Page 122 of Moonlighter

At first I’m distracted by a muffled cheer from the other side of the door. But then the words sink in. “Wait.What?” I yelp. “You’re crazy. Eric, you did not just get wasted and ride into Manhattan to stand here and say that.”

“Oh, shit. I am standing!” Eric slaps himself in the forehead. “I’m doing it all wrong. All the jewelry stores are closed. I checked. But I guess I could kneel—” He starts to slide toward the floor.

“Stop!” I shriek, thinking of his injured knees. “It’s marble!”

He catches himself with his hands. “Shit. My knees. I can’t even kneel right. And I don’t have a ring.”

“It’s not about that!” I can’t believe this is happening. The only marriage proposal I’mevergoing to hear is from a drunk man who probably won’t remember this in the morning. “This visit isn’t about me at all. It’s about too much scotch and not enough hockey.”

He lifts a finger in the air. “Tequila, actually.”

“Whatever! Eric, go home. We had a lot of fun.” So, so much fun. “But it can’t last. I’m in deep with a problem that I might not be able to solve before I give birth to a tiny, needy human…”

“I could help you with that!” Eric crows. “Not the, uh, birth-giving but I could hold it.” He burps. “The baby, I mean.”

And, damn it, I can almost picture it. Not this drunk version of Eric, of course. But the kind one who shows up here to kiss me and feed me bagels. That Eric—the sober one—never once said anything about babies, though. And I clearly remember that first day when I told him I was pregnant, when utter horror crossed his rugged features.

Right. Eric loves hockey and beaches and sexy-times. I don’t blame him one bit. But I’m pissed off that drunk Eric showed up to mockinglyproposeto me at one in the morning.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say in a cool voice. “You’re going to go home and sleep it off. And I hope for both our sakes that you don’t remember this conversation in the morning. I’m going back to bed. And tomorrow I’m going to keep fighting for my company and for New York City’s cybersecurity until this baby shows up. At which time I’ll take at least a nine week maternity leave—or I’ll pretend to—because if I don’t, then I’m sending the wrong message. I’ll be telling the women who work at Engels Cable Media that they can’t have a personal life. Even if that seems utterly, horribly true in my case.”

“No way,” Eric says, shaking his head so hard that he sways. “I’m your personal life. I’m a person!” He thinks that over a second. “Yourperson. Yeah. That. We’re supposed to be a team. All of us.”

He looks as sincere as a babbling, heavy-lidded hottie can. But that’s just the Jose Cuervo talking. “You’re the one who told me I can’t,” I remind him. “Remember? You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”

Eric gives a slow blink. “What if I was wrong about that?”

“You called it the best advice you’ve ever been givenin your life, Eric. So forgive me if I’m skeptical when you’re marinated. Now take your midlife crisis and your twenty-two year-old cousin home.”

The door pops open. “Time’s up, big man,” Duff says. “You heard the lady.”

Eric turns, giving me puppy dog eyes. That’s how I know he’s not himself. He doesn’t ever look at me like that. He takes one of my hands and lifts it, kissing the back of it. “Take care, honey. I’m sorry I interrupted your sleep.”

Then he goes.

Duff gives me a pitying look before he closes the door again.

I go back to bed, arranging my pillows just-so. And I try not to imagine what it would be like to hear sober words of love from Eric Bayer.

32

Eric

I wakeup to the sound of my phone ringing. It’s my brother Max’s ring tone, which is a full orchestra version of “Hall of the Mountain King.” I ignore it. Eventually it stops.

And, wow. My head is killing me. I must have gotten very drunk last night.

When I force my eyes open, I recognize the sun streaming in my windows. But it’s coming from a weird angle. Because I’m lying on the floor of my apartment.

Another thing in my field of vision is someone’s hairy toe. That might be alarming, except it’s starting to come back to me. That’s Anton’s hairy toe. And it’s his groan that I’m hearing now. “Why am I on this floor,” he grunts.

“Um…” I don’t remember lying down on the floor. Except there’s a bottle of Scotch just out of his reach. And it’s empty. We broke out the Scotch because I was sad about something.

But what?

Anton sits up. “Shit. What time is it?”

“How would I know?” I haven’t reached a vertical position yet. Both my knees are so stiff that I have to work up the courage first.