Page 8 of You've Got Male

“What are you doing here?” she hissed in a bare whisper.

“You invited me, remember?”

“To my house, not to my bedroom.”

“Your mom directed me to Camila’s room so I could try to put Waverly down, but I like this view better. Your mom did say third room on the right.”

She was going to kill her mom. She just couldn’t help inserting herself in Evie’s life. Especially her dating life. Well, there would be no dating because she’d adopted a man-free diet. And unlike her five-years-running New Year’s vow to give up doughnuts, she was going to stick to this diet.

“Well, show’s over,” she snapped. After the day she’d had, there was nothing in the world she wanted less than to be stuck in her bedroom with a man who drove her crazy.

“Too bad, I was just about ready to pull out some twenties and make it rain.”

“Make it wain,” Waverly repeated.

“Seriously? You have a toddler in your arms.”

“Before you start throwing stones, just know that your daughter showed up at my house for a tutoring session dressed like a go-go dancer.”

Evie gestured him away and quickly put on the top and the jeans, and fastened everything up tight. Making sure it was all on the right way—she didn’t need any more embarrassment—she walked over and tapped Jonah on the shoulder.

“Don’t say it,” she warned as he turned around, and he made a big deal of zipping his lips and throwing away the key. Then her eyes fell to Waverly, leaning against a wrinkled shirt that said “Sorry I’m Late I Didn’t Want to Come”. “Is this some kind of ploy to get sympathy votes?”

He smiled. “Is it working?”

“The shirt sends mixed messages. Your daughter isn’t a golden retriever you bring to the beach to attract women.”

“Sunshine, are you asking if there’s a woman in my life?”

She snorted. “You wish.”

“I wish for a lot of things.” His eyes went to the neckline of the silk top. “Seems the Wish Fairy is on my side tonight.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t she be in bed?”

“She and Ryan had a party and mainlined sugar and red food coloring. It’s like he gave her an IV of Red Bull. I couldn’t get her to stop crying. Every time I put her to bed, she lost it.”

At the word bed, Waverly’s little face puckered up in defiance. “No bed!”

“You have to go to sleep sometime, bug.”

“No sleep!” she said more forcefully, that little quivering lip sticking out. Then Waverly curved her body in, her pudgy legs and arms going ramrod straight, waist bent as if doing downward-facing dog on Jonah’s chest. “No. Bed!” she wailed at a pitch that only bats could hear. “Down!”

“No deal, bug. You stay in my arms, that was the agreement.”

It took everything Evie had not to laugh, but he looked so miserable she held it in. “You’re trying to make a deal with a tired toddler?”

“Down! Down!”

“I see your point.” If Jonah had looked resigned before, now he just looked defeated. “I made the crucial error of letting her take a twenty-minute powernap right before dinner.”

“That will do it.”

“Her sleep schedule’s been off ever since I put her in preschool and they have her napping twice a day,” he said over Waverly’s grunts and attempts to free herself. “So she’s wired at night.”

“Sometimes they have to cry it out.”

“Yeah, well sometimes this dad can’t handle her tears andwails.” Jonah collapsed on the edge of the bed and propped his daughter on his knee, giving her a little bounce. As if on cue, Waverly changed position, pulling her body into child’s pose before exploding her limbs out in every direction like a pissed-off starfish. Then came the wailing and flailing.

---