23. Twenty-three
“What do four-year-olds like?” I muse aloud to Javi when we finish up for the day.
I can’t stop thinking about the boy, Hendricks, and what he may be like. I may never know if Harlowe gets her way. It’s Friday and business is shutting down for the weekend, despite the PR hell that still looms over Olympus like the plumes of smoke from war campfires. We have teams working overtime to rebound our stock prices and fix the Pegasus mess, but it’s slow going, so I’ve had time to think. Too much time.
“I only know my nieces and nephews, man. I don”t know if they”re normal or not. I guess they like watching YouTube and anything created to market their favorite cartoons. Are we branching out into children’s toys or something?”
I shake my head absently, still wondering if he’s a cool little kid, or a total shit. Some kids just are, nothing the parents can do about it. I laugh to myself and feel Javi eyeing me in concern.
“No, we’re not adding anything for kids to the Olympus umbrella. I was thinking that some kids are just jerks. I was wondering what mine would be like.”
“Little psychos, I bet. Jumping down flights of stairs in towel capes, pretending to fly. Or launching themselves off the slide at max speed and knocking kids over. You’re too much of an adrenaline junkie to have a kid be mild-mannered or chill. You deserve a kid that gives you regular heart attacks with their antics to make up for the shit you’ve put me through.”
I laugh and start gathering my things to leave. “You ever think about settling down and having kids?”
“All the time. I want a big family someday. I’m one of five, you know. My madre is a firecracker. You ever get a chancla thrown at you, or is that just us Latin families?” he asks, wincing with the memory.
“My mother chased me with a fried chicken drumstick once when I broke her favorite Waterford Crystal vase practicing my standing backflip in the dining room. Not a sandal, but it was the closest thing at hand, and she ended up throwing it at me as I ran up the stairs.”
“White people are weird, man,” he says, shaking his head and preceding me into the elevator. “Are you thinking about kids because of Harlowe?” I look over at him quickly, but his face is open, and he seems to be genuinely curious.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I’ll be any good with kids. What if he hates me? That is, if Harlowe ever lets me close enough for him to hate me. But I don”t know the first thing about kids, and I think I’m going to fuck this up if I do get the chance.”
“Be interested in him. Kids want to show you their shit—drawings, toys, dumb dances they do that make no sense. They just want you to give them attention. You don’t have to do anything special.” He claps me on the back when we exit into the garage. “You’ll be a good dad. I even think you’ll make a good husband someday, if you ever decide to put the bachelor life behind you.”
I bark out a laugh. “You think?” I shake my head as I reach my car. “You have absolutely no grounds to make that assumption. But thank you,” I add after a pause. I nod my goodbye and climb into the car.
Put the bachelor life behind me… well, I have to start sometime, and apparently, it’s what Olympus needs more than anything right now, so I may as well try. My drive home is short, and I look around my palatial penthouse of gleaming surfaces, white marble floors, surrounded by glass and metal walls that give me a clear view of downtown Atlanta. I shuck off my jacket and tie and settle myself in the pristine living room. Nothing about this space says kids or a family. I dial Harlowe, surprised the call connects after a few rings.
“Hello…” her throaty voice answers, and a shiver travels the length of my spine with that one cautious word.
“What are you doing tonight?” I ask, settling back into the plush leather seat with more confidence than I should have given the recipient of my call. She can see past my booty call language better than anyone, but I’m not really versed in a better tactic.
“Really, Zander? I’ve already seen you more in the last few weeks than I have in five years. What do you want?”
“You, Lowe.”
She sighs heavily and says without much heat, “Liar. You never want what you’ve already had, so tell me the truth. Why are you so persistent now?”
“I want another chance. I may not have changed enough to make up for what I did to you, but I’m willing to be what I need to be now, and that’s a father.” I can’t promise her I will be perfect, or that I’ve changed my ways entirely, but I’m telling her the truth; that need may supersede want for the first time in my life.
She’s silent for so long I wonder if she’s hung up on me, but finally, she responds. “I’m about to film a new recipe for my channel. Hendricks is out with my mom, but they’ll be back before dinnertime. It’s really boring, just me talking to a camera and resetting a bunch of times when I fuck up. There will be lots of food at the end. You could…” she pauses, blowing out a breath and making me wait like it’s Christmas morning and I’m about to tear into a gift, “…come over?”
I’m off the sofa and grabbing my jacket before her words trail off. “Fuck yes. I’m on my way.”
The drive feels ridiculously long, and with every second that ticks by feels like I’m losing out on my opportunity. When I pull up to her house it feels different. I was angry, selfish, and looking for answers the last two times I tried this. Today, I was invited, which changes everything.
Harlowe answers the door wearing a white tank top and blue shorts with a soft bow that ties around her waist, emphasizing the narrow place my hands could rest above the swell of her wide hips and the long legs that seem to go on forever. Her hair is down around her shoulders, darker than it was when I could freely run my fingers through the thick lengths that fell around me when she was on top, riding me. The visual hits me out of nowhere and I nearly groan from the need that flares to life, wanting her again.
But she’s all business, waving me inside and padding barefoot back to the kitchen that has been transformed into a mini studio. She has a camera on a tripod with an LCD screen behind the island, another camera angled down above her workstation, and two lights arranged on either side illuminating her workspace, which is neatly set up with bowls of ingredients at hand. She has pots and dishes stacked to the side, out of the frame, and a remote that she picks up and waves at me.
“You have to be quiet when I’m recording, and don’t laugh at me or make me laugh. This is serious, Zander, even if you don’t think it’s as worthwhile as your business ventures because I’m not making millions.”
I palm my chest and give her a look of astonishment. “I’m quite aware of the seriousness with which you take your job. I’ve been catching up on your videos, so I know how you do your thing. I’m a foodie now, you know.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don”t care what you are. I have to get this last dish filmed and photographed before this video is done. I mean, I’ll have eight hours of editing to do after it’s filmed. Between the uploading process, the caption writing, and the stills for social media, it will all take even more time. Basically, my weekend is fucked.”
I hold up my hands in surrender to her busy schedule and motion for her to get to it, while I take a seat at a barstool at one end of the island, far from her camera set up. I stare at the veined marble and all I can see is the image of her lying in the middle of it, surrounded by snacks, her tits barely contained as the sunlight cut across her, that she posted to Instagram. Her fucking caption about bad girls swallowing you whole fists me in the gut, and I nearly groan with longing again. I look up, wanting to grab her by the chin and fuck her mouth, reminding myself just how good that feels right now.
After several attempts to talk about her dessert dish to her recording camera, she looks over at me and frowns, her brow drawing down in a way that is just adorable when I know she’s actually frustrated.
“You’re making me nervous,” she pouts. “You have your intense gray psycho eyes on like you want to eat me, and I don’t usually have an audience when I’m cooking.”
“Come here,” I say, pushing away from the edge of the island now that I’ve managed to get control of my cock and motioning her closer.
She narrows her eyes at me, but she does as I say, stopping a foot or so from my stool. I take her hands in mine, feeling her hesitation as her delicate muscles tighten, ready to pull away at the slightest wrong move from me.
“You are amazing to watch. I learned more from a few of your videos than I have my entire adult life cooking for myself. You also made me spit out my coffee laughing at least once, which is saying something, because your jokes are bad, but you’re still funny without even trying.”
“You have such a way with backhanded compliments,” she says with faux sweetness and an acerbic smile. “You try being entertaining for an audience of millions while cooking and trying not to burn the house down or cut off a finger.”
I stand and walk her backward around the island, her hands still caught in mine, until she’s back on the squishy foam mat in front of her cooking setup. “Why don’t you show me how you do it,” I say, releasing her hands and hitting record on the small remote she has velcroed to the front of the cabinet, out of sight.
She blinks a few times, taking in my close proximity, then looks at the camera where she catches the red light and sees us standing next to each other on the small LCD screen. I can see when she makes up her mind. It comes in minor adjustments. The squaring of her shoulders and the intake of a deep breath. The smoothing of her hands along the marble and the shift of her hips. She transforms in front of my eyes, losing her nervous energy and radiating confidence, in her element once more and seemingly fine with me joining her here.
I pull at the unbuttoned collar of my white shirt and feel out of place, but I don’t move as she begins talking to the camera, repeating her rehearsed lines and glibly indicating me at one point, but otherwise letting me stand near her unobtrusively. This time, she doesn’t flub her lines and goes through the motions of the recipe steps with ease. I get lost in the way she weaves a story along the way, listening to her sweet rasp of a voice as I relax against the counter behind me.
“When I visited Singapore with my mom, she took me to the hotel she used to work at,” she says, directing her story to the camera while she sprinkles in ingredients, but I’m caught in the spell she’s weaving with the few words. “The bakers who made hundreds of desserts daily were so methodical, but each one told me they found pleasure in the steps, considering baking the culinary equivalent of science. Each ingredient must be measured precisely, or unintended consequences could arise and ruin the dessert.”
“Or cause a happy accident?” I offer with a smile as I lean my hands on the countertop behind me to keep from touching her as she moves through the steps of her recipe with ease.
She turns and considers me while she stirs the batter in the bowl in front of her. “Sometimes, yes. But most of the time, too much of one ingredient can throw off the balance of the finished product.” She turns back to the camera. “The hotel bakers needed to consistently create desserts by the batch. They didn’t have room for errors or happy accidents.”
“Good thing life doesn”t have the same rules as a hotel kitchen,” I say, moving to lean my forearms on the island so I can be next to her, but it’s not enough, so I knock my shoulder into her side for more direct contact. I’m drawn to her whenever I”m in her presence, never getting my fill, and this is no exception.
“Don’t distract me, I’m busy creating culinary science,” she says. Then, with a wicked gleam lighting her eyes and quick as a flash, she glops a spoonful of batter on my face. She laughs, sounding shocked at herself, but pleased nonetheless. This is the Wildcat I know from the Maldives. She’s still in there, and still keeping me on my toes.
I gingerly wipe batter from my eye and feel it drip from my nose with a plop onto the marble. “You’re a naughty girl,” I growl, my arms quickly encircling her waist to keep her close and rubbing my face against her neck and chest, smearing the batter onto her skin and making her squeal.
“I’m sorry, oh my God, stop,” she pleads, laughing and squirming in my arms.
Instead of stopping, I give in to the feel of her and let my mouth trace over her collarbone, and lick up her neck to catch some of the batter I just put there. Harlowe makes a sound of surprise, but the grip she has on my shoulders tightens and her protests weaken. I find that spot on her neck and suck just the way I know will drive her wild and feel her writhe in my arms. Her back arches, body molding against mine, and I keep her there, biting at her neck again as my hand finds her ass, and press her tight against me, grinding against her softness. She makes a whimpering sound that I catch with my mouth as she turns her face to mine and opens to me, her hands in my hair, holding me close as I devour her mouth.
Fuck, she feels so good. She tastes even better than I remember, all honey and coconut, her plush lips soft and insistent against mine as my tongue sweeps against hers and captures a moan. I reach down and hook my hands behind her thighs and haul her up onto the counter without breaking our kiss, pulling her against me with my fingers digging into her ass and groaning into her mouth because she feels like heaven everywhere I touch and I can”t get enough.
I can feel her pussy, hot even through our layers of clothing, as I rock against her with the steel hardness of my cock, and I bet she’s fucking soaking her panties. I want to slide my hand in to see, part her folds with my fingers and feel how wet she is, then taste her. I pull away from her mouth with the intent of doing just that.
“Zander, please.” The breathy plea isn”t for more, and it snaps me out of my thoughts of eating her sweet pussy.
When I slowly release her, I’m cautious of the mood shift that just occurred. Having her in my arms felt so natural. Her curves fit against me even more perfectly than I remember, her skin warm and soft under my stubbly face. The taste of her drugging. My cock is rock hard from the brief moments I had her in my arms, my mouth on hers, and all I want is to feel her under me, on top of me, in front of me, again. But I acted without thinking, taking the physical from her without knowing if that’s what she wanted. It sure as hell felt like she wanted to be in my arms, kissing me, but what do I know when it comes to Harlowe, now? She stares at me with wide eyes, her body trembling, and I don”t know if it’s from fear or from holding back.
“Now who’s ruining the recipe?” I ask to break the tension, the words vibrating deep with need as I let my feelings infuse into them.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have started that.” Her own reply is breathless as she hands me a dish towel, and grabs another to clean off the bits of batter from the caramel skin of her chest.
I catch a stray bit of batter she’s missed from the top of her cleavage and pop my finger in my mouth, tasting the honey and vanilla she stirred in a few steps prior. It tastes almost as good as she does. She holds my gaze, hand stilled from her task, mesmerized by the moment.
I nod at her camera and smile with evil intent. “I think that was some good footage. It’ll whip your audience into a frenzy of speculation and set the internet on fire.”
Fuck, it set me on fire. I want to watch the recording back over and over again to see how she reacted to my touch. I want her to put it online right the fuck now and show the world she belongs to me.
She looks at the camera and frowns, using the LCD screen as a mirror to clean off the rest of the batter. “It will probably end up deleted. I can’t use that.” She slides off the island and stops the recording.
“Don’t you want more views? I don”t really know how YouTube works, but wouldn’t breaking the internet be a good thing for you? Because that’s what that little moment would do.”
A part of me is desperate to convince her to use it. It’s the part of me that is fully on board with breaking every rule, with throwing caution to the wind, and finally giving in to the attachments I’ve always run from.
It’s funny how quickly that part of me could be swayed for the right situation, the right woman, and how desperate I am now for her to be mine. It’s been there for five years, simmering under the surface of casual hookups and meaningless sex, knowing that I’d already found the best fucking thing to ever happen to me and I’d let it go, severed it from my life, because I was a fucking coward and couldn’t figure out how to make that work in the life I’d created. Now I’m willing to put it ahead of everything else, but I may be too late.
“It would be a hell of a way to announce we’re making this work.”
She considers my words for a moment, pursing her lips and shaking her head. “This isn’t going to work. I need someone solid and dependable. Someone like Knox. You like novelty and would be done with this as soon as the shine wore off. I’ve already been through that and I can’t do it again, Zander.”
Her words are a bucket of ice water over my head, dousing me in reality. She’ll never trust my ability to change unless I show her. I have to get rid of the fucking football player first. I won’t share her, but this isn’t my choice to make. I have to convince her I’m the only man she needs in her life, the only man that could complete the family we’ve created and I’ve missed out on for years. Before she can get around to telling me to leave, the front door opens and a flurry of noise and activity tornadoes into the house and my heart rate ratchets up with it.
Harlowe turns to me with wide, nervous eyes. “That’s Hendricks. Don’t make me regret this. You have one chance with him, Zander, don’t fuck it up,” she whispers.
I feel my hope deflate with her words, while a new anticipation twists my stomach into knots at the prospect of meeting the source of the noise and movement. Will he like me? Will Harlowe introduce me as his father?
My brain short circuits and I’m left with just white noise as soon as he rounds the corner to the kitchen, the world slowing down and my vision tunneling so all I see is the boy. He’s radiant, dark hair curling softly around his face, gray eyes animated as he heads for Harlowe, holding out toy cars clutched in his fists. He launches himself into her arms, his little voice running a stream of chatter the whole time. She catches him with a practiced ease that makes me oddly jealous, standing up with him wrapped around her, completely absorbed by his story and laughing a full, unguarded laugh at something he says.
The moment is frozen in my brain, a snapshot in time that will stay with me the rest of my life—Harlowe holding her boy, my son, lit by production lights, surrounded by the familiar tableau of her kitchen, an indulgent smile just for him—is seared into my retinas and instantly filed away in the most beautiful sights folder of my brain. It instantly replaces Machu Picchu at sunrise and resides next to the hundred other snapshots of her in the Maldives that live there already.
“Hendricks, I want you to meet someone,” Harlowe says, setting the boy down and angling her body towards me. “This is my friend, Zander.”
I don’t even let her friend comment get to me because I have the full attention of this little person to contend with, and I need to make the best first impression possible.
“Hi,” he says, eyeing me for half a second before he decides I’m worthy of his attention. He holds out his hands. “This is Optimus Prime and this guy’s the Batmobile. Who do you want to be?”
“Batmobile, for sure,” I say, with a quick look at Harlowe. She’s tense, her hands clasped at her stomach as she watches us. She gives me a small nod when I answer. I notice a well-dressed Asian woman standing unobtrusively on the other side of the island, watching the introduction with a sharp eye. This must be Harlowe’s mother. She raises an eyebrow at me when she catches me staring, then inclines her head at Hendricks as if to say back to him, idiot.
“Want to build a racetrack for them? I have lots of Legos and blocks, come see.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, holding out the Batmobile for me to take, then grabs my free hand. His own little hand is strong as he pulls me into the living room, and I savor the warmth and reassurance of it before he lets go to quickly dump out a plastic tote filled with blocks on the carpet.
So, that was it? I was just accepted by this little kid when he asked to play. Maybe four-year-olds are simpler than I thought they would be to win over. Simple or not, I know my world just got turned upside down and will never be the same. All the complications of life just dimmed, my focus narrowing down to one universal truth that replaces everything: this is my child and I will do anything to make sure he is happy, safe, and has everything his little heart could want, including me and his mother working together, rather than against each other.