I press send on the message and put the phone down, but the phone rings softly beside me. I can hear his laughter fill the phone as I bring it to my ear. “Hello.”
“Am I bothering you?” His laughter is still coming through. I don’t know why, but his laughter makes me smile.
“Well, it’s been about twenty minutes since the last phone call,” I reply, sinking into the bed.
“I called my parents,” he says, and everything stops. I don’t even think I’m breathing at this point.
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah, they are coming down tomorrow.”
I immediately sit up. “What?” I say in a whisper, but it comes out in a yelp.
“And asked if they can take you out for dinner to meet Avery.” My heart, which is normally beating in my chest, is now beating so freaking fast and hard I feel like it’s about to come out of my rib cage.
“Ummm,” I start, closing my eyes to get my heartbeat to normal as my ears now start to buzz. “I don’t need to be there.” I put my hand on my head, thinking that maybe I’m going to faint or maybe I have scarlet fever.
“What?” he shrieks. “Of course you have to be there.”
“Ugh.” I put my hand on my stomach. “I don’t know. I don’t do well with parents.” My head is just about ready to explode. This is too much; this is all just too much. “I mean, look at my own.” I laugh bitterly, trying to joke about it, but the pain still hurts, even after all this time. The emptiness is still there. The fact they haven’t even tried to get to know Avery just breaks my heart because she’s the best, but I also know it’s their loss. They don’t deserve her awesomeness in their lives.
“You need to come and maybe protect me from my mother,” he declares, and I am not rolling my lips to stop from laughing at him. His tone is both equally scared and panicked. “She is not pleased with me.”
I don’t even know why, but the words come out without me knowing. “Okay.” I give in. “I’ll go. Now, I need to get to bed or else there will be bags under my eyes tomorrow, and that isn’t the look I want to have when meeting your parents for the first time.”
He chuckles. “Addison, you could be wearing a potato bag and war paint on your face that is dripping down, and you’ll still be the most beautiful woman in the room.”
My heart stops. Completely. “Good night, Stefano,” I say before I hang up on him and put my phone on do not disturb. I’m not doing this with him. He has a girlfriend, and I’m not the one who is going to walk in there and just steal him away. I’m not that person. “We have a child together, so I’m going to have to be nice to him, but that’s it when it comes to Stefano and me,” I huff, putting my phone on my bedside table. But isn’t he sexy? my head screams out. Remember when he did that thing with his tongue? I put my hands on my ears. “I’m not listening to you anymore.” I turn over and close my eyes but that makes it even worse because now all I can see is me ripping his shirt off him while he places me on that hotel desk no one actually works on. His hands roam up my legs that are spread with him standing in the middle of them, our mouths devouring each other. My eyes spring open. “That didn’t help anything.” I turn onto my back before turning over on my side. “He’s in bed with his girlfriend right now,” I tell myself. “Yeah, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”
I don’t know how long it takes me to fall asleep, but the next day, I have to literally peel myself out of bed. I spend more time than I should picking an outfit, knowing that after work I’m going to see him. We get into the car with seconds to spare and only when I pull out of the parking lot does Avery start to ask me questions, “Momma, is Stefano really my dad?”
I glance in the rearview mirror, seeing her look out the window. “What do you mean?”
“He said he’s my dad,” she says, her feet going up and down, “so now I have a dad.”
“Well, you always had a dad,” I tell her, gripping the steering wheel.
“But now I can tell people that my dad ate dinner with me.” I pull into the parking lot and put the car in park. “So if Ms. Terry asks me what I did last night, I could say I had dinner with my dad.”
“Yes.” I look over at her. “You can say you saw your dad.” She nods her head at me as she unbuckles her seat belt before jumping down from her booster seat. I open my car door and then open hers. She jumps out of the car and holds my hand as we walk into the school. The minute we walk in, she takes off to her classroom door.
“My dad came to see me,” she announces as soon as she sees her teacher, who looks at her and then at me. The shock is all over her face, especially since I told them her father is uninvolved in her life. “He brought pizza, and he got me princess dresses.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” Ms. Terry says.
“Okay, come give Momma a kiss,” I say, squatting down, and she comes over to me.
“Will Stefano come and see me again?” she asks me, and I just nod my head.
“We are going to the park after school, and he’s going to be there,” I tell her, and she jumps up before running back into the class. I avoid looking at anyone before I walk back to my car. Even when I get to work, I walk in, head straight to the kitchen, and start the coffee. Unlike yesterday, there is less fanfare this morning.
Shelby comes in not long after me. “Morning,” she mumbles to me as her phone rings in her hand.
Clarabella is the next one in with a car seat. She huffs as she comes in and the door closes behind her. “Have kids, they say.” She blows the hair out of her face. “It’ll be fun, they said.”
I roll my lips when I look at her and see she’s literally leaking through her silk shirt. My eyes must go big, and she looks down. “I’m like a cow,” she says, putting the car seat down with the baby still sleeping. “I swear, he cries, and it just pours out of me. The other day I just thought about him, and it was dripping everywhere.”
“Ew,” Presley states, coming in the door at the moment, “you’re leaking.” She points at her, and Clarabella just gasps.
“Really?” She looks down. “Wait, your shirt doesn’t leak milk?” She rolls her eyes. “Watch your nephew while I clean up.”
“Clean up in aisle ten.” Presley makes a joke at Clarabella’s back. She just lifts her hand high in the air and flips her the bird. “Good morning,” she greets, picking up the car seat and bringing it with her.
I turn around and start the emails. I have a whole list of questions I have to ask Sofia when she gets in. The time flies by, and when I hear the door open, I expect it to be Sofia. So when I look up with a smile, it quickly disappears when I see Stefano walking in. He’s wearing black jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt that makes his arms look bigger than they were yesterday. He pushes his aviator glasses on top of his head, the smile on his face filling it when he sees me.
“What are you doing here?” I don’t even move from my chair because I can’t. It’s as if all motions have left my body.
He holds up the brown bag I didn’t see in his hand. “I brought you lunch.”
My mouth opens to say something but nothing comes out, I just close it and then open it again. But, in that little bit of time, Clarabella comes out from the back and the front door opens and Sofia steps in.
“I just left you like ten minutes ago, so how are you here?” she huffs at Stefano.
“First off, I left you guys an hour ago,” he corrects, “and second, your shirt is all buttoned wrong.” She looks down and laughs.
She quickly fixes it and glares at him. “What do you want?”
“I brought Addison lunch,” he says, walking toward my desk and my legs finally decide it’s okay to stand.
“Interesting,” both Clarabella and Sofia say at the same time before crossing their arms over their chests.
“Nothing is interesting.” I walk around my desk toward Stefano, the smell of him making my mouth water and my stomach twinge which makes a certain part of me tighten. “Thank you,” I say, grabbing the bag from him.
“See you later.” He smirks at me and then a smile fills his face. I want to punch him in the face, but I also want to climb him like a tree, so the two parts of my brain are working at the same time.
“Yes,” I grit between clenched teeth, then bite down before I say something I shouldn’t.
He turns and puts the glasses on. “Ladies, have a great day.” He pushes the door open, and when it slams shut behind him, I close my eyes.
“Oh my God,” I hear Sofia mumble, but all I can do is shake my head.
“It’s nothing.” I avoid even looking at them before heading back to my desk.
“It’s not nothing,” Clarabella declares. “It’s lunch from Luke’s.”
“If he got her a whole combo, you know he means business,” Sofia adds.
“If he even got her a drink, he’s been thinking about her the whole day.” Clarabella looks at her, then at me. “Open the bag,” she demands of me.
I open the bag, and my eyes scan a sandwich, a bag of chips, a little something else that looks like a dessert, and a bottle of tea. “It’s a bag of chips, and I think, a dessert.”
“You’re lying,” Sofia scoffs and takes a step forward, but I close the bag before she gets too close, making them both laugh.
“It’s a phase.” I say the only thing I can say. “He just found out he has a daughter.” My hand trembles as I put the bag on my desk. “He’ll move on as soon as everything gets settled.” The words feel like acid in my mouth. He’s going to leave in a matter of time, and I’m going to have a heartbroken girl to deal with.
“He’s buying a house,” Sofia states, and just like that I’m more surprised than I was five minutes ago. “Apparently, that is a huge deal.”
“But—” I start to say, my head spinning. “But he is a city guy.” If I could bang my head on my desk, I think I would bang it over and over again. Just like they do in the cartoons.
“People can change,” Sofia reminds me, “look at me.”
“You grew up in the South,” Clarabella throws out, laughing. “Look at me, she says,” she makes fun of her.
“On a farm,” Sofia counters, throwing her hands in the air. “This is as city as it can get.” She tilts her head to the side. “Buckle up, buttercup, and welcome to the family.”
