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“Wait, what? What’s your question?”

“Do you want me to tell their business manager first? Or the clients?” Chris asks again.

“Go ahead and call Jack, but then tell the clients. Don’t let it spook them, because it’s still in everyone’s breast interest to move forward on this,” I say—end of discussion. “Okay?”

Chris stares at me, smirking before saying, “Uhh. Yeah, sure.”

Shit, what did I just say?

“I agree,” Chris says as he turns to leave. “It definitely is. I’ll let you get back to your…” He nods at Lily as he walks out, never finishing that sentence.

“You’re fired,” I mutter as I shut my office door. “Stay away from me for the rest of the afternoon.” I get a glimpse of her winking at me before it closes, and I bang my head against the door a few times for good measure.

She does me the honor of behaving herself and staying out of my eyeline for about an hour and a half, but when I’m in the middle of my conference call, the door opens, and she walks in and places a bottle of Gatorade on my desk and then walks out again. There’s a Post-it note stuck to the bottle that says:You’re gonna lose a lot more fluids tonight. Drink up.

I grab a Sharpie pen to cross out those words before tearing up the note and dropping it into the waste basket.

Half an hour later, while I’m doing a Skype call with clients who are traveling in Canada, she walks in again and demurely places a protein bar in front of me and then walks out again. The note on the wrapper says:You better eat this now. You’ll be eating me for dinner tonight.

She-demon.

I cannot wait to get her home, and this has already been the longest day ever.

Almost as soon as I’m off the Skype call, I get a text from Neal:Hey there, Uncle Weth. We’ve got a bit of a babysitting emergency situation here. Alecia and I have to go to a work thing at six, and our regular sitter just bailed. Our parents are either sick or out of town. Leesh is calling Lily, but I wanted to see if you’re free in case we need backup.

I can hear Lily talking on the phone at her desk. I run to the door and wave my hands at her, shaking my head and trying to tell her to say “no.” I can ask my dad to do it. But she’s looking right at me when she says into her cell phone, “Sure, don’t worry about it, I can do it. Yeah…and actually, I think Uncle Weth might be available to entertain the kids too.” She yanks the phone away from her ear when Alecia squeals. “Yeah. Calm down. Hakuna matata to you too. Bye.”

She hangs up and looks at me apologetically. “I know it’s going to hurt to wait a little longer, but I owe Alecia and her kids some Lily B-fathe time. It’s the least I can do, after being AWOL for so long.”

I rub my forehead and empty out my lungs. “Yeah. Fine. That’s nice of you. You’re the devil. I’ll get you back for this.”