behind his back. And then—”
“You’re not selling me on this parenting gig.”
“All I’m saying is, they seem to go through a dreaded phase every single year, and each year it has to be handled differently. What works to calm them one year won’t work the next. But you know what? At the end of the day, when your kid gives you a hug and kiss goodnight and says ‘I love you,’ you don’t care that earlier in the day he told you to fuck off.”
Spencer burst into laughter. “Cody has said that to you?”
“Once. I took away his video games and TV for a week. Hasn’t said it since.”
“Stuff I have to look forward to.”
“And so much more.”
We stared at each other, our smiles slowly fading as reality hit that this was actually happening.
“So, uh, yeah. The job,” he said. “Your boss will also be your roommate, slash baby daddy, slash friend from high school, so it may be a little weird, but the bottom line is, you need a job, I need more tech support staff. Living here with me means you’ll save on rent and might be able to get yourself on your feet and have a secure future that you build on your own.”
“I don’t know anything about programming or coding or whatever it is you tech nerds do.”
“Tech nerd, huh?”
I shrugged.
“You don’t need to know how. We’ll train you to deal with the most common problems, and anything bigger, you have to call in one of the software developers or me to come deal with it. There’ll be some coding, but I can teach you that.”
I couldn’t pass the chance up. “I have to double check with Cole that he’d be able to take Cody on the nights I worked, but—”
“I could always watch him for you if you’re stuck.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“It’s honestly no big deal. I mean, if we’re going to do this co-parenting thing—”
“Co-parent? You want to co-parent? How do you even know that word? It’s such a …”
“Mummy term?” He grinned. “Online forums, Googling, all that stuff has become my friend. And co-parenting also means you’ll have to trust me with Cody at some point. My child is his brother or sister, so—”
I cocked my head to the side. “You didn’t read the results properly, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The gender was on there.”
His face lit up and he jumped up from the couch. “Really? I thought it was too early to find out.”
“Not through in-vitro testing. Do you want to know?”
“Yes. No. God, I don’t know? You probably want a girl seeing as you already have a boy, and—”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Having a girl scares the crap outta me. I know what to do with a boy. And thinking of a teenage girl? Geezus, shoot me now.”
“Teenage girl. A teenage daughter … okay, I think it’s time I have that panic attack now.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Calm down, Spence. You won’t have to worry about that.”
His eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“You said … and … a boy? We’re having a boy?”
I nodded. “You okay with that?”
He was speechless and perhaps a little pale.
“More than good.” His voice was gruff. “That kinda makes it so much more real though.”
I remembered going through the exact thing with Cody. “Surreal, huh? Even if I’m moving into your bachelor pad and taking away your freedom to do whatever you want?”
“Just how much of a bachelor do you think I am? You’re treating me as if I’m like Hunter or Blair. I’m nothing like those two.”
“No, you’re a lot more dangerous than those two.” Shit. That came out loud.
“Because?”
Because you’re the whole package.
I cleared my throat. “Because you’re not an asshole to women like those two are.”
“Did you know Blair was an asshole to guys too? He hooked up with my assistant a few weeks ago. Said they’d hang out. Hasn’t called him. Not that Trevor’s all that surprised or even disappointed.”
I laughed. “At least Blair’s an equal opportunity player.”
“Truth.”
I stood to leave. “I’ll start moving our stuff in on the weekend.”
“Let me know if you need a hand. And you can start work next week.”
It might not have been a perfect solution, but it was a step in the right direction. Job and a place to live. I guessed that was what Cole meant when he said Spencer could help me out.
11
SPENCER
Oh, God. Save me now.
The three vultures were already sitting in a booth at the coffee shop where I asked them all to meet me.
I loved my sisters. I truly did. But I was going to be in so much shit.
“Little brother!” Tammy called out, not caring the whole place turned to look at me.
Aaaand I was twelve years old again.
Ducking my head, I made my way to the table and took a seat next to Becca.
“So,” Chrissy said, “what’s with the emergency meeting?”
“Straight to the point, as always, Chris,” I said. “I haven’t looked at my menu yet.”
Of all my family, Chrissy and Mum were going to be the most disappointed. Chrissy was seven years older than me and had a sixteen-year-old daughter. She had Hailey at eighteen to a one-night stand who didn’t want anything to do with the baby.
“All she’s saying,” Becca said, “is that you never organise this. It’s usually us having to guilt you into coming to see us.”
“I’m busy. I do own a company, you know.”
“We know,” they all said in unison.
“Which is why this is weird, booger,” Tammy said.
“Ever think I don’t call you guys because you still call me booger?”
“Nah, we’re totally loveable big sisters,” Becca said.
“Well, you’re all going to be totally loveable aunts too.” There, I said it.
And as I suspected, three mouths dropped open.
“We didn’t even know you had a girlfriend,” Tammy exclaimed.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t.”
“Ooooh, shit,” Becca said.
Tammy whistled. “Mum’s going to kill you.”
“That’s why I wanted to tell you three first. You have to help me break it to Mum.”
“Who’s the girl?” Chrissy asked. Her expression was stoic. I couldn’t determine how pissed she was.
I turned to Becca. “Do you remember Reece from high school?”
“Didn’t she get knocked up by your best friend after graduation?”
Of course, she’d remember that.
“Uh, yeah. That’s the one. She already has an eight-year-old.”
Tammy laughed but abruptly stopped when Chrissy glared at her.
“So you and your buddies just pass this chick around?” Chrissy asked.
“Do you really think I’d do something like that? She and Cole got divorced three years ago. And she’s been going through some stuff lately, and I was … there.”
“So you took advantage of her,” Chrissy said.
Ah, fuck. “No. It’s not like that. Shit, maybe it is?”<
br />
“What if she took advantage of him?” Tammy said. “Ever think of that? He’s loaded now.”
“She didn’t do this for money. Plus, all those years of Chrissy telling us to use condoms worked. The condom didn’t get the memo about needing to be effective though. It was a mistake; Reece didn’t plan it. I didn’t plan it.” I turned to Chrissy. “You of all people know how easy it is for this to happen.”
“Want me to punch him for you?” Becca asked Chrissy.
“I knew you’d be angry, Chris,” I said, “but I also thought you’d be the one to understand the most.”
Chrissy pursed her lips. “You going to be there for this kid?”
“I already moved Reece and her son into my house. I gave her a job and am going to pay for whatever she needs for our son.”
Again, three mouths dropped open.
“We’re going to have a nephew?” Tammy squealed. “This family is overrun with girls.”
Not only did Chrissy have Hailey, but Becca was married and had two girls herself.
I nodded.
“Man, I should get a start on having kids. I’m the last one,” Tammy said.
“You have to have sex to get pregnant,” Becca said.
Tammy gave her the finger. “Just because it’s true doesn’t make it hurt less.” She turned to me. “You got any single friends? You know, who haven’t had sex with your baby mumma?”
“I doubt any of my friends are interested in an older woman.”
Tammy scoffed. “Please, five years isn’t even in cougar territory.”
I shrugged. “Or someone who’s so flaky.”
“Hey, no need to be mean.”
“Truth hurts, little sis,” Chrissy said. “Okay, let’s order some food. If it wasn’t midday I’d also be ordering a glass of wine.”
“Or a bottle,” Tammy said. “Our baby brother’s going to be a dad. I think we need to drink to that. If not to celebrate, then to at least get over the shock.”
While I was glad I didn’t get yelled at, it all seemed too easy. All I could focus on were words that logically I knew, but they threw me every time I heard them aloud.
I’m going to be a dad.
***
When I got home, Reece was at the dining room table with her head in the laptop I gave her for work. Next to her was the manual for the program.
And dammit, she looked adorable with reading glasses and a concentration line on her forehead.
“I didn’t realise you were a U2 fan,” I said.
She jumped at my voice. “Huh?”
I pointed to her docked iPhone with “Iris” playing through it. “U2.”
“Oh, I’m not. A fan, I mean. They raped my phone.”
I laughed. “They did what to your phone?”
“You know, ages ago? They released an album and put it on everyone’s cloud. Like ‘We’re so generous. Here, have our album.’ Are they so conceited to think everyone would appreciate them hacking into our phones and forcing their music upon us? They put something I didn’t want on it, and now I have to live with the consequences, which means I have U2 playing on my shuffle list. Fucking Bono.”
I struggled to keep my laughter at bay. “Why don’t you just delete it?”
“I can’t. It’s impossible.”
“I’m sure there’s a way. I have Android so I wouldn’t know. But I’ll take a look for you sometime if you want.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“What are roommates for?”
Her face fell, as if she were disappointed by the label. “What are you doing home so early from work?”
“I had lunch with my sisters and decided I was too wiped to go back to the office.”
“Did you tell them about the baby?”
“Yup.”
She looked down at her lap. “Do they hate me?”
“They haven’t met you. Although, Becca remembered you from school and thought it would be a good idea to tell them all that you’re Cole’s ex-wife. So that didn’t go down well. But, they’re excited to have a nephew, so …”
She grimaced.
“What are you doing over there?” I tipped my head in the direction of the laptop, hopeful for a subject change. I didn’t want to bring up the fact Chrissy thought I took advantage of Reece, or that Tammy thought Reece was taking advantage of me. “You know you’re not getting paid yet, right? You don’t have to do so much studying.”
“I want to know as much as I can before I start. I’ve never had a real job before. What if I suck at it? What if I make a fool of myself, and everyone at the office sees me as the dumb blonde who was hired because she slept with the manager? What if—”
“I don’t think anyone knows about us at work. At least, I didn’t tell anyone.” Unless I did the night I got shitfaced with them. Hmmm, nah, I’m probably fine. “No one has to know.”
“What about when I start showing and they ask who the father is?”
“Do people ask random things like that? They’ll assume you have a husband or a boyfriend.”
“And when they ask what said husband or boyfriend does? What do I say? ‘Well, actually, your boss fucked me hard and good once, and oopsie, we made a baby. And instead of hiring someone qualified for this job, he took pity on me.’”
I had to refrain from saying anything completely inappropriate in response to her admitting I fucked her good.
That didn’t stop me imagining throwing the laptop out of the way and pinning her to the dining room table though.
Dammit, I knew living with her was a horrible idea.
I had to stop fantasising about pinning her to various furniture items—something I’d continuously done since she and Cody moved in earlier this week—and focus on the part where she was genuinely freaking out about work.
“You’ll do fine. As long as you aren’t telling the clients to piss off—and I promise you there will be a time where you’ll want to—it’ll be all good. If you don’t know the answer to something, ask. It’s not the end of the world if you get stumped. Hell, we had a complaint about a month or two ago where someone totally screwed the whole system by doing the wrong thing. How they managed it, we’ll never know, but they had to call me in to fix it because the other techies didn’t know how to.”
“What are the people like who I’m going to be working with?”
“Trevor, my assistant, will be the one to ask that. I don’t know everyone all that well.”
“Shouldn’t you know them? You’re like their manager, right?”
“Right,” I muttered and looked away. I didn’t know why I was holding back that I actually owned the company, but it was a reflex to play it vague.
“Are you able to tell me why, when I put data on this page and hit enter, it’s sending me back to the same page?”
My brow furrowed. “Huh?” I dragged the seat next to her closer and sat. Leaning over her to see the problem, I immediately regretted it when her perfume hit my senses. I saw where she was going wrong on the screen but couldn’t concentrate hard enough on it. I had to pull myself back before I could answer her. “Okay, so because this is for medical records, everything needs to be checked and double-checked before submitting. So you have to enter a code here before submitting. It’s like a reminder to make sure everything’s filled out correctly, and each nurse has their own code. It also works as a liability thing. You have no idea how much trouble hospitals have been in for inputting data that lacks important details. I won’t tell you which hospital it was, but there was a situation where incorrect filing caused a backup in waitlists and by the time patients were seen, screens came back with a higher cancer ratio than average. Because someone didn’t fill something in the right way.”
“You helped design this?”
Helped, no. Designed the whole thing? Yes. Yet, my mouth still didn’t say that. “It was my idea. My mum’s a nurse. Was a nurse. She’s retired now.”
“Don’t hate me, but up until I started going over
this, I thought you designed stupid things like video games or smartphone apps or something.”
I laughed.
“This … this actually helps people. You’re technically saving people’s lives.”
“That might be taking it a bit far. I’ve got some time if you want me to help you go over it?”
She nodded. “Thanks. I think I learn better seeing it happen instead of reading out of a book. The words are all blurry on the page, and it’s hard for me to concentrate. It was the same for me in school.”
“But I remember you getting a B in English that one time. You said you failed. I thought you must’ve been one of those straight-A students who got upset over a B.”
She pulled back, shocked. “You remember that?”
“Kinda hard to forget a pretty girl crying.”
Her cheeks flushed, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it.
“Do you know what I did to get that B?” she asked quietly. “I studied so hard. My parents kept telling me I never applied myself and that if I did, I’d be as smart as my brother and sister. So when I put in all my effort and really tried, I could still only pull a B. I’m not a smart person like they are. I was upset because that was the best I could do, and it still wasn’t good enough for my parents.”
I pursed my lips. “Were you ever tested?”
“Tested for what? Dumbassery?”
I snorted. “For dyslexia. They thought Tammy could’ve had it. Turns out, she understood it all, but nothing held her interest. She probably should’ve tested for ADD instead.”
“I’m not dyslexic. And no way would my parents have thought to test me for it. They always said I was lazy. It’s not possible to have two geniuses and then a dumb-dumb.”
“Hey, being dyslexic wouldn’t mean you’re dumb. That’s the stupid stigma ignorant assholes label it as. Everyone learns differently. I prefer to learn on my own with my head in a book. But that doesn’t mean I’m smarter than you. It just means you need to find a different way to learn the material.”
I ignored the look of awe she shot me—as if I’d said something brilliant. Seriously, how had this woman not been told she was smart enough to do anything she wanted to?
