Page 68 of Pucking Daddy

I watch the city slide past the window, all those glittering lights and anonymous windows and lives being lived behind them.

Somewhere out there, a judge will soon decide whether Lily Halberg stays with her father or gets sent across the city to a mother who’s never even learned her favorite bedtime story.

"Then we control it now," I say. "The wedding. Make it soon, make it real, make it impossible to question."

"Zara—"

"I'm not backing out." I meet his eyes. "I said yes, and I meant it. Whatever comes next, we handle together."

The word lands between us with unexpected weight. Together. As if we are actually partners in this instead of two people making increasingly questionable decisions in supply closets.

His hand finds mine in the darkness between seats. Squeezes once.

"Together," he agrees.

Outside, the first tabloid headline of many is already going viral.

12

JAXON

As Friends

The headline burns across my phone screen like a brand.

Metro Raptors' New Coach Caught in Post-Game Tryst: Mystery Woman Identified as Live-In Nanny

Beneath it, a grainy photo. Zara's face half-turned toward me in the arena corridor, my hand at her lower back. The angle makes it look more intimate than it is. Or maybe exactly as intimate as it is.

I scroll down. More photos. Us leaving together. Her hair mussed in a way that tells its own story.

My thumb hovers over the screen.

The article continues—speculation about our living arrangement, questions about professionalism, a particularly cutting line about single fathers and their "household help."

Someone has done their research. They know Zara lives in my apartment. They know she'd started as Lily's nanny.

I call Simone, before my coffee finishes brewing.

"Already on it," she says instead of hello. "We're drafting a statement. Something about private lives staying private, commitment to the team, blah blah blah."

"That's not going to cut it." I move to the window, watching the city wake up seventeen stories below. "There's a custody hearing in a few weeks. My ex-wife's lawyers are going to have a field day."

Simone pauses. The silence stretches long enough that I know she is calculating angles, weighing options. "What exactly are we dealing with here, Jaxon? I need the full picture."

"She's not just the nanny anymore."

Another pause. "Define 'not just.'"

"We're getting married."

The sound Simone makes is somewhere between a laugh and a choke. "You're—I'm sorry, did you say married? To the woman the tabloids just caught you sneaking around with?"

"It's a legal arrangement. For the custody case."

"And the photos? The very much not-legal-arrangement photos?"

I don't answer. Can't, really.