Her glare finds me once more. With a shake of her head, she spins to her door and darts inside, slamming it.
In the living room, I slap the bottom of Jake’s boot where it’s propped on the arm of the sofa. “I have got to get me some of that.”
Peeking from beneath the crook of his arm, he jerks his foot away. “Some of what?”
“Josephina Jordan. She was the sweetest little girl on my block when I was a kid. Now she’s grown into a firecracker of a little hottie, and lucky for her, she happens to live next door.”
“Lucky for her, eh?”
“Well, I’m gonna get laid, no matter who it is. She got lucky enough to be conveniently located near the Master’s bedroom.”
Jake pulls the cushion from the back of the couch and lobs it at me. I dodge. It smashes through the stack of boxes he unloaded from his Jeep earlier. A container teeters, losing its battle to stay upright. A package of finger paints falls out of the toppled box and hits the floor.
He snatches up another pillow and throws it. “You’re gonna end up alone and broken-hearted one of these days. The way you run through women, there won’t be any you haven’t screwed and dumped by the time you decide you want to settle down.”
I raise my hands with a shrug. “Really, no worries. It’s a non-issue. I’ll never settle down. It’s not in the long-term plan. Besides, if there are almost seven billion people on the planet, and half of those are women, I could easily fuck multiple women per day and I still won’t have worked my way through the ones within my age-range—even if I’m still fucking when I’m seventy, which, of course, I will be.”
Jake swings his feet to the floor and rubs his temples with the tips of his fingers. “Your logic astounds. The fact that you’ve thought through it that deeply—frankly, it’s disturbing.”
I grab the milk from the fridge and chug what’s left.
I swipe the wet mustache from my upper lip with the back of my arm. “I know who I am. Not everyone is going to have two-point-six children, hunker down in a burb somewhere, tool around in a minivan, live to work, work to vacation, and then retire on a fixed income that will barely buy cat food, much less steak. Suburban bliss is not for me, my man. I’m a free agent. Domestication will never happen.”
“You know what they say about never say never?” Jake grabs the empty jug from the counter and tosses it into the waste bin. “And, need I remind you that you’ve already got one of those two-point-six?”
I toss him an eye-roll. “No need to remind me of anything. Caden is the most important person in my life. You know that.”
“Not every girl is like your mother, you know?”
“Leave my mother out of this.”
“Not all women are control freaks with shriveled frontal lobes.” He continues, “Besides, that’s not everyone’s plan. I’m not going down that road either. But I also don’t want to hump my way through the entire state and look back on my life only to find it devoid of meaning.”
I raise one brow. “Devoid of meaning? Seriously—you need to get laid, bro.”
This time he’s the one who rolls his eyes. “I get laid plenty. I’m just not out to set any world records.”
“You think I could get into Guinness?” My uncontrollable grin widens.
Jake face-palms and mumbles, “You’re hopeless.”
TWO
“Why would there be any question that I would take custody? I’m Caden’s father.” I push my fingers through my hair for probably the sixth time.
Marcus pulls loose the knot at his throat. “Well, normally, there wouldn’t be. But—”
“No buts. Jess is in rehab—again. Enough is enough. I want full custody. Do whatever it takes. This isn’t good for Caden.”
He works the tie over his head and tosses it onto the conference table.
I wait, tension building in my chest.
He looks up at me.
I’m not going to like whatever he has to say. Anytime someone has that expression, it never means anything good.
“Fine. But what?” I say.
“Jessica didn’t put your name on Caden’s birth certificate.”
The words weren’t garbled, but they might as well have been for as much sense as they made.
“Say again?”
“You’re not listed as his father.”
His words are a punch to the gut.
After a few moments, I’m able to get the letters swirling in my mind to line up into a coherent thought. “Then who is? Because for the last ten months, I’ve been the one giving her money to support him. And I’ve been the guy caring for him on Wednesdays and every other weekend.”