Page 124 of The Rules of Dating

He stood up and whispered in my ear. “Maya insists on saying hello to her. I didn’t want to make a scene. I’m too damn spent. She promises to leave right after.”

Ugh. She’s still here? I let out a long sigh. “Okay.”

“You wanna come say hello to someone, Saylor?”

“Is it Maya?” she asked.

He looked to me, confused.

“Saylor heard a woman’s voice and had asked me who was talking. I told her she was an associate of yours named Maya.”

He nodded and looked down at Saylor. “Yes. Her name is Maya.” He exhaled. “Let’s go say hello.”

Saylor followed him out. “Okay.”

Maya was sitting on the couch. She stood up as soon as she saw Saylor enter the room.

Saylor was the first to speak. “Hi, Maya.”

Maya bent to meet her. “Well, hello, beautiful girl. How are you?”

“I’m good. Who are you again?” Saylor asked.

“I’m your daddy’s friend.”

“Oh.”

“Were you playing with Billie?” Maya asked.

The sound of my name coming out of her mouth was grating.

“Yup. We had a tea party.”

“That’s so much fun. I used to love to do that when I was young.”

Several awkward seconds of silence passed as Maya just stared at Saylor’s face. Poor little girl had no clue what was really happening.

“Well…” Maya’s eyes started to water. “I just wanted to say hello to you before I left.”

“Hello,” Saylor said innocently. She apparently hadn’t picked up on the fact that Maya was about to cry; I knew Saylor would have said something if she’d noticed.

Then Maya pulled Saylor in for a hug. Colby’s face was beet red. He looked like he was ready to lose it. She finally let Saylor go and turned to us. “Well, goodnight.”

Colby nor I said anything as she left.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Thankfully, Saylor didn’t question us any further about Maya or anything else that had happened. She was just happy to have her daddy home and cooking her favorite meal.

Colby ended up making a huge batch of that mac and cheese for all three of us. It wasn’t the dinner we’d imagined, but then again, this entire evening had been flipped on its axis. I only hoped it had been worth it.

Because we ate later than expected, we opted to let Saylor pick an episode of a Disney show on demand instead of watching a full movie. Colby and I mostly stared at each other, still in disbelief as Saylor watched TV.

After the show ended, I offered to put her to bed.

When Colby and I were finally alone for the first time since this ordeal began, he wrapped his arms around me and let out a long breath into my neck. “You were a fucking rockstar today. I can’t thank you enough for putting up with that and for saving the whole situation. It could have been a huge disaster.”

“I didn’t do much.”