Chapter Eight

Ian

Scott knocked on my doorjamb. “Where are you going?”

He’d caught me slipping into my jacket, trying to get to Erin’s ultrasound on time. We’d agreed to meet outside the doctor’s office since we were coming from opposite directions—her from Glenfield Academy, and me from the Loop.

“Nowhere,” I said. Good cover, Ian.

“You’re all dressed up.” Scott’s eyes narrowed. “You’re wearing a tie.” He sniffed the air. “And cologne.”

“No, I’m not.” I buttoned my coat to cover the tie, which I was definitely wearing.

Scott stepped in and shut the door. Damn. I really had to book it. I did not have time to deal with Scott’s sleuthing. I’d already dodged a phone call from that Liz girl who wanted me to mentor her and one from my mom that I’d accidentally answered. She’d said, “Hello?” And I responded, “Gottagobye!”

“I know what this is,” Scott said.

“Can we talk later?” I checked my phone—no notifications—and shoved it in my pocket. I had fifteen minutes to get over to Northwestern. Way to cut it close, Ian.

“You have a date.” Scott plucked a Hershey’s kiss from the crystal jar on my desk and painstakingly unwrapped it. This was his version of David Caruso putting on his shades.

“I—” I hesitated. But no. That was the perfect out, wasn’t it? A date. “Yes. I have a date.”

Satisfied, Scott popped the chocolate into his mouth. “Well, she’s gonna have to wait, because I need you to call Isamu. Now. Emergency.”

My shoulders slumped. “What?” Isamu was my contact at Fumetsu. Not Scott’s.

“He called today, and I picked it up because you seemed busy. He has concerns that we’re not going to do right by them, because I slipped and told him about my family stuff—” Scott ran his fingers through his hair, blinking away tears. “I’m sorry, man.”

I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out in one big whoosh. I’d spent months—months—tap dancing around Isamu, trying to convince him that we were the right VC firm to launch Fumetsu Enterprises into the stratosphere. Scott had undone all my hard work in the course of one conversation. But that wasn’t on him. He’d been trying to help. And if my relationship with Fumetsu was, in fact, that fragile… “Scott. Don’t worry. It’s fine.” I grabbed the phone and dialed. “I’ll fix it.”

Ten minutes later, having smooth-talked my way back into Isamu’s good graces, I jumped into the first cab I saw—beating out another white dude in a suit, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. Desperate times, pal. I had five minutes to get to Erin’s doctor’s office. Five minutes to get across the Loop and over to Streeterville.

I made it in eleven.

Fuck. Shit.

I was so late, Erin had already gone inside.

I dashed up the stairs and into the office, where I found Erin sitting alone in a waiting room chair. Because I was late.

Because I couldn’t even do this one simple thing right.

Like a kid about to be scolded by the principal, I trudged over to her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I got stuck on a call.”

“Lucky for you, Dana’s running late, too.” Erin had come dressed in her work clothes, which were like the toned-down version of the last gala outfit I saw her in. Under a bright pink trench coat, she wore a black A-line dress covered in a pattern of colored chalk. Rubber lobsters dangled from her ears, and she seemed completely unfazed by that fact. She was who she was, full stop. Dr. Sharpe was nothing like the kind of woman I’d meet out at a trendy River North club. In a good way. In the best way.

And I, the jerk, had left her waiting.

I sat next to her, draping my trench coat over my forearm. She flipped through a Ladies’ Home Journal. “Looking for Bundt recipes?” I asked.

“Slow cooker.” She showed me the page she’d stopped on. “Here are the top five set-it-and-forget-it chili recipes.” Her eyes crinkled as she smiled up at me.

A drowning sensation washed over me. I couldn’t make it to a simple appointment on time—an appointment that meant the world to me. Though I’d been working like a dog to keep the business afloat while Scott took a step back, the Fumetsu deal nearly slipped from my grasp today, the second I turned my back. I’d inadvertently involved myself in a very intricate high-wire act. “I’m really sorry, Erin.”

She shook her head, frowning. “It’s okay. You’re here, right?”

“I wanted to be here on time. Please know I wanted to be here on time.” Though she’d already given it to me, I nearly fell to my knees to grovel for her forgiveness. It was the least I could do.

“It’s okay, Ian. We’re good.” A younger couple on the other side of the room drowned out her words, thanks to their shouting match over how late the dude had stayed out last night. The woman argued that she had to stay home alone and pregnant with all the indigestion, while the guy could waltz in at four a.m. reeking of booze and cheap perfume.

“Yikes.” My body cringed with secondhand embarrassment. That was not a conversation to have in front of other people.

“Girl has a point.” Erin nudged my ribs. “But at least you and I will never have that fight.”

My eyes traveled to her. She still gazed across the room at the fighting couple. “Right,” I said.

“You could stay out all night, and I’d never know about it.”

I needed her to know that I wasn’t this dude across the room. I was the responsible adult human who’d knocked her up, who, damn it, tried to arrive on time for her appointment today. “I haven’t been out much since I found out about the baby,” I said. “I’ve become a homebody.”

“I never asked you to do that.” Her eyes darkened as she turned to me.

“I know… It’s just…maybe I’m maturing?” That had to be it. It wasn’t like I could keep up my bachelor-in-paradise pace forever. Though I hadn’t noticed it at the time, all the drinking and partying had taken a toll. Now that I’d started staying home more, I’d been sleeping better, eating better, feeling better.

She raised an eyebrow. “Way to go on the whole being-a-grown-up thing! You’re only forty, after all.”

We’d returned to joking, which was quickly becoming my favorite part of being around her. “Or maybe I’m having, like, sympathy nesting. Is that a thing?”

“Could be,” she said.

“I tried going out a few nights ago, but I was just like, ugh, give me Netflix and a blanket.”

Erin giggled, and the sound filled the entire room. It resonated against my bones. I silently vowed to do everything in my power to keep that laughter in my life—I’d toe the line, leave thirty minutes early for appointments, be on-call for her twenty-four-seven, whatever she needed. “If that’s maturity, then I’ve been old for fifteen years.”

“It’s not a bad life,” I said in utter honesty. Who the fuck was I?

“Not bad at all. So,” she said, “what do your friends think of the whole baby thing?”

“Oh. I haven’t told them yet.” Scott had too much going on in his own life right now to worry about mine, and, well, I couldn’t tell Tommy and not Scott. We three shared everything.

Erin’s eyes widened.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell them; I just don’t know what to say.” The hurt look on her face forced me to keep going. “I will tell them. I will. I kind of just wanted to get through today first.” I’d almost told my dad the last time I saw him, but I caved. What was I supposed to do? Tell him that maybe he was going to be a grandfather, if I could avoid fucking this up?

“Have you not told them because you’re worried you could bolt at any minute?” she asked.

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. I bet on the latter. “No…”

“Yeah.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Yeah.” That was definitely part of it.

“It’s okay,” she told me. “I get it, and I appreciate you being straight with me. We’re both going into this with our eyes wide open—honest and realistic. Like I said before, I expect nothing from you, but having you here is nice.” She flipped through Ladies’ Home Journal.

Her words ripped a hole in my heart. I was still No-Expectations Ian to her. Maybe that’s who I’d always be. “You should expect things from me,” I said. “I…want you to be able to expect things from me.”

She hit me with a wan smile. She didn’t believe me, and I couldn’t blame her.

The nurse opened the door, called us in, and set Erin up on the table in the exam room—fully clothed. No vagina probes this time. Today I’d get to see the regular old TV-type ultrasound, with the belly wand.

I took my seat near the door, in the safe spot that was clear of lube and model uteruses. “So,” I said, folding my hands in my lap.

“So.” Erin cleared her throat. “Um…now, I could’ve found this out ages ago thanks to all the tests and whatnot that I’ve had to endure thanks to my AMA—”

“Advanced Maternal Age.” I’d done my homework.

“But,” she said, hesitating, “well, where do you stand on finding out the sex of this baby?”

My heart sped up. “Oh.” Since I could no doubt run the table on a Jeopardy! category about human gestation, I knew that the twenty-week ultrasound was usually when people found out what they were going to have, if they wanted to know ahead of time. I’ve always been on Team Find Out. But—“I don’t know,” I said. “What do you think?” Deferring to the mother. Always a smart play.

“I’d kind of like to have something to call the kid.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “You have names on your list?”

“I want to hear yours first. If you have them.”

I smelled a trap. “You want to hear mine first?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Lay them on me.”

I’d thought about names a lot, actually, while waiting for a flight at the airport, when noticing my barista’s nametag at the coffee shop, while falling asleep alone at night. I’d had a lot of time to think lately. “Well, as far as girls’ names go, I’ve been having a hard time deciding what to do.”

“As I assumed you would.” Erin’s eyes twinkled. “Do we have to go old school, like popular names from the Stone Age, to find the name of a woman you haven’t been with?”

“Hey!” I clutched my heart, faux-wounded as my cheeks flushed in embarrassment. That hadn’t even occurred to me, because there was really only one girls’ name that made sense. Once it popped into my head, I called off the search. “No. The thing is, I spent a lot of time with my dad’s mom growing up and I’d love to name the baby after her. But her name was Lois. Can we name a baby Lois, though? I mean…Lois Lane…”

“There are worse things to be called than Lois Lane.” Erin’s eyes traveled to the ceiling. “Lois,” she repeated. “Lois…I like it. And I haven’t had any jackass students with that name, either. Always a concern.”

“Perfect.” I prepared to drop the bigger bombshell on her. “But I know the boy’s name for sure.”

“You do?” She turned her head toward me.

I nodded. Please say yes. She had to say yes.

“Me, too.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Uh-oh.” Well, I’d lose this battle for sure. She was the mom, the one hauling this kid around for nine months. If she wanted to name him Rutherford, we’d name him Rutherford. Maybe we’d use my pick as the middle name.

“On three?” she said.

“Okay.” I braced myself for the worst. “On three. One…two…three…”

We both blurted out, “James,” and immediately started laughing.

“It’s my dad’s name.” My body flooded with relief. Our kid would not be named Rutherford.

“Mine, too.”

“Wow. I guess we’re decided.” I stood, about to run over and hug her or something, maybe just give her a fist bump, but Dr. Dana opened the door before I could get to Erin, She strolled in wielding an iPad. “How’s it going, E?” Dana glanced up from her tablet and startled. “Oh, Ian. Good to see you again.” She raised an eyebrow at Erin.

“Ian’s taking his baby daddy job very seriously.” Erin patted her stomach.

“I am,” I said. “I’ve even become a sympathy couch potato.”

Erin grinned at me. Over the past two weeks, we’d become something resembling a team. A team that still needed a lot of work, granted, but still. A team.

Dana checked the chart on her tablet. “So far, so good. Tests are all normal. You’re feeling fine?”

Erin nodded.

“Well, let’s get a look at this baby.” She lowered the table so Erin was lying down.

Erin motioned for me to come over. I stood at her side, hands clutched behind my back, as Dana slicked the wand over Erin’s abdomen.

“This kid looks good,” Dana said.

I couldn’t tell a foot from the kid’s nose. Really, from what I could tell, the baby looked like Mr. Burns. I readjusted my expectations for this child accordingly.

Dana, eyes on the screen, asked, “Do you want to know the sex?”

I caught Erin’s eye. We hadn’t landed on a decision. I shrugged. “It’s up to you.” Though I definitely did want to know, I’d defer to her. There was something kind of fun and Christmas-morning-esque about not knowing, sure, but I never avoided instant gratification.

Erin smiled nervously. “Let’s do it.”

My heart racing, I turned to Dana. “Let’s do it.” This was a big moment, especially now that Erin and I had settled on names. We’d find out today if we were having a “Lois” or a “James.” Ever since I’d found out about Erin’s pregnancy, I’d been thinking of this kid as an amorphous blob. Finding out its sex would be the first concrete bit of information we’d get.

“Well.” Dana pointed to something on screen. I nodded, pretending I totally knew what was going on and that the splotch did not look like a slice of deep dish pizza. “It’s a boy!”

A boy. “James,” I blurted. I grabbed Erin’s hand and squeezed. She didn’t pull away. She actually squeezed back. An unwelcome tear escaped my eye and I wiped it away quickly, before Erin or Dr. Dana could see. A boy. I was having a son. We were. Erin and I were going to have a son. All these emotions swirled through me—excitement, dread, joy, terror. “Cool,” I said. “Cool, cool, cool.” I dropped Erin’s hand and shrugged, like all of this was the opposite of a big deal.

…

Erin

As soon as my feet hit the pavement outside the doctor’s office, I started bawling. I couldn’t control it. I’d bottled up my emotions through the ultrasound, and now they erupted from my body—through my eyes and nose. I devolved into a blubbering mess.

Ian, who’d been a few paces ahead of me, spun around. “Are you okay?” He dashed back toward the office building, to where I’d hunched over, hands on knees, crying. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head as I gathered my wits. “I’m okay.” From my pocket, I extracted a pink handkerchief that had probably been in there since February and blew my nose. So classy. So chic. “Really. I’m fine.” I focused my leaky eyes on Ian. “It’s just…today was a lot.”

He furrowed his brow and nodded. “A lot of good.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “A lot of good. But also just a lot.” I opened my arms to show him how much.

“We’re having a James.” Ian smiled.

And that nearly set off my waterworks again. I couldn’t put my finger on why—why I was crying about having a boy, why I was getting so emotional over Ian being there. Of course he was there. He was the kid’s father. He was supposed to be there. Being there was the bare minimum. “Yeah.” I started walking down the block, just for something to do. “It’s awesome we’re having a James. He almost feels real now.”

Ian jogged to catch up with me. “Do you ever feel like he’s a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle we’re never going to complete?”

I spun around. Now I grinned through my tears. I could picture it—this pile of puzzle pieces, scattered across the kitchen table. “That’s the perfect way to put it.” I touched my midsection. “He’s like a tiny stranger.”

“And today we found the corner pieces. He’s going to be a boy.”

“Well.” Hand on hip, I launched into my righteous-principal-lecture mode. “They’re going to be assigned male at birth, but whether or not they identify as male is yet to be determined.”

“True.” Ian was practically laughing at me now, which I found both frustrating and cute. How dare he laugh at me for making a salient point and look so adorable doing it! “But can we at least agree there’s a fairly good chance that he’s going to end up being a dude? Statistically.”

“I suppose that’s fair.” I drew in a deep breath and exhaled.

“What else?” he asked.

“What else?”

He mimicked my exaggerated sigh. “There’s something else going on.” He made a come on sign with his arms. “Give it to me. I’m here to listen.”

Where to even begin? My emotions had jumbled into such a mess I could hardly make sense of them. “Okay, well, I’ve been thinking about that couple in the waiting room and how she was all worried about him coming home late at night. I’m never going to have to worry about you like that.” A sob escaped my mouth again. WTF? Come on, hormones, give me a break.

“Do you want to worry about my whereabouts?” Ian asked.

I dug my fingernails into my palm to stop the flow of tears. “But shouldn’t I? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to want to do? You’re my kid’s father.”

Ian stepped closer and massaged my shoulders with his big, strong hands. I felt small whenever I was around him. Tiny, even. Petite. Everything about Ian was so large and imposing, in a good way. He made me feel safe. None of my previous boyfriends had ever made me feel that way before—not that I wanted Ian to be my boyfriend or anything—but it was nice for once not to be the one who’d probably have to step up and kill a spider. “What you and I have is better than what those people in the waiting room have,” he said.

“How so?”

“We have no reason to lie to each other. We don’t have to play the stupid relationship games. From day one, you and I have practiced brutal honesty.” His eyes twinkled.

My emotions had shifted wildly from despair to desire, thanks to his powerful hands massaging my shoulders. If there was one thing the couple in the waiting room had that we didn’t, it was easy access to sex. That was built into the relationship, but Ian and I… I released an involuntary moan, as he hit just the right spot on my neck.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Much.” I gazed up at him as he stared down at me with those big chocolate eyes under the glasses and the messy hair. This man was my sexuality. I was an Ian Donovan-sexual. “We can’t have sex again.”

He backed off, holding his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t—”

“I know.” I touched the back of my neck where his hands just left. “I was telling myself as much as I was telling you. I…made a bet?”

His eyes narrowed into a question.

My shoulders slumped. “I made a bet with Nat that I’d follow your rules for a year—no sleepovers, no second times, no strings.”

His eyes bugged. “But we—Valentine’s Day.”

“Our first time didn’t count for the contest, since my thing with Nat came after the fact.” I blushed at the word “came.”

He furrowed his brow. “And what happens if you break the rules?”

“I have to scrounge up money for a ridiculous SMARTboard she ‘needs’ for her classroom.”

Ian laughed at me, and, yeah, maybe it was kind of ridiculous, a grown woman making bets with her friends about her love life. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“To prove I can.” I sighed. “To break old habits. I have a tendency to pick guys who don’t deserve me, and I’m breaking the cycle. I’m going to stay single until I meet someone who’s worth it. Who’s worth me.”

Ian gazed past me toward the street. “I get it,” he said. “I get the whole wanting a reset thing. You’re not the only one with baggage.”

“You have baggage? Ian Donovan? King of No Strings?”

“Heh,” he said. “I’m the king of all baggage. My mom left when I was eleven. She moved to Hawaii with her boyfriend, Blake, abandoning me and my dad. I worry I’m going to end up like her. That’s why I threw myself into work—I chose that over rolling the dice with emotional entanglements.”

“Relationships are not for us,” I said.

He looked deep into my eyes. “I’d only disappoint you.”

“And I’d grow so aloof that you’d start to think I didn’t care.”

“We’re doing the right thing,” he said. “Open and honest communication, friendship, and respect.”

I couldn’t hide my grin at the bizarre notion that I now had a “friend” who looked like Ian Donovan.

He pulled out his phone. “I’m starved. Want to get food?”

“Food? You and me together? That’s not… I’m not hungry.” And my stomach growled. Damn it, baby. Read the room.

Ian looked pointedly at my growing gut.

I wrapped my arms around my midsection. “Why?”

“Why do I want to get food?”

“Oh. It’s just…” What were we doing here? “Dining together…”

“Too much?” he said.

“Too date-like?” I asked.

“You’re saying we can screw in a restroom, but we can’t watch each other eat soup?” And his stupid eyes twinkled again.

When he put it that way… “Well,” I said, trying to rationalize this in my head. “I suppose it’s not the worst idea for us to get to know more about each other—in the name of friendship, respect, and open communication.”

“Right, like when James starts talking about his Aunt Wendy, I’ll have a frame of reference. That’s all.”

That was all. This conversation would not amount to some big turning point in our non-relationship. It was Ian, trying to get to know his kid’s mom a little better. He hadn’t been opening a door. He didn’t want to change what we had. He was attempting to enhance our friendship, a wee little bit. That I could handle. “Well, first of all, there’s no Aunt Wendy, but there is an Aunt Katie. You’ve met her. At the doctor’s office, right before you walked out on me and your son.” I winked with a grin.

Our car pulled up to the curb, and Ian held the door open for me. “See? That’s what I’m talking about.”

…

Ian

“Dessert for the lovely couple.” The waiter set a piping hot vessel of brioche bread pudding in the center of our table. “On the house.”

“Oh, we’re not—” I started to say.

Erin waved me off. “Hush, Ian. If it gets us free dessert, we can pretend we’ve been married for twenty-five years.”

“You’re saying we got married at fifteen?” I grinned, and she tucked right into the steamy pudding, licking whipped cream and caramel from her spoon.

“You want some?” she asked.

I shook my head, sipping my espresso. Despite the jolt of caffeine, a calm washed over me. “This was fun,” I said. “Really fun.”

She set her spoon down and smiled at me. “It was.”

I raised my arms in victory. “We can totally eat dinner together and have it not be weird!” “Not weird” was an understatement. This meal had lasted three hours, but had flown by in a blur of steak and potatoes and chats about movies and TV and Glenfield Academy. Erin and I had everything to talk about. I couldn’t imagine ever getting sick of being around her, which was great because, for the next eighteen years, we’d be co-parenting. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but hanging out with you reminds me of hanging out with my best friends, Scott and Tommy.”

Erin raised an eyebrow. “Thanks?” She picked up her spoon again and lifted a scoop of ice cream to her lips, which she licked.

My body temperature rose, a vastly different response than the one I’d have around Scott or Tommy. She caught me staring at her, so I shook my head and averted my eyes. “I just mean because I feel so comfortable around you.” I set my cup down and leaned across the table. “But you look better in a dress.” I winked.

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “But I’d be up for doing this again, you know, if you want to.”

“I do want to,” I answered automatically.

Erin and I said goodbye on the curb of Steak 48. She ordered a Lyft up to Ravenswood, and I grabbed one to my condo on Lake Shore Drive. When her car pulled up, the two of us stared at each other. We hadn’t touched all day, except for when she grabbed my hand in the ultrasound room and when I kneaded her shoulders right before she told me we weren’t going to have sex again. Right now, saying goodbye, would be a perfectly reasonable time to hug, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cross even that small line. I’d had a lovely night with Erin in the friend zone. For the good of our child and our relationship, we had to keep it there. I held up my hand and she slapped it. I still got a charge from that brief moment of contact.

Erin was hot. She was smart and funny and cool, and keeping her in my life was of paramount importance. Physical distance was the key to us making this work.

She seemed to agree.

When I got home that night, a wave of empty sadness swept over me, though I normally loved being alone in my condo. I turned on all the lights and asked Alexa to play some Pearl Jam. I changed the screen on my projection window from “the woods” to clear glass. I gazed down at the lake and Lake Shore. Cars below me zoomed up and down the drive, headed to meet people and do things while I sat alone in my condo. I pulled out my phone and sent Scott a text. “What are you up to?”

In a matter of seconds, my phone rang.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re calling me.” He never called me.

“I am. I have a favor to ask.”

My ribs squeezed my chest as my schedule and to-do list popped into my head. I was already dry-drowning under the weight of my obligations—and here was Scott to give me another one.

“I hate, hate, hate to do this to you.”

I mentally prepared for whatever this was. I’d been bemoaning my loneliness only a second ago. Maybe another commitment would remedy that. “Dude,” I said. “I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

“You know I appreciate it. I wouldn’t ask unless it was an absolute emergency.”

“Stop stalling, Scott.” I’d already mentally started filling in my calendar.

“Before all this stuff with Mom, I agreed to chair the finance committee for this year’s Glenfield Gala.”

I groaned. The Glenfield Gala. Scott was about to rope me into a school fund-raiser, notoriously run inefficiently by people who had no idea what they were doing. Yippee. Good times.

“After Jennifer’s whole”—Scott made a sniff-sniff sound over the phone—“getting arrested thing, I figured they’d canceled the event or whatever, but the new chair called me tonight. They want to set up meetings, and I just…can’t. I cannot deal with sitting in a room with disorganized people right now.”

Join the club, bud. I’d been pulling double duty on the Tokyo deal for months, all while keeping tabs on every other business in my portfolio. Plus, I was the only one in our office traveling anywhere right now. If we needed a presence in Paris or Pittsburgh or Prague, I was the one who had to hop on a plane. And, of course, there was Erin and the baby, and my dad, and my own health and well-being, which had really taken a backseat lately…

“What about Tommy?” I said. “Isn’t this more his thing?”

“He promised Susie no non-work-related extracurricular activities. She has him on lockdown.”

I needed someone to put me on lockdown.

“If this had come up any other week, I probably would’ve said yes. But Mom’s been having a terrible time with the treatment, and I can’t leave her alone. She has no one else.” He paused, and a small sob escaped. “I have no one else.”

“Scott, dude, you have me.” I said it without hesitation, without concern for my own life and schedule, without thinking about Erin or the baby. My issues were inconsequential now. Scott needed me, and so did his mom. I couldn’t even tell him about the baby right now either. What a fucking sob story that would be—“Boo-hoo, Scott. I’m so distracted by the happy news that I’m going to be a father.” Sick mom trumped fetus every single time.

The one positive about chairing the Gala: I’d get to see Erin once in a while, which both elated and relieved me. Seeing her made me happy, and it also felt like I’d be checking off two boxes with every meeting. Work on the fund-raiser? Check. Visit Erin? Check.

Man, I was such a prince.

“I really appreciate this,” Scott said.

“Heck, anything for Glenfield Academy, right?”

“‘Hail to alma mater,’” Scott sang into the phone.

“By the way.” I flipped my picture window back to the video screen, this time projecting a secluded Caribbean beach into my condo. “Who took over for Jennifer?”

“Oh, that,” Scott said. “Well, um…remember you already said yes. No backsies.”

My head throbbed. I should’ve gotten this info upfront. Paul Pfister had been angling for Jennifer’s position for years. I would not survive being bossed around by his pretentious ass for the next several months. “Just spit it out, Scott.”

“The new head of the fund-raising committee is Maria Minnesota.” Game-show host voice. “Yay!”

Super. My ex-fling, current baby mama, and I would all be working together on this fund-raiser. It sounded like the start of a really bad joke.