“Making money has become so much more important ever since I had a kid. I haven’t been dating much because I’m so busy with Annabelle. She’s energetic and always wants to do everything. I am basically her chauffeur. I just do business stuff on the side,” he laughed ruefully.
“I’m kind of a workaholic,” I replied.
“You’ve always been driven.” He went to uncork the Dom. “I have champagne flutes somewhere.” He dug around in a cabinet before producing two champagne flutes. “Here.” The bubbles fizzled up. The slight scent of sparkling wine filled the air.
“To Annabelle getting better.” We toasted each other.
“So what do you do?”
“I run my own digital-first publishing business, remember?”
“That’s right, my mom said something about you going into publishing. How has it treated you?”
“We aim for at least 10,000 units moved of every book we publish, so we prioritize quality content. Before, publishing was by guesstimating how much demand there would be for books. Nowadays, we can gauge the demand for books and see if it’s worth it to do a print run.”
“I don’t know much about books. I haven’t had a lot of leisure time since Annabelle was born. I listen to podcasts when I run, though.”
“Book talk is work talk,” I admitted. “Are you a Murderino?”
“I love true crime podcasts,” he said. “I’ll listen to a little bit of everything, though.”
We drank our champagne in companionable silence. Once upon a time, drinking sweet wine together had been illicit and exciting. As teenagers, we’d had plenty of tipsy make-out sessions. Now, we were older and could afford the good stuff instead of relying on someone’s sketchy older brother to obtain alcohol. The wine was making me pleasantly warm. “Do you remember the first time we kissed?” I blurted out. I normally would be too shy to talk about it.
“You wanted me to taste your pomegranate lip gloss,” replied Logan.
“Yup.”
“It went something like this.” Logan leaned in to kiss my mouth. He tasted like champagne; the interior of his mouth was cool from the chilled Dom Perignon.
“You taste so good,” I murmured against his lips. The next thing I knew, I was straddling his lap and we were making out like teenagers again. I rubbed against the ridge of his erection. Then he stopped it. “I’m not really in the market for anything serious,” said Logan.
“Neither am I,” I agreed. “I’m too busy to be involved with anyone.”
“Then you and I will have fun during this week together and not have any strings attached.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“It’s been enough for one night,” Logan said, pulling me off of his lap. “I’m rusty at this kind of thing.”
“So am I.” On one hand, Logan’s body and smell felt familiar to me. But on the other, it had been years since I’d straddled anybody’s waist. My thighs already felt sore from the stretching.
“I’ll get you one of my shirts and you can go to sleep.” Logan stretched his back and went into his bedroom. He gave me one of his big shirts, which hit my thighs. “Good night.”
I went to the guest bedroom, which was handily stocked with plenty of the kinds of things that most people would need, like shampoo and lotion. I took a quick shower before changing into Logan’s shirt. It brought back good memories. His shirts were always too big for me. We’d had a spot in the parking lot where we’d made out without the school security seeing us. Logan was overprotective sometimes. It seemed that being a dad mellowed him out a little bit. The old Logan would’ve gotten much more intense about his daughter throwing up. I guessed that once you had a full-time job as a parent, smaller bumps in the road didn’t seem as critical. It figured that Logan went for nannies instead of tossing his kid into an impersonal preschool. He was kind of a control freak, which meant that he wanted the ability to check on his kid at any time during the day. Back when we were in high school, he always wanted me to text him once I got home in my little beige Taurus. I always made it home safely. I sighed and fell asleep.
Chapter 9
“Good morning!” screamed Annabelle right into my ear. “Are you awake?”
“Mmph,” I replied semi-coherently.
“Daddy says that I’m only allowed to talk to you if you’re awake,” she yelled again.
“You probably could wake the dead screaming like that, pumpkin.” Logan was in the doorway with his arms crossed and a slight smile on his face.
“I’m up.” I was not up. I was lying.
“Daddy’s making pancakes when you’re up,” she continued to yell.
“Inside voice, sweet pea,” reminded Logan gently.
She whispered, “He does good mouse pancakes.”
I laughed a little. “Let me get dressed and I’ll come down.”
“Why are you wearing Daddy’s shirt?” asked Annabelle.
“Because I stayed the night and didn’t pack anything. All I was planning on doing was going to the grocery store.”
“I see!” screamed Annabelle. She was dancing around with impatience.
“I’ll get the pancakes started.”
“I get to mix the batter!” Annabelle started to run for the kitchen.
“No running inside the house,” called Logan after her. “Take whatever time you need. She’s just excited to have a guest in the house.”
I just wanted to put on my bra and jeans under Logan’s shirt. “I’m not going to say no to pancakes.”
Logan went to the kitchen to prevent Annabelle from burning the house down. I quickly wiggled into yesterday’s bra and jeans. Logan’s shirt was comfortably oversized for me. I went into the kitchen to see Annabelle standing on a chair, mixing batter enthusiastically. She didn’t understand how to make the batter smooth, but Logan took it for her when it was nearly ready and incorporated the stuff at the edges. He poured three smooth circles that made a mouse.
“Down you go,” he said to Annabelle.
“But I want to watch, Daddy!”
“What if we watch Peppa Pig?” I offered.
“Peppa Pig! Down!”
Logan helped her down from the chair. “Don’t worry, it should be the first thing you see when you turn on the TV. It’s really her TV.”
Annabelle knew how to turn on the TV and get Peppa Pig. When she was safely occupied, I drifted back to Logan who was making stacks of mouse pancakes. “She’s a handful,” I commented.
“I wouldn’t have her any other way. Romi couldn’t keep up with the demands of a child. I’ve been taking care of her since she was born.” Logan flipped a pancake. “And frankly, I think that she’s happier with just me. Romi didn’t like waking up at night to feed the baby or change her diapers. She’s already potty trained. Diapers aren’t forever. But as soon as she told me she wanted a divorce, she offered me primary custody. Some people just aren’t meant to be mothers in any way other than biologically.”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to delve into Logan’s issues with Romi, who’d wanted him enough to marry him but didn’t want their child enough to stay. He probably was a little gun shy after his shotgun wedding.