by Shay Violet
My heart swelled, and I felt the big goofy smile creeping up, but I held it back. He could’ve called anyone else, but he chose to call me.
“You’re welcome!” Keona said brightly, much more willing to accept the compliment since she couldn’t sense the undercurrent of sexual tension between me and Matt.
I could though. I could sense it in the way his eyes lingered on me, warm and appreciative. I could feel it in his body language, always turned toward me, always a little too close to be simply platonic.
He was tired though. Not in the right frame of mind about making good decisions. I couldn’t hold it against him that this was the way he knew to express gratitude.
I just had to resist it.
“Well, it’s a school night…” I said, standing up to pass the baby back to him. “Can’t be out too late.”
“Aw,” Keona pouted, reaching up to let Addie grab onto her finger. “Be good, Addie. Feel better,” she said, kissing the baby’s tiny knuckles.
“Let me know if something else comes up,” I said before I could stop myself.
Damn it. I should be telling him to call other people, not rely on me. What the hell was wrong with me?
You like him, that stupid voice said. I wished I could glare at that bitch. I didn’t need a voice of reason right now. I knew what I was fighting against.
I knew all the hundreds of reasons I shouldn’t like him. Most of them called themselves ‘influencers’. But there were reasons beyond his womanizing ways. He was a bachelor, through and through. I doubted he’d ever even had a real relationship.
Matthew Williams was too many problems I didn’t need. Keona and I had a really good life just the two of us and I had no reason to start judging the greenness of grass growing beyond our lawn.
“See you around,” he said from the doorway as we left.
As much as I knew it should be the last time I saw him, I was fairly certain it wouldn’t be.
I was in trouble.
5
Matt
“Wow, would you look at this place?” Ryan said when he came over Friday night to pick up Addie. He and Jalisa hadn’t been over since they got back from Spring Break. Thanks to Keke’s help -- and a little from Keona, too -- I had a pretty good handle on this parenting thing. Or I was starting to at least.
It no longer felt like every day was wall-to-wall crises. It no longer felt like I was aimlessly wandering without knowing what the hell I needed to do.
I still made some mistakes, and I knew I wasn’t doing things perfectly by any means, but I felt like I was finally at the same level of cluelessness as most first-time parents, and I could live with that.
“Did you have someone come in to do all this?” Jalisa asked, taking a good look around.
“Uh… No. I did most of it. Keke just pointed out what needed to be done.”
“So now you are calling Kendra Keke?” Jalisa says with her eyebrow lifted high.
“It’s not Matt’s fuck palace anymore,” Ryan teased.
“You have no idea. The play room’s a nursery now,” I told him. Surprisingly there was no bitterness in my voice when I said it. I was initially resistant to giving up my sex-room for the baby, but then I realized that part of my life was behind me. I never planned for it to happen the way it did, but there was no denying it anymore. This baby had completely changed my life. I couldn’t imagine bringing back strange women to meet her all the time. I’d be no better than my father at that rate.
I wanted to be a better dad than he was. If I was going to do this thing, I was going to do it right.
And it sure as hell seemed like I was doing the damn thing.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you,” Ryan said.
“Me either,” I admitted. Maybe I should have been insulted by his lack of faith in me, but how could I be? Everything I’d ever done in my life agreed with him. Even I agreed with him.
“I appreciate this, you guys,” I said, settling Addie in her carrier and walking her out to Ryan’s car where Hudson waited in the backseat.
“We’re gonna have so much fun!” Hudson said as he moved over for Addie to be strapped in. I wasn’t sure I believed Ryan when he offered to take Addie for the night because Hudson wanted to get to know his new cousin. Seeing the kid interact with Addie eased some of my doubts.
It was going to be nice to have a baby-free night. It had been nearly a month since I’d had a night off, and I needed it.
“You’re heading to Ben’s?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, all the guys are going to be there. They’re bummed you won’t be.”
He laughed. “Nah, it’ll give you guys the chance to talk more crap about me.”
“Maybe,” I agreed with a sly grin. Though I had a feeling that Ryan wasn’t going to be the main subject of conversation.
The guys all knew about Addie, but we hadn’t really talked or seen each other since this whole thing started. I would be nice to hang out with my closest friends, have some beers, and unload all the shit that’s been sitting on my chest since I got that fateful call from my lawyer.
“You sure you’re going to be all right? You got the bag I packed? The number for her pediatrician? The--”
“Matt, I’ve done the baby thing before,” Ryan said, squeezing my shoulder. “And Jalisa is in charge of like fifteen of these monsters at a time--”
“CPR and first aid certified, too,” she added with a bright smile.
“We’ll be fine. Enjoy your night, come pick her up in the morning when your hangover headache goes away,” Ryan finished.
“Okay,” I said, looking at Addie, still feeling like something was wrong about this. Maybe this was just what it felt like to put so much time and energy into something and then hand it off and trust someone else to do the same. No part of this last month had been easy, so it was hard for me to accept that someone else could just pick up and do as good of a job without the same struggle.
But Ryan was right. I was probably the worst person in the world to wind up with a baby, so if I could do it, if I could keep her alive and healthy for the last month, surely he and his teacher girlfriend could manage for a night.
“You be good, okay?” I told Addie, leaning down close, loving the way her whole face lit up with a smile. I was so sure in the beginning that she hated me, that she was just crying all the time because she knew I’d be a shitty dad. But that all went away. She loved me now, almost as much as I loved her. The little squish totally stole my heart, damn her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re going to have a good time, I promise. Daddy loves you,” I added, kissing her forehead.
Yeah, I said it. I was her daddy. I still couldn’t believe it, but there was really no denying it anymore. Like Keke said, it was a lifetime appointment. Resisting it wasn’t going to change anything.
“See you tomorrow!” Jalisa said brightly, hefting the stuffed-to-the-brim diaper bag over her shoulder. I’d packed everything I could possibly think of that they might need, even one of my t-shirts for her to snuggle with in case she started missing me. It was probably overkill, but wasn’t that what new parents did?
Guess I was really taking to the role.
It still seemed unbelievable to me.
After they all left, there was this emptiness I wasn’t expecting. I thought I’d be relieved to be alone for once, to have the place all to myself again, quiet, without the constant fear of the baby choking or strangling herself or falling or breaking things.
But no. It just felt… Wrong.
Addie had wormed her way into my heart and now my life couldn’t be the same without her. I couldn’t go back to the way things were before.
I wasn’t sure I’d even want to if I could.
Ben lived about as far from downtown as one could possibly be while still being able to say they live in Miami. It wasn’t Miami-proper, rather one of the suburbs surrounding the city, an affluent area where every neighborhood was gated and every house was a
McMansion. He was another one of us who kind of wanted the family life, but unlike Ryan, he’d never managed to secure it for himself. Ryan thought it was a matter of him finding the right candidate -- not that Ryan seemed to care about that when it came to his first wife -- but I thought it was probably because Ben was too damn nice.
He was a good friend -- a great friend -- but most women saw that and decided it was better to keep him as a friend. I used to give him all kinds of advice for picking up women by treating them like crap, and now the thought of it made me feel a little sick.
Now that I had a daughter, it put all of it into perspective.
I’d break a guy’s fucking neck if he treated Addie the way I treated most of the girls I’d been with. I needed to raise her better, so she had self-respect, so she didn’t have daddy issues, so she knew she was worth more than that. I needed her to have good role models like Keke…
I pushed thoughts of her aside as I pulled up behind the black SUV I assumed was Cole’s.
I didn’t want to think about Keke tonight, or how close I’d grown to her while she helped me through this tough time. I didn’t want to think about how I wasn’t turned off by her being a mom, or how her kid was hilarious and so, so smart.
I had enough on my plate.
Tonight was about forgetting all of it for a little while.
“There he is!” Ben shouted after I walked through the door. There were no doorbells in our friendship. After high school, we practically lived together, coding in Cole’s mom’s garage, working out how we wanted our program and our business to work. Laying the foundations for what would eventually be PayEaz.
“Holy shit, he lives,” Cole said, smirking from the couch.
Ben was in the kitchen, making drinks, but the whole first floor of his house was basically open living space. Walking past the foyer and the staircase, I stepped right into the living room which had no wall between it and the kitchen, just a big granite breakfast bar that divided the two.
“I think Ryan might’ve broken his vow of silence to tell us if he’d died,” Seth was the first to gripe about Ryan, pretty much as Ryan had predicted. Seth was who he was. He had always watched our bottom line, keeping track of our accounts. Seth carried one of Ben’s drinks.
“Can’t believe that asshole couldn’t be bothered to show up tonight,” Ben muttered, as he worked the cocktail shaker. “It’s been forever since we’ve all managed to get together!”
“Yeah, except for that asshole offering to babysit for me is the only reason I’m able to be here tonight. So go easy on him,” I said, snatching a cocktail from the bar, downing it in two.
“Fatherhood not treating you well?” Seth asked, brows lifting as he watched me reach for a second glass.
“It’s just as much of a pain in the ass as I expected it to be,” I said, glossing over the part where I now loved Addie more than anything in the damn world. These were my guy friends. We didn’t talk about feelings like that.
“I still can’t believe you’re going through with the whole thing,” Cole said, shaking his head.
“Why are you sitting way over there?” Ben asked. “Come join the group, Mr. Anti-Social.”
“I’m fine over here. Until you dick wads decide you need me to school you on the pool table,” Cole answered.
Typical Cole. He may be least social of our group, but he had other attributes that made him indispensable. Cole was a coding prodigy who came up with the algorithm that made PayEaz successful. He was the backbone of our operation. I always figured he could’ve struck out on his own and kept all the money for himself if he really wanted to, but that wasn’t his style. Cole was more generous than people gave him credit for. The dark, moody vibe he gave off didn’t draw people to him or make them want to get to know him any better. Maybe left on his own he wouldn’t have ever gotten the thing off the ground. Without my charm, Ryan’s leadership, Ben’s ability to make friends with everyone, and Seth ability to analyze people and trends, PayEaz might have just been a good idea that never materialized.
We worked well as a team, all five of us, but it felt like Ryan and I were falling away from the pack these days. Like things were changing.
The business was in good shape, though. We could all sell our shares and never need to work another day in our lives, so maybe it was time to change. Maybe that was inevitable.
“You still haven’t gotten a real dining table?” Seth noted. He asked, craning his head around the kitchen to where the dining room was situated on the other side of the stairs.
“Why would I?” Ben asked. “Not like I want to spend my free time throwing dinner parties and I don’t have anyone special to eat with…”
“And you guys say I’m the depressing one,” Cole muttered, drinking his beer.
“Hey, I thought this was ‘cheer up Matt night,’ not ‘shit on Ben night,’” Ben grumbled.
“For the last time, none of us are into your gross fetishes,” Cole said. “Not even Matt is that depraved.”
“Can confirm,” I said, matching Cole’s grin. “And my days of depravity are behind me now anyway.”
“No shit?” Ben asked. “The baby’s screwing up your life that much?”
“I’m honestly surprised you didn’t leave her a ward of the state,” Seth said.
“You guys really think that little of me?” It kind of shocked me that Seth would look at a baby like something you could leave at the lost and found.
Ben frowned. “We’re just… Surprised. But I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re proud of you for stepping up.”
I didn’t feel like I deserved that. It wasn’t like I had a real choice in the matter. What kind of monster would just leave their baby in foster care? Especially considering I had the means to give her the life of a princess. Leaving her to be the pauper would be inhumanly cruel.
“I’m honestly most impressed you haven’t killed the kid yet,” Cole chimed in, coming to the kitchen for another beer. We were all drinking some cocktail Ben threw together, but Cole didn’t seem to have any interest in it.
More for me.
This get together wasn’t cheering me up like I’d hoped it would.
“Yeah, well, I’m not the total fuck-up you all expect me to be. But I have had some help,” I admitted. Reluctantly.
Ben’s brows went up. “Have you, now?”
I shrugged. “One of Ryan’s friends. She came to help while he was in Orlando with the family a couple weeks ago.”
“She?” Seth prompted. “You mean you’ve spent significant time with a woman you weren’t trying to get into bed?”
“Yeah, you dick,” I grumbled, but it was a half-truth. If I thought I had a shot in the world with Keke, I’d make a move. But I knew better. She was the kind of strong, independent woman who would never looked twice at me. She’d never fall for my stupid games or cheesy lines. She’d laugh in my face and tell me to keep dreaming if I told her the truth about how I felt about her.
And how’s that? A voice in my head asked.
I wasn’t sure.
The cocktails weren’t making my thoughts any clearer.
I just knew that I liked Keke. I liked spending time with her. I liked watching her with Addie -- and Keona too -- and I wanted more of it. I wanted more of her.
I’d never really had feelings for anyone since high school. Never let myself get close enough to someone. Hell, most of the girls I hooked up with I didn’t even know their names, let alone their favorite Chinese food or what their lotions smelled like.
“Well it’s good you’ve got some help. We’ve been worried about you,” Ben continued.
“Yeah,” I muttered, getting another refill. “She’s been my guardian angel.”
Seth let out a low whistle, and Ben’s face split into a big grin.
“What?” I asked, more than a little buzzed after three cocktails in rapid succession.
“Your guardian angel?” Ben asked, still grinning ear to ear.
“Yeah. She’s magic when it comes to Addie. I dunno how she does it…”
“Sounds like she’s pretty special to you too,” Seth prompted.
I shrugged, then after a minute, I saw where he was going with it.
“It’s not like that. She’s just a good mom and wanted to help me learn the ropes,” I don’t know if I was clarifying or digging myself deeper in the hole of their innuendo.
“Uh-huh,” Seth said, nodding with a big smile on his face.
“Sounds to me like Matty-boy has a little crush,” Cole said, slapping me on the back.
“Sounds like it’s more than ‘little,’” added Ben.
“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered, but I felt the heat rising. Even Cole was getting in on this. Maybe they were right, and I was doing a shitty job of hiding how I felt about Keke.
“I think you need to show her your gratitude, properly,” Ben said. His shit-eating grin was starting to get on my nerves.
“He means with your dick,” Cole added.
“I know what he means,” I growled. “When the hell did we start gossiping like fucking sorority sisters?”
“Uh-oh. We’ve hit a nerve,” Seth said, but he was still holding back laughter.
Fuck all these assholes. I didn’t come here to confront my feelings, I came here to forget about them. What part of that didn’t they understand?
“All right, we’ll let it go,” Ben said, holding up his hands in surrender.
Cole clapped me on the back again. “C’mon lover-boy, let’s shoot some pool.”
Thankfully, they didn’t bring up Keke again the rest of the night. I had a few more drinks, we bullshitted some, and then the talk turned towards work, something that always happened when we all got together. For the longest time, I thought it was Ryan’s influence that made it happen. He was always the one ‘in-charge’, the one in serious business mode, but this time it was Ben who showed leadership.
Guess someone had to fill in for Ryan after he stepped down.