Nikki sat up, almost crushing Vincent’s groin beneath her heel. Vincent winced and moved her feet aside. “Mal is going to have a baby?”
“Maybe. He finds out tomorrow, like I said.”
“Did you make it with him?” Nikki asked, breathlessly excited. She crawled across the couch and sat on her haunches at Vincent’s side, her knees pressed against his thigh. Eyes bright and wide, she looked up at him. “Do I get to be a big sister?”
No matter how badly Vincent wanted to say yes, it wasn’t right to claim the baby was his. “Not exactly. The baby only belongs to Mal. He’s going to be a single dad, just like me.”
“But you made me with Mommy, even though you’re a single dad now,” Nikki argued. “So Mal must have made his baby with you, and that means that I’m going to be a big sister!”
“That’s…” Vincent sighed. “That’s not quite how it works. Tell you what, let’s wait to see if Mal is going to have a baby or not before we get excited about anything, okay?”
Nikki scrunched her nose. “Fiiine.”
“Besides, what makes you think that Mal and I are trying to make a baby?” Vincent asked. He ruffled Nikki’s hair. “Mal is my friend.”
Nikki sat back, freeing her head from his hand. A flat, incredulous expression crossed her face, and she lifted a brow skyward. “Friends don’t kiss, Daddy. I saw you kissing Mal. He’s yourboyfriend.But it’s okay—Mommy has a boyfriend, too. I was sad for a little, but now that you have Mal, I don’t have to be sad anymore.”
Melissa had a new boyfriend? It had been years, but hearing the news rocked Vincent in a way he wasn’t expecting. In no universe did he still want to be with Melissa—though she was the mother of his child, she had done cruel, toxic things to his self-esteem over the years that had robbed him of the will to live his truth—but there was a part of him that was fiercely protective of Nikki, and that instinctively distrusted any new adult in her presence. When she went back home to spend a month with Melissa in the summer, would Melissa’s new boyfriend treat her well? Would he care for her as much as Vincent did, or would he consider her a nuisance—a loud, needy little gremlin keeping him from the woman he wanted to be with?
“By the way, I like Mal better than Mommy’s new boyfriend.” Nikki hopped down from the couch and stretched her arms high over her head. She stood on the tips of her toes to grow taller yet. “And I’ll like Mal especially better if he has a baby and makes me a big sister. If it’s not your baby now, can the next one be your baby? Or maybe you could marry him and then I’d get to be a big sister, anyway. I could teach the baby to be really cool so all her friends would like her at school.”
“You haven’t even started school yet,” Vincent said with a raised eyebrow. Nikki would be starting class in the fall—he’d read enough early childhood development literature to convince him to hold her back a year in order to maximize her potential for success—but she hadn’t started yet. For now, he chose to ignore her casual request to get him to marry Mal. “How do you know if you’re going to be cool or not?”
Nikki, with her back arched mid-stretch, replied in a single breath. “Because Leah is super cool, and I love Leah, and so I’m going to be super cool, too.” She came down from her stretch and gasped for air. “So I’m gonna be really cool, and so will Mal’s baby.”
“I think it’s time you start getting ready for bed.” Vincent stood and stretched, too. His shoulder popped, and he winced from the sound, not so much the sensation. “Go get a head start on brushing your teeth. I’ll be upstairs in a minute to tuck you in, okay?”
“Do I have to?” Nikki asked and, almost immediately after, yawned. “I’m not sleepy.”
“Mmhm.”
“I’m not!” Nikki crossed her arms and rocked her body from side to side. Whenever she was tired and didn’t want to admit it, she did her best to act hyper—it was a tried and true fake-out method that Vincent had caught onto a year ago. It was too bad that she couldn’t hide her burning red ears as easily. “Please, can I stay up? I can be good.”
“I know you can be good.” Vincent stepped forward and kissed the top of her head. “Which is why you’re going to go to bed now, like I asked.”
Nikki huffed. “I don’t like being good.”
“Sometimes we all don’t. But you’d rather be a Leah than a Brent, right?”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t like it sometimes.” Nikki spun on her heel and went for the stairs. “I’m going.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Vincent picked up his phone from the arm of the couch and turned the screen back on. The Single Dad chat had gone on without him, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. Waiting on his lock screen was a text from Mal.
Tomorrow’s the big day. Hope that we’ll—
The preview cut the text off. Vincent unlocked his phone to read it in full.
Tomorrow’s the big day. Hope that we’ll have something to celebrate. If the blood work comes back positive, can I come again, or am I going to have to wait another ten weeks, doctor?
The hint of cheekiness in Mal’s message was unusual, but appreciated. Vincent would much rather see him positive than hesitant or nervous.
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Have you been good?
Yes.
Then maybe you’ll get lucky.
