A few weeks after the day Aaron and I had talked, I took him up on his offer to get to know his daughter. It was awkward at first. I just wanted to stare at her and look for the baby I’d once thought was mine. But it didn’t take long before that wore off. Since then, I’d visited often. Aaron and I had even formed some sort of friendship. I never thought I’d be grateful to have that guy in my life, but I was. Because I couldn’t unlove a child I’d fallen for months before she was even born. I’d introduced Evie to them, and the last few times we’d gotten together, she’d brought along her niece, Abbey. Eloise loved her and treated her like a doll.
“Do you want to go?” I asked her.
“Sort of. My mom never had the money to take us to shows when we were kids. I guess I’m kind of curious what it is.”
“Okay,” I said. “So we’ll take her.”
“Really?” Evie’s eyes widened. “I never thought you’d agree to go to Sesame Street Live.”
I shrugged. “I’m going to spend a few hours with my little friend and then go home and get a blowjob because I did something you wanted to do, right?”
She chuckled. “Probably.”
“Sounds like a pretty damn good day to me. Don’t care where we are if it makes both of you happy.”
Evie’s eyes went soft. “You say the sweetest things without even realizing it.”
“It was the part about the blowjob, wasn’t it?”
She smacked me.
Ten minutes later, whatever calm I’d channeled talking to Evie went out the window again as we turned off the main road and onto the one that led to the treehouses. I parked when we arrived, just as the sun was starting to set.
Evie looked around. “Look at that sky. We couldn’t have timed this better if we’d planned it.”
I almost laughed. Someone did plan it.
“It doesn’t look like the guests have arrived yet,” she said.
“So let’s go up and take a look.”
“What if they come?”
“We’ll tell them we’re the cleaning crew.”
She looked me up and down and smiled. “Even without the three-thousand-dollar suit, no one would ever believe you were the cleaning crew.”
“Why not?”
“Because you just look like the boss. I don’t want to get caught poking around after check-in time.”
I got out of the car and opened Evie’s door, extending a hand to help her out. “Come on, it’ll be fun. You like almost getting caught. Remember how hard you came when I ate you out on your desk last week without the door locked?” I rubbed the hair at the back of my head. “I’m missing a chunk of hair from how hard you pulled.”
She took my hand. “I’ll go, but I’m warning you… You’re going to be missing the rest of it if we climb up there and you try something like that again.”
At the ladder, I smiled when she looked around again to be sure the coast was clear.
“After you,” I said.
Evie was wearing a sundress, so the view from below went a long way toward making me forget what I was about to do.
“Stop looking at my ass,” she yelled without looking back.
I chuckled. “You appreciate your views, and I’ll appreciate mine.”
Inside, she took a few steps in and stopped short as I climbed in behind her. “Oh my God. There’s champagne chilling. The people must’ve already checked in. I bet they went for a walk. They’ll be back any second since it’s almost dark. We better go.”