Page 14 of Secret Daddies

But before I could finish what I was saying, my phone buzzed where I had left it on the counter. I glanced around, not wanting to be unprofessional and answer it when I was supposed to be working, but when I turned back to Taylor, he nodded toward it.

“Answer it. I’m fine.”

“Thanks,” I blurted out, a little annoyed that I’d been interrupted in the middle of this session. I wanted to make a good impression on at least one of these guys—in a way that had nothing to do with me taking my clothes off—and here I was, having to take a damn call. It better be important…

“Hello?”

“Hi, Maya?”

I recognized the voice at once. It was Ms. Hayworth, my son’s teacher.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked, worry gripping my chest. I never heard from the school unless it was something serious.

“Are you free right now?” she demanded, her voice edged with concern. “Matty’s not doing great. He’s come down with a nasty cold and I want to get him out of the school before he exhausts himself, or passes it on to anyone else.”

“I—I’m not free right now,” I blurted out, my heart pattering in my chest. “I’m sorry, I’m at work. How bad is it? Do you need me to come down right away?”

She sighed, a rush of static down the phone.

“We can keep him in the nurse’s office for now, but there are a few other children with this bug,” she warned me. “So the sooner we can get him out of here, the better, and the less chance he catches anything more serious off someone else.”

“Oh, crap,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I couldn’t just ditch work—I would look totally unprofessional. But at the same time, the thought of my little boy being in so much pain and discomfort and having nobody there to look after him didn’t sit right with me either. Why did this have to happen now, of all times? How many days had I been sitting around at home, doing nothing, and this was the time he fell sick…?

“I have to call you back,” Ms. Hayworth told me. “But can you get someone down here as soon as you’re able? He really should be at home.”

“I—I’ll do what I can,” I promised, but before I could even finish what I was saying, the phone had gone dead. I stared down at it for a moment, no idea what to make of what had just happened—but certain that my day was about to get a whole lot worse.

“Everything okay?”

I jumped at the sound of Taylor’s voice. I had almost forgotten he was in the room with me. Spinning around to face him, I parted my lips, trying to think of some way I could make sense of all of this.

“Uh—uh, it will be,” I replied, plastering a smile on my face. “I just—I need to go to?—”

“Was that a call from your kid’s school?” he asked, frowning. I stood there for a moment, staring at him.

“How did you know that?”

“I’ve got a daughter,” he replied, waving his hand. “I know that look, when you get a call in the middle of a workday.”

“Oh, I had no idea,” I replied, raising my eyebrows.

“Yeah, I try to keep it that way,” he remarked. I let out a long breath. At least I was dealing with another parent here—that had to count for something. None of this was ideal, but he would, at the very least, understand where I was coming from.

“It was my son’s school,” I admitted. “He’s not well. Seems like there’s some kind of bug going round, and they want me to come pick him up as soon as possible.”

“What school does he go to?”

“Sunnyvale Elementary.”

“Same as my daughter,” he muttered, shaking his head and rising to his feet. “I can’t let her get sick either. Come on—I’ll drive you there now.”

I froze on the spot. This wasnothow I’d expected any of this to go down, that was for sure.

“You don’t have to do that,” I tried to assure him, but he shook his head.

“I know I don’t,” he replied. “I’m offering. You want a lift? I can run you and your kid back to your place afterwards, if you want.”

“I—I…”

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