Page 40 of Who's Your Daddy?

“That’s real mature, Dylan. I swear to God, Scott, today’s the day I donate him to charity. I don’t want him anymore.”

“Then comes baby Peter in a tiny carriage.” Dylan makes a right, then starts the song again.

“And she looked familiar, too,” Scott continues, as if he doesn’t hear the chaos in the background. “Wasn’t she the model you hooked up with on the night of Dylan’s bachelor party?”

That grabs Dylan’s attention, and he finally stops singing. “You went back for seconds? One time wasn’t enough for you? You had to go back and smash that again. I don’t blame you, Pete. Use her for what she’s good for, then kick her to the curb.”

“Yo, don’t talk about her like that,” I snap, and it’s only when Dylan slouches over the steering wheel howling with laughter that I realize it was just a ploy to get a reaction from me, and like an idiot, I fell for it.

It’s not like him to say anything disparaging about females, so that should’ve been the first clue. I should’ve thought about it more before I ran my mouth, but hearing him speak about her like that spiked my anger straight through the roof. My regret is instant because now I have to deal with this shit.

Dylan looks over at Scott like he just caught me out or something. “Fuck me! You do like her. You like her a lot!”

“I don’t.” I groan inwardly. Why does he have to turn every goddamn situation into an episode ofPerfect Match? “I don’t...like her. We’ve just been hanging out. Is that a crime?”

“I’m not as good at math as Scott is, but I do know that hanging out plus making out equals dating.”

“I’m not dating her!” My little epiphany at the front door draws that rebuttal into question, but I still say it with conviction.

“Okay, how often do you guys‘hang out’together?” Scott asks.

“Well, she’s...” This is the moment I’ve been dreading. “...she’s sort of been staying at my place since the bachelor party, so...every day.”

“Wait! What!” Dylan meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “That’s almost a week. She’s been staying with you for a week? How did I not know about this?”

“Because you’re never home, Dyl. You’ve been sleeping over at Isabella’s house every night since you proposed. You only come home to shower, change, and have breakfast.”

Dylan parks the car, and now that we’ve reached our destination, I’m hoping they’ll drop the entire discussion, but Scott has latched onto it like a Chihuahua on an ankle.

“So, how did you go from a one-night stand to her just...living with you?”

It’s really none of their business, but I answer just so the end can come faster. “It’s a long story, but her dad kicked her out, so I told her she could stay with me until she gets a new place.”

We hop out of the car and walk toward the entrance of the dance studio.

“Not gonna lie, that sounds a little sus to me,” Scott says. “I don’t know her, but I’m picking up some low-key forty-niner vibes. That’s definitely a sob story a gold digger would use to manipulate an unsuspecting victim. Are you sure she’s not lying about her dad, playing the sympathy card to...I don’t know...exploit you for your money?”

Did I hear him right? Did he just ask me if she’s trying to exploit me for my money? I’m no stranger to exactly the type of woman he’s referring to. I’ve met many of them, so I know the root cause of his concern, but he doesn’t even know Lia. How does he have the gall to even make an assumption like that? The truth is, the whole situation is my doing.Iasked her to go to my beach house that first night.Iasked her to go home with me on the second night. AndIwas the one who asked her to live with me until she finds a place.

They’re my friends. My best friends. But they’re really starting to piss me off.

“She’s not trying toexploitme, alright?” I snap, and my exasperation is carried in my tone. “She’s a model, for fuck’s sake. Besides, you know I don’t hook up with chicks who are...poor. She comes from money too. Her dad owns the Bayview Country Club.”

Scott’s eyebrows furrow together as if he still doesn’t believe me. “My dad and I go there all the time. We know the owner. I don’t think he has a daughter.”

I don’t know why Scott is so adamant about this. He wasn’t there. He didn’t witness what I’d witnessed.

We step into the studio and step across the glossy wooden flooring to get the room that Dylan booked. I expect to find Tommy there already, but instead, we encounter a bunch of seven-year-olds closing off their ballet dance recital.

“Of course, he has a daughter,” I say, lowering my voice so none of the little girls hear the whole sordid story. “She’shis daughter. Remember that day you left to pick Cat up from the airport?” I wait for him to nod. “About ten minutes after you left, he chewed her out in front of everyone. It was brutal, so...after we hooked up the night of the bachelor party, I offered to let her stay with me. And she’s not trying to exploit me because she made it very clear that she is utterly repulsed by the thought of dating me.”

“Yeah, it definitely looked like she can’t stand you,” Dylan quips.

Scott smirks. “That’s probably why she was lying down.”

“Fuck off, the both of you.” I decide to end it there. “Can we talk about something else, please? Like this voice note you keep referring to.”

Dylan’s eyes light up, and he reaches into his back pocket for his cell phone. “I didn’t let you listen to the voice note?”

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