Wildest Dreams: Chapter 18

Dylan_loves_Rhyland4ever liked your reel.

Dylan_loves_Rhyland4ever commented: omg you look so much better my love! The green hue is almost gone. The doxycycline is working!!

Rhyland Coltridge commented: Can’t believe you’re awake, babe. Thought you’d sleep off the hangover after that last binge.

Dylan_loves_Rhyland4ever commented: Burn in hell <3 <3 <3

Rhyland Coltridge commented: Ladies first <3 <3 <3

Dylan_loves_Rhyland4ever commented: Aw I love you so much I could strangle you.

Rhyland Coltridge commented: I want you so much I could suffocate you.

Tate Blackthorn commented: Wishing both sides success.

I’d always had mommy issues.

I once had a therapist who confirmed as much. Abandonment issues were secondary to my messed-up relationship with women, especially mothers.

Dylan tapped into my mommy issues like an erect dick on a perfect-peach ass. Everything about her triggered me. She was a hands-on, loving, fiercely protective mother. A constant reminder of what I didn’t have growing up.

I’d always had a fantastic talent for destroying any constructive relationship I had with women. That therapist, for instance? I ended up fucking and ghosting her—a punishment in my screwed-up head for making me open up to her about my vulnerabilities. And I could feel myself teetering on the edge of doing something really goddamn stupid with Dylan. I didn’t need her chef brother to know this was a recipe for disaster. All I needed was to feel in danger of opening up, of knocking down a wall or two, and I went into full-blown destruction mode.

And Dylan was dragging me out of my comfort zone kicking and screaming. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Now here I was, tucked in my McLaren, my Tom Ford shades covering my eyes, waiting for Dylan and Gravity to come downstairs. I glanced at my Rolex. The one I was definitely pawning this week to come up with the money for our deal. 10:45 a.m. She was late.

Fuck it. Let her get there in Jimmy.

I kicked the car into drive, about to slide out of my double-parked spot. Just as the McLaren started moving, Dylan and her daughter emerged from the building door.

And my entire fucking existence buckled at the sight of her.

She looked so good I choked on my tongue. I always knew she was a bombshell, but now, in broad daylight, the sun playing on her raven hair and her smooth, tanned skin, her honeyed glow burning the edges of her frame, I knew I had a problem.

A ten-and-a-half-inch problem.

One that threatened to poke my steering wheel and activate the horn.

She was wearing a floral yellow chiffon dress with a big white bow in her long hair. Gravity wore a tiny, identical version of the dress, and they were both sporting a pair of Mary Janes. God, I couldn’t fucking look away. The weight of my want for Dylan was pressing against my sternum, threatening to break my ribs clean.

She opened the back door, where Gravity’s seat was already installed, and buckled her in. I stared at Dylan’s cleavage through the rearview mirror, feeling my cock thumping against my thigh.

Then she entered the passenger seat next to me, the smile she offered her daughter melting into a scowl. “I’d say I’m sorry for being late, but I’m not. How’s that chlamydia medicine working?”

“Fantastic. Your drinking problem?”

“Under control.”

We had plenty of room to grow in the “playing pretend” department. I’d never been anything short of the perfect fake boyfriend. But then she’d come along and ruined a decade-long streak.

“You’re going to need to behave yourself there,” I warned. “The manager knows Marshall.”

“Oh, I’ll be a dream.”

I floored it. This newfound revelation that her beauty affected me in a deeper way than “I want to screw her badly” made my stomach churn. I mean, I got the flutters out there for a second. Hopefully it was just the new protein shake I’d tried that morning. Kieran had warned me that shit was potent.

“Hi, Uncle Rhyrand,” Gravity greeted sleepily.

“Hey, little stinker.”

“She slept awful last night. Misses her granny.” Dylan sighed, twisting her upper body backward to check on her. “My mom’s coming next week to give her some TLC. Honey, why don’t you take a nap while we drive?”

“I’m not tire—” Gravity started, but the protest turned into a snore midway. A second later, her head lolled from her seat, mouth hanging open as she napped.

Dylan tapped her knee rhythmically, glancing at me.

“What do you want?” I grumbled.

“A nicer fake fiancé,” she shot back.

“Download App-date. You’ll enjoy the variety.”

“Of what? AI people who don’t exist?” she taunted.

“Being in a relationship with something unreal should be familiar to you, judging by your vibrator collection,” I snapped back.

“You went through my stuff?” she raged.

“I was looking for tweezers to remove a thorn in Gravity’s palm. Most women I know keep vibrators in a nightstand drawer, not their bathrooms.”

That shut her up. For all of five seconds.

“Actually, I plan on subscribing to your site once you launch,” she piped up again, settling into her seat like a regal cat. “I’m going to be your first customer.”

I’m going to ban every male from the app to ensure you don’t match with anyone.

See, this was exactly the kind of risky train of thought I should be avoiding, especially after my intervention with Tucker.

Maybe if I didn’t respond to her, she’d get the hint.

“Have I done something to upset you?” She eyed me in confusion.

You exist. That’s enough to rile me up.

“Other than making me sell this baby so I could pay you for the pleasure of babysitting your brat all week?” I flashed her my Rolex. “Nope. You’re a real fucking delight.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. I immediately regretted both being a dick and indicating I couldn’t afford our arrangement. She was about to say something when my phone started dancing in the center console between us with an incoming call. The screen said Mom.

She picked it up. “Should I answer that for you?”

“No!” I roared, so loud Gravity jolted behind us before falling back to sleep. Shit. What was wrong with me? “I’ll get back to her later.”

She put my phone back down, biting on her lower lip. “Look, I just made up a number. If ten K is too much…”

“It’s not.”

She needed the money more than I needed fifteen designer watches. And then, because for some reason I hated being an asshole to her, I added, “Look, just fulfill your end of the bargain to your best ability. If this thing with Bruce takes off, I’m going to make four hundred million bucks overnight and be on the fast track to becoming a billionaire. He’s the best tech entrepreneur out there. His corporation is the mother company of all the big apps. Angry Turds, Verified Villains, Music Play, Telefind.”

“Is this why you’re letting him play you like a hockey puck?”

“I’m not—” I snapped my mouth shut, working my jaw back and forth angrily. “Sometimes you need to be smart, not right. Finding people who’ll throw money at a good idea is easy. Finding people who can help you take that idea to the next level? Now that’s hard. The promotion Bruce’d do in his own channels alone would garner tens of millions of downloads.”

“How soon do you need this initial sum in your bank account?” She eyed me curiously.

“Yesterday,” I admitted, feeling my ears go pink. “I burned through whatever money I made in the past few years, but I can sell some shit and stay afloat for a bit.”

My phone came to life again. This time, it was my dad’s name on-screen. What kind of fuckery had my good-for-nothing parents gotten themselves into now? A pyramid scheme? Insurance fraud? Had they gotten arrested for indecent exposure? I wasn’t going to bail them out again—not after the last time they were caught bumping uglies on a public beach.

Dylan shot me an unsure glance. “Could be an emergency.”

“That’s what 911 is for.” I ran a hand over my hair.

She stared at me, stunned. As far as she knew, my parents were great. My dad made a decent living. Mom was a homemaker. Truthfully, she made jack shit outside her outrageous demands. Still, my parents were prominent Staindrop citizens. They showed up to every event, participated in the Fourth of July pie contest. They were that loveydovey couple you knew would still hold hands well into their eighties.

Too bad they never bothered holding my hand.

Or, you know, showing up to my graduation. Which one, are you asking? Well, all of them.

“Okay. We’re going to need to unpack this like it’s an overflowing suitcase after a Thailand trip where you got to buy all the knockoffs.” She circled a finger around my face.

“Blasphemy,” I protested. “My fake fiancée wouldn’t be caught dead with a knockoff bag.”

“Yes, because she’ll be living happily ever after with her full bank account and her fifty-buck Louis Vuitton bag. Now, tell me, what’s wrong with your parents?”

“The better question would be what’s not?” I huffed. “But it’s none of your concern.”

“Everything is my concern,” she countered. “The more we know about each other, the better we can pretend we’re a couple in Texas.”

She wasn’t wrong. Come to think of it, she was rarely wrong. I wasn’t happy with her being both hot and whip-smart. Dangerous combo.

“In a nutshell, they were too busy screwing and courting each other to take care of me. I’m talking full-blown weekends away together by the time I was nine or ten. I’d Home Alone it like a pro, pretending there were other people inside the house, because I was shit-scared of imaginary burglars coming in. Date nights without proper care before I was fully potty-trained. When I was fourteen, my dad decided to teach me his trade—not because he took any kind of interest in me but because he wanted me to do his job while he and my mom took days off together. I was their little servant.” My lips curled into a sneer at the memory. Glass half-full? Taking a trip down memory lane wilted my dick to a manageable half-mast. Plus, it reminded me why I could never, ever hit on Row’s baby sister. Or anyone else, for that matter. Why love was not only a distraction but a self-detonating device used to forget yourself and people around you.

My parents’ so-called love was my demise.

Dylan stared at me in shock. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” I clutched the steering wheel harder. “Your mom used to send me home with sandwiches because she got tired of seeing my poking ribs.”

My cheeks flushed as I remembered the day Zeta saw me playing shirtless with Row in their backyard, my ribs poking out, and decided to take it upon herself to feed me. “The first home-cooked meal I ever had that I didn’t have to make myself was at your place. My last one too, come to think of it.” I grabbed the green stick from my Starbucks coffee, rolling it across my mouth like a toothpick.

“Wow. I had no idea, Rhy.”

“About my shitty childhood? Yeah, I didn’t exactly advertise that shit.”

“Mine wasn’t the best either.” She scratched an old scab on her knee distractedly. “My dad was a raging alcoholic who took his anger out on Mama and Row.”

“Figured as much,” I said quietly. Row and I never talked about it. I didn’t want to embarrass him by bringing it up, and he’d never felt the need to discuss it, but I’d seen the welts. The bruises. “Still. Better a drunk dad and a great mom than two assholes who don’t give a shit about your existence,” I pointed out.

“I mean, if we’re going to make it a competition…” She screwed her mouth sideways adorably. “My dad called me Dylan to spite my mom.”

“Say what now?” I laughed.

“Yup. He knew she loved classic, gender-appropriate names like Ambrose. She named Row without consulting him, because he wanted to call Row ‘Slater.’ Filled in the paperwork before he could have a say. So he chose the most vindictive name he could think of for a girl.” Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Dylan is hardly a classic for a girl. My whole existence is a fuck-you to my mom when you think about it.”

“That is an impressive level of pettiness.” I took a right turn toward the leafy Carnegie Hill neighborhood of the daycare. “My mother once forgot to pick me up from the hospital.”

She gasped. “No!”

“Yup.” I popped the p. “I was undergoing surgery for my leg. Got a direct blow to the knee during soccer from Kieran. When she finally showed up—after I had to borrow a nurse’s phone to call her—she forgot my date of birth when she tried to discharge me and had zero paperwork to prove she was my mom. Police got involved. The staff was distraught on my behalf. It was the first time I realized there was something inherently fucked-up about my family. Child Protective Services got into the picture. It was a mess.”

“Okay, fine. You win.”

I bowed my head with flourish. “Thank you.”

“Is that why you don’t want children?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Because you saw firsthand that not everyone is equipped to become a parent.”

“Among other things.” I was opening up to her more than I intended to, but it didn’t feel weird or forced. Of course, there was always a chance I’d mess it all up like I did with my ex-therapist. “I also know I’m probably as selfish as they are, and I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s life. I had a vasectomy when I was eighteen.”

She clutched her heart. “You’re kidding me.”

I shrugged. “Condoms break. My resolve doesn’t. I don’t want children.”

“That you don’t want them I understand, but why are you so repulsed by them?” she insisted. “Grav is an objectively cute kid. Say otherwise, and I’ll put you back at the hospital. And this time, your mom won’t help.”

Offering her a lenient smirk, I explained, “There’s no reason to long for things you’ll never have. It’s better if I stay away from kids altogether.” I was pretty at peace with that. Kids seemed like a lot of work without much return on investment.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, but in the spirit of full transparency, I tend to lie,” I admitted.

“You literally told me lies are your hard limit.” Dylan looked floored.

“Hey, I never claimed not to be a hypocrite,” I said unapologetically. “Lying is a knee-jerk reaction from working in customer service with highly sensitive clients.”

I was too used to telling not-pretty women they were pretty, untalented heiresses they were talented, and unlovable brats that love was just around the corner.

“Did you really never have a thing for me?” She cleared her throat. “Because I had a thing for you. Like, hard.”

“I didn’t,” I told her.

But I do now, I thought. And while manageable, it is extremely inconvenient.

Even that wasn’t the whole truth. She’d always been my biggest temptation. Sometimes I wondered if God created her just to make the only healthy relationship in my life—my friendship with Row—complicated, just to fucking spite me.

I found a parking spot right in front of the daycare and slid into it. The Broadway building boasted white columns, large arched windows, and two sets of bulletproof glass doors.

Grav was still asleep, so I unbuckled her and flung her over my chest, holding her as we stepped inside.

Dylan reddened. “I can do it.”

“And block the view to your rack?” I sneered. “Yeah, I don’t think so. It’s the only thing keeping me going at this point.”

We walked inside, where we were greeted by the bubbliest woman on earth—a redheaded fiftysomething in a pastel cardigan who introduced herself as Cherrie. “With an I-E, not Y!” She laughed at her own specificity.

Don’t worry. I don’t plan on writing you any letters.

She was the manager and good friends with Bruce’s wife back in college, so I had to play nice. “It’s an absolute pleasure to be here.” I squeezed her hand warmly. “Thank you for giving us this tour. We’ve heard such great things about this school.”

“Aww, thank you. And look at Daddy here, holding his sleepy girl.” Cherrie clapped her hands, resting her cheek over them dreamily.

Dylan looked scandalized by Cherrie’s words. “Oh, he is not the fath—”

I shot out my hand, lacing my fingers through hers and giving her a warning squeeze. “Sorry, my fiancée is a little intoxicated.”

Hey, might as well keep this lie going since I’d already spread it online.

Cherrie blinked fast. “It’s…eleven thirty in the morning?”

“Mimosa brunch. You don’t choose who you fall in love with.” I sighed.

I glanced around. The place looked like toddler heaven, with wooden shelves, toys and blocks, straw baskets laden with sensory toys, lots of drawings and art projects, and giant playground equipment.

“He’s just joking,” Dylan reassured in her best “me? I’m not mad at all” tone, digging her fingernails into my skin. “The truth is my fiancé is not Gravity’s real dad.” Pause. “I cheated on him with his best friend.” She shot me a satisfied smirk.

“That is true,” I said levelly. “My best friend is her older brother, by the way.”

Check. Mate.

Dylan paled. So did Cherrie. I didn’t know when exactly my need to out-crazy Dylan had overcome my need to secure Marshall’s investment, but I needed to turn this ship around quickly.

“Obviously”—I cleared my throat—”we’re just kidding. Grav isn’t biologically mine, but she is my daughter in every sense of the word. And we’re both on edge here, because the decision to enroll her in daycare is not an easy one. Up until now, she was watched by her grandmother and her mother, so this is all new territory for us.”

The relief on Cherrie’s face was immediate. “That is completely understandable. The adjustment period will be hard on everyone in the household. Well…why don’t I show you around?” She clapped her hands, pasting on a ridiculously happy face.

Gravity chose that moment to stir awake in my arms. She blinked, drowsy eyes taking in her surroundings, before realizing she was somewhere fun and wiggling out of my embrace.

“Slides!” she exclaimed, climbing onto a wooden ladder and sliding off a slide backward on her tummy.

Cherrie parked her chin over her curled fists, grinning bigger. “Oh, how wholesome.”

Wholesome, my ass. She didn’t know the side of Gravity I was privy to—the one that could eat seven extra-large pancakes and sing “Firework” in its entirety through a burp.

Cherrie gave us a tour of the facilities while Gravity trailed behind us, stopping every now and then to take advantage of the toys and the indoor playground. I kept Dylan’s hand clasped in mine. Both our palms were getting a little sweaty, but neither of us withdrew. It was a battle of wills, who would blink first, and I was determined to die glued to this woman’s hand to prove my point.

“Here is our art room, and there’s our splash pad and our indoor gymnastics. We offer dance, karate, yoga, Spanish, and art classes, included in the price.”

“This is great. She speaks some Italian, and we’ve been working on art too.” Dylan sounded breathless.

“It seems your daughter has taken a liking to our preschool, Miss Casablancas,” Cherrie observed when Gravity decided to show off her monkey-bar skills. “This is usually a good indication that a child is ready for school.”

“Honey, isn’t that amazing?” I brushed my lips over Dylan’s temple. The subtext was: “I win. I was right. She does need this. Eat a dick. Preferably mine.” I felt her stiffen at the gesture before forcing herself to relax.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Best news ever.”

The more Cherrie showed us around, the more it was obvious this place made Disney World look like Rikers Island.

The school was a goddamn theme park. The staff were enthusiastic and kind. Gravity jumped into one of the teaching assistant’s arms without a care in the world when the assistant offered her an applesauce pouch and a sticker.

I could tell Dylan was beginning to warm up to the idea when she asked Cherrie, “Can we do this part-time? Like, maybe three times a week to start with, so as not to overwhelm her?”

And you.

It was fascinating to me to watch a parent actually want to spend time with their kid. Mine had sent me by foot to knock on people’s doors for spontaneous playdates when I was as little as five just to get rid of me.

“Certainly, we can.” Cherrie nodded, frowning at an iPad in her hand. “Or, I should clarify, we normally can’t, since we’re at full capacity and committed to our current clientele, who always reenroll, but Jolene Marshall is my sorority pal, and she asked for this favor. I understand Daddy Rhyland here spoke to Bruce about you wanting to go back to school?” Cherrie smiled.

Dylan shot me a death glare. Completely off-topic, but I was willing to pawn my other Rolex and a kidney just to hear her call me Daddy Rhyland.

“I don’t want you to feel deceived,” Dylan answered Cherrie, her eyes still firing poisonous switchblades at me, “so I think you should know I’m not planning to enroll in college in the immediate future. It’s just a thought.”

“That’s all right.” Cherrie patted Dylan’s arms, and that was when I realized we were still holding hands thirty minutes into this thing and that I wasn’t hating it at all. “I’d be happy to accommodate you either way. Any friend of the Marshalls is a friend of mine.”

Dylan turned to Cherrie. “Okay. What’s the damage?”

Cherrie slid her iPad pen over the screen. “For three times a week, nine a.m. drop-off and two thirty p.m. pickup, you are looking at twenty-two hundred dollars a month. That includes a hot lunch, snacks, and three sets of school uniforms a year.”

Dylan paled, and her jaw went slack. Yeah. This was…substantial as fuck. Welcome to the Upper East Side.

I got that she didn’t want Row to pay her way. I did. I even appreciated that. But couldn’t she suck it up and have him pick up the check while she studied for her future? This kind of money didn’t even register to Row. He probably paid more per month for his fucking white truffle honey habit.

“That won’t be a problem,” I drawled.

“That might be a problem.” Dylan shook off my touch, finally breaking our contact, and I hated that I already missed it—and hated even more that she wiped our joined sweat from her palm off on her dress. “I’ll need to look into my finances. Can I have a day or two?”

“You can even have a week or three.” Cherrie smiled at her with the infinite warmth of a mother who knew the struggles of expensive childcare. “I will need to know by the end of next month, though. Before summer camp begins.”

“That’s plenty of time,” Dylan said. “Thank you.”

The drive back to our apartment building was drenched in pensive silence. Gravity nodded off again as soon as we put her into her seat. I could hear the wheels in Dylan’s head churning.

Finally, when we were just about to turn toward the building’s garage, I said, “You need to bite your tongue and ask Row for a loan. If you don’t secure yourself a good job now, you’re going to regret it.”

“You have no idea what it feels like to be the loser sibling.”

“I have a pretty good idea of what it feels like to be the loser friend,” I countered dryly. “Think about it. My best friends are Row, multimillionaire, famous chef; Kieran, the second coming of Jesus in the soccer world with literal fucking movies made about him; and Tate, who is marginally more powerful than God himself. And here I am, pawning my goddamn watches to afford a fake girlfriend.”

“Fiancée,” she corrected. “And it’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same. We’re both the wild cards. The ones who took a bad turn and didn’t make it. But don’t double down on one bad choice.”

I hated that I sounded like a disapproving aunt, but I happened to know firsthand how cruising along where life took you could be dangerous. I bit down on my tongue.

Don’t open up more than you have to, idiot.

Oh, the hell with it.

“Look, three months ago, I got sexually assaulted by a client.” Bitterness exploded in my mouth. It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. The first time I’d told anyone about it. My friends thought I quit because I couldn’t be bothered anymore.

Dylan sucked in an audible breath, turning to look at me. The car glided down the road to the parking garage.

“We were at a weekend-long engagement party in the Hamptons. Her ex’s. She wanted to pretend she’d moved on. She got drunk. I did too. We shared a room…” I felt my nostrils flare and my chokehold on the steering wheel tightening. A sheen of sweat was covering my forehead. What the hell was wrong with me? I couldn’t stop oversharing with this woman.

“Rhy…” Dylan said softly, her hand palming my shoulder with a squeeze.

“I was taking a shower after a day of pickleball and mini golf with her pretentious friends and her awful ex. I was a hazy mess from the alcohol and the pot I’d snuck out to smoke when no one was looking. She slipped inside the shower.”

My throat worked around my next confession as the car slipped into my allotted parking spot. I cut off the engine.

“As soon as I saw her in the shower, naked, I told her to please get out. I was calm but firm. I explained I didn’t want her that way. That sex was not a part of our contract, and I wasn’t open to renegotiation. But she insisted her friend, who’d hired me the year before, got the so-called full treatment. I clarified that certain extra was a case-by-case issue. But she crowded me, cupping my cock, kissing down my chest…”

I closed my eyes. Fuck. I always felt violently mad when I heard about women getting sexually attacked, because typically, it was near impossible for them to fight off their attackers, size-and strength-wise.

But seeing as I was a hulky, muscular dude, I couldn’t stop thinking I could’ve prevented my assault somehow. Pushed her off. The victim guilt gnawed at me, chipping away at my self-worth and my pride.

“The worst part was that I let it happen,” I choked out, transported back to that moment.

By the time she was on her knees, my stupid cock was already hard, my back pressed against the granite wall. I just stood there and watched as she sucked me off.

“The entire time, I felt like I was trapped in my own head, desperate to break free—to tear the chains. It was the longest ten minutes of my entire life. And in them, I realized a lot of it was due to the decisions I’d made over the years. I wouldn’t say it was my fault, but…”

“No.” Dylan shook her head, and when I turned to look at her, I was surprised to see frustrated, angry tears glistening in her eyes. She had the same look she sported yesterday, when I told her Grav should go to preschool. The look of a lioness ready to fight to the death. “Don’t victim-blame yourself. None of it is your fault.”

“I’m not saying it was. But I chose to drink on duty. I chose to smoke pot and get high. I chose to offer myself as a boyfriend-forhire. I chose to sleep with ninety percent of my clientele. I inserted myself into a highly explosive situation. I could’ve put my business degree to use and worked on Wall Street. Hell, I could’ve still been working with your brother. He offered for us to co-own La Vie en Rogue before he opened it. I opted out. I didn’t want the long hours, the mountains of paperwork, the endless sacrifices. I realized I’d been lying to myself this whole time by saying I enjoyed what I was doing.” My mouth pressed into a thin line. “After it was over, in the shower, I grabbed my suitcase and left. Ubered it from the Hamptons back to Manhattan. That day, I threw away my pot. Made a rule to only drink once a week. Quit my fake-boyfriend business. I started looking into my finances and realized I’d been drowning myself not only in drugs and alcohol but also in big splurges that didn’t match my income. I decided to turn a corner. Do something with myself. Provide people with the opportunity to have a fake date without putting any of the individuals involved into compromising positions.”

“You should’ve gone to the police after the assault.” Her lips twisted in fury. “This is ridiculous. What she did was illegal. She—”

I shook my head. “She was drunk off her ass and an emotional wreck. I’m not making excuses for her—I just didn’t see the point. What can I say? I got a taste of the consequences of my own decisions, and I hated it. All this to say you can’t fall back into working at a bar or at a restaurant in New York like you did back home. And trust me, I get that the familiarity of it is tempting. Not because there’s anything wrong with it. There isn’t. Some people thrive in these careers. But you don’t.”

She flinched, and that was how I knew I’d hit a nerve.

I dug deeper. “You’ve always wanted to become a doctor. You still can. Well-worth-it journeys tend to be uphill. If life’s hard, it means you’re doing it right. Don’t pass up on this preschool. You owe it to yourself and to Gravity. If your kid doesn’t see you chase your own dream, how do you expect them to chase theirs?”

“Rhy…” She clamped her mouth shut. Opened it again. “I’m really sorry—”

“Don’t be.” I put my hand on her knee, noticing her dress had ridden up on the way here. The touch of my rough finger pads against her smooth summer skin made a jolt of energy shoot up my spine. Something tightened behind my abs like a key twisting in its hole, unlocking something feral, and now I knew it wasn’t the late-night burgers.

I had it hard for her.

I withdrew my hand casually, ignoring my rocketing pulse. “Instead of being sorry, take care of your future,” I said stiffly.

“Okay, Daddy.” Dylan rolled her eyes.

“Say that again,” I groaned.

“No. I was being sarcastic. I’d rather stay an orphan.”

I laughed. “Do you want help taking Gravity up?”

“No, thanks. See you in three days.” She popped open the passenger door and rounded the car to get her daughter.

Shit. Her next shift was in three days? Why did it make me sad?

And why couldn’t I wait for the days to tick by?