Page 26 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Twenty

What does the washing machine gain by lying about how much time is left? If you need more time, just say it.

—Sutton’s secret thoughts

SUTTON

“Bye, Daddy!”

Gunner shot his little girl a huge smile, winked at me, and left without another word.

He’d spent my time in the shower getting his own shower done, doing not only a load of laundry, but folding and putting away that laundry, and he’d managed to get his daughter fed at the same time.

This man was a freakin’ expert at this parenting gig.

Luckily, the girl was fed, because I had places that I needed to be this morning, too.

“Okay, Lottie girl. What are we wearing today?”

“Shoes!”

I smiled. “Shoes, yes. But what else? We can’t go out in our pajamas.”

“Why?”

I paused, because I had no answer for that.

Why couldn’t she?

“Because it’s cold?” I offered up my lame excuse.

She wrinkled her nose.

It wasn’t too cold today, even though it’d been cold the night before.

The weather app on the big screen that Gunner had up in his kitchen—one that displayed his schedule on one side, Lottie’s schedule on the other, and the tasks that he needed to get done for the day—said that we had a high of sixty.

Chilly, but doable.

“Those clothes you have on are pretty thin,” I said. “And your daddy didn’t have time to do your hair, and baby girl, it’s a total mess. How do you feel about braids?”

I could French braid with the best of the best.

I’d had to teach myself to do it because I wasn’t one of those girls that got the girls on my high school teams to do it. Not because they hadn’t offered or anything—they had. But because I didn’t trust them not to cut it off while they were messing with my hair.

Let’s just say that I learned how to protect myself from bullies, and that was not putting myself into a situation where it had the potential to bite me in the ass.

Needless to say, I’d learned how to do it on myself, and I’d practiced on my mom countless times to know that I could braid other people’s hair.

“Yes!” Lottie clapped. “Bwaids.”

I scooped her up in my arms, and she brought her pancake with her.

We got to the bathroom, and I sat her on the counter with her feet in the sink. “Okay, so you’ll have to hold really still, okay?”

She nodded solemnly.

I went to work, and had her hair braided in two Dutch braids down each side of her head in about five minutes.

She was the perfect customer, too, because she stayed so still that you’d think she was sleeping.

Her eyes were wide and excited as she watched me work.

When I was finally finished, she touched it with a reverence that made my heart melt. “Wow.”

I kissed her cheek. “Now, what are we wearing?”

She tugged at my hand and said, “You bwaids, too!”

I eyed my hair.

It was so damn long it’d take me forever, but the hopeful look in her eyes had me reaching back to take my hair out of the ponytail. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

She nodded her head excitedly, and I got to work.

It took me three times as long, and by the time I was done, my shoulders were aching like a bitch.

“Now, let’s get dressed.”

I dressed her in black leggings, tennis shoes, and a cute little Nike sweatshirt.

I dressed myself the same, and we were out the door fifteen minutes later, and at the next funeral home fifteen minutes after that.

I’d called ahead to make sure that it was okay to bring Lottie, and the funeral director had readily agreed, saying that she loved kids and she missed her grandchildren. She’d urged me to bring her on, and she wasn’t lying. She greeted Lottie like they’d known each other their whole lives.

“There’s my girl,” the funeral home director called. “Come on over here!”

Lottie headed over to her desk, excited to get loved on by her, and I got to work in the back.

It took me two hours to do the two clients, and all that time, Lottie came and went, uncaring about the dead person that I was working on.

Who did care was a woman that was coming in the door as Lottie and I were getting ready to leave.

I had no clue who she was, but she narrowed her eyes as she looked from me to Lottie, who was sitting on the bench three rows away from me, and back.

I didn’t like the way that she was looking at me, so I walked to Lottie and picked her up, wanting to make sure that she didn’t go and reach for my girl and run out with her.

The way she was staring was unnerving.

“Who’s this?”

I smiled and shifted the girl on my hip, making her giggle.

“This little girl,” I said as I tickled her tummy. “Is my best friend ever.”

“No, but really. Who is that?”

I rolled my eyes and said, “Who are you?”

The woman crossed her arms over her chest and said, “I’m not sure that you need my name.”

“And I don’t think you need ours,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

The woman didn’t take the hint, but the funeral director came in and said, “Ma’am, can I help you?”

“I’m here to pay for a funeral.”

The funeral director gave her most winning smile and said, “That’s great. Follow me and I can get you the help that you need.”

I waved at her, letting her know that I was mostly finished, and she nodded her head at me in response.

I took Lottie with me to the table I was using to hold my stuff and said, “You about ready to go, Beanie?”

“Yeah,” she said in her cute little cherubic voice. “I’m hungry!”

I smiled.

That didn’t surprise me any.

“Your daddy is always hungry, too,” I teased. “You want to get lunch and go see him?”

“Yeah!” she chirped.

I picked up my box with my free hand and headed out of the door, unsurprised to find the woman from earlier outside by my vehicle.

There was something about her that made me uncomfortable, and I despised feeling this way.

“Hey,” she said as I got closer. “Can we talk?”

I ignored her and said, “Back up, please, so I can put her in her seat.”

The woman backed up, and I put her in her seat and started the car up before turning her movie on for her.

She reached for her uneaten pancake from earlier and I gently closed the door before facing the woman.

“You don’t know me.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

She grimaced. “I’m Jackson’s fiancée.”

My brows rose. “You are?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “Yes, and we want to have a baby.”

Ahh, I knew where this was going.

“You want to have my baby,” I pointed out. “Because his sperm and my eggs were fertilized before they were stored. And I hate to be this person, but I’m not going to give you my eggs. I just won’t.”

Her frown was ferocious. “That’s the only way that I’m going to have a child with him, though!”

I was already shaking my head. “That’s not going to happen. I’m sorry.”

She stomped her foot in frustration. “This is utterly ridiculous.”

“What’s utterly ridiculous is you thinking that I would be okay with this. I’m sorry, but it’s not happening.”

She hissed at me, “We’re going to take this to court.”

“Then take it to court,” I said. “The only thing that I got in the divorce was that. No house. No car. No compensation for him ruining my face. No nothing. That’s the only thing I got, and I’m not giving it up.”

She didn’t like my answer.

I could tell.

But I wasn’t going to budge on this.

There was no way in hell that I was going to let her have my egg that was fertilized by Jackson’s sperm.

Luckily she didn’t push the issue and instead chose to stomp away toward her car—which I noted was my old car.

Jesus fucking Christ.

When we got to Chick-fil-A, because I’m sorry but when a three-year-old demands that for lunch, I’m not going to fight her on it, I texted Gunner to find out where he was at.

He sent me back his location, and I texted back letting him know we’d be there soon.

He met us outside when we pulled into the same school as last time.

“Hey there, ladies,” he said as he took Lottie out of her car seat. “What’s this going on with your hair?”

I smiled. “She was a bit of a wild mess, and I was in a hurry. I had two clients today. We thought we’d bring you by some lunch, then we’re going to go pick up some new running shoes.”

“Take my card,” he suggested. “There’s no way she’s going to let you walk out of there without some for her, too.”

I snorted and followed him inside. “I agree. She walks out with pens, notebooks, and anything else that the funeral directors can give her when we go to my jobs. She’s like a magician. No one can say no to her.”

“Me included,” he groaned. “Chick-fil-A again?”

“I didn’t argue,” I admitted sheepishly.

He chuckled as he walked us into the school, using an ID scanner to scan a badge on the way in, and headed to the break room.

I smiled at a few of the guys we passed, and came up short when the same guy as last time was in the breakroom when we arrived. The one that made me feel slightly uncomfortable for kissing Gunner in the middle of the school hallway.

“Yates,” Gunner greeted the man. “You get everything done on your end?”

The way he said that last part made me inwardly smile.

Gunner might not have shown his displeasure outwardly with this man for not showing up and doing his job over the last few days, but I’d been around him enough that I could see the underlying tension in his shoulders.

To say that he was displeased with this man would be an understatement.

“It’s all done.” He nodded, his eyes going alert as I entered the room. “Lunchtime already?”

“Yep,” Gunner grumbled. “Are you going out with the rest of them?”

“I was going to, but I packed my lunch today, and my girlfriend said that she’d kill me if I went out to eat without her.” He sighed. “And since we share locations with each other, I try not to do it blatantly. We’re trying to save money for a house.”

I nodded.

I could see a girlfriend saying that.

“Interesting,” Gunner mumbled and set down the food.

Lottie scrambled into the seat that Gunner pulled out for her and reached into the first bag she could get to, pulling out a waffle fry the size of her hand.

“Little big for you, isn’t it?” Yates asked her.

“No,” she dismissed him and started to eat the fry, her gaze focused on the paper and pens in front of her.

Yates stood there awkwardly while we ate, and didn’t leave until his phone rang about ten minutes into our lunch.

I eyed Gunner once he left, and he shook his head. “I don’t know. That was weird even for me.”

My lips tipped up at the corners as I dove back into my salad with extra, extra protein. As in, two extra sides of nuggets. So many so that it made it no longer all that healthy, but at least I’d added a little bit of green to my meal today.

I really liked their nuggets, so sue me.

The rest of lunch went a whole lot better than the first part, also giving me the time to tell Gunner all about Jackson’s new fiancé.

“So what you’re telling me is that to better store the sperm, they suggested fertilizing your eggs. He gave you those fertile eggs in the divorce, and now they want the eggs back so that they can have their child. And they don’t care that that child would also then be your child?”

I nodded.

“Are they crazy?” He sat back in his chair, his tight t-shirt pulling taut over his belly.

I was momentarily distracted from what he was saying by the way the veins in his arms and hands pulsed.

“Like, what kind of fuckin’ head trauma did they get to think that you’d ever say yes to that?” He shook his head, his curls bouncing with the movement. “I mean, my god.”

“I know,” I admitted, pulling my eyes away from his sexy body to focus on my lunch. “She said that they would see me in court. I can’t wait.”

“You can borrow my lawyer, she’s a shark,” he teased.

“I guess I’ll reach out to her,” I grumbled around a nugget smothered in ranch. “Fuckers. All of them.”

“Wouldn’t mind meeting that ex of yours in a dark alley, that’s for sure.”

“Who’s her ex?”

Yates.

I turned to see him at the doorway, looking hesitant.

“Some guy that I’d rather not talk about right now,” I said, wanting to change the subject.

“Got it,” Yates nodded. “Hey, boss. I have to head out early. Something came up.”

Gunner’s eyes met mine, and I somehow knew that was his last straw.

He said. “Sure, let me walk you out, though. I have to talk to you about something.”

When he got back, I had the rest of our lunch picked up, and Gunner’s eyes were an angry blue.

He caught my eye and said, “Well, that’s done.”

I smiled and was about to reply with “good” when the little hurricane that was Lottie interrupted us.

“Daddy braids!”

I grinned. “Yeah, Daddy. Do you want braids?”

The way I batted my eyes at him had that growl that I loved so much slipping from his lips.

He tugged at his hair, which was surprisingly longer than you’d expect when you looked at it. “Um, I don’t think it’s long enough.”

“Daddy braids!”

“I could probably put some in,” I admitted. “They’d be more like corn rows, though.”

“Fine,” he sat on the chair next to his girl. “Let’s do this.”