Page 86 of The Rules of Dating

I nodded, feeling my eyes well up. I didn’t want to cry, but better now than in front of Colby. He needed me to be strong and not make things harder. Colby didn’t need to be worrying about me and my feelings at a time like this.

“Are you worried this could affect your relationship with him?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I haven’t been worried about Colby and me at all. Saylor’s well-being is the only thing that’s been on my mind. I can’t imagine a scenario where she would be forced to spend time with this virtual stranger—or God forbid, be taken away from Colby. Those two are like extensions of each other. That can’t happen. Not even part of the time. It’s not an option, Deek!”

Deek shook his head slowly. “I don’t like the sound of this. Any person who would come out of nowhere and threaten Colby like that is probably capable of anything.”

“Exactly. Who does that?”

“An evil bitch,” he answered.

I rubbed my temples. “I would give anything to make this go away right now.”

“Well, I know a guy…” He teased.

“Last resort.” I chuckled.

“But listen,” he said. “Don’t freak out until you have a chance to hear what happened.”

I suspected Colby’s “breakfast” with Maya would only make things worse, not better. “You know sometimes you just have a bad feeling you can’t shake?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s how I feel about their meeting today. I know he’s gonna walk in here and tell me something I don’t want to hear. I can feel it in my bones.”

“The way this is affecting you? I can see how much you care about that little girl, and how lucky she’d be to have you in her life.”

“I would be the lucky one, Deek. I really would.”

Deek gave me a hug. “Maybe you do want kids after all, huh?”

I would adopt Saylor this minute if it meant making that woman disappear.

“Maybe.” I smiled. “I don’t know about giving birth. But being a mom to that sweet little thing?” I sighed. “That would be a pleasure.”

“She sure as hell deserves a better mother than the one she was born to.”

I thought back to my brief first impression of Maya.

“It’s hard to believe that strange woman gave birth to Saylor. I think until now, I’d sort of pictured her like a snowy television screen. Nothing clear. Just white noise.”

“What was she like?”

“I didn’t spend all that much time in the room with them when she was there.” I shrugged. “She was pretty. I mean, I always knew she would be, because it wasn’t like Colby was going to hook up with someone who wasn’t. She had dark hair, long like mine but not as dark. She doesn’t look much like Saylor. It made me realize how much Saylor takes after Colby.” I shrugged. “I might have gotten a better look at the woman if I hadn’t been so damn focused on making sure Saylor didn’t notice anything was off.”

“Understandable, yeah. In that sense, it’s really good you were there.”

I rubbed my eyes. “God, I can’t imagine if I wasn’t.”

Justine returned from her break, interrupting our conversation. I was close with her, but I didn’t want to rehash everything, and Deek knew to keep his mouth shut without me having to tell him.

Within a few minutes, our next clients arrived, ironically a mother and daughter getting matching tattoos. The universe definitely had a way of fucking with you sometimes. I nearly cried while tattooing the same sentence onto each of them: I love you more. The mother-daughter relationship was like no other. For someone like me, who didn’t have the best mother, I’d always longed for more. Maybe the only way I would get to experience that would be to become a mother myself.

The day dragged on as I waited for Colby to stop by after work. I’d specifically not texted him because I didn’t want him to feel obligated to explain everything in a message or on the phone when I knew his plan was to lay it on me in person.

After the shop closed, Deek hung out with me until Colby arrived.

When my man finally walked through the door, his eyes looked sunken and bloodshot. His tie was crooked and his hair mussed, probably because he’d been pulling on it. This was definitely bad.