Page 38 of You've Got Male

“Got it. But in case I forget to tell you later. I had a really good time.”

Chapter Thirteen

Evie

“Drop the diaper and back away,” Evie said.

Evie hadn’t even finished her morning mocha and her day had literally turned to shit. She’d gotten up early to go over some of the shop’s vendor invoices when Camila had called her from next door, saying it was an emergency, and turned Evie’s mess of a morning into a crime scene.

The stench alone blew her back a step, nearly taking her out at the knees. The visual—oh God, the visual. The giant finger-painted, poop-smeared wall was like the metaphorical landscape of her life.

Wielding tongs and a beach towel, she crossed the threshold of her neighbor’s nursery. She was stuck in a standoff with a diaper-lobbing toddler, who—in the three-minute argument between Evie and the coffeepot that was overflowing—had pulled a diaper-Houdini, then smeared herself with the entire contents of the dirty diaper. From the tips of her wheat-blond mohawk to the bottoms of her chubby little feet, Waverly left amess in her wake wider than the Colorado River.

Jonah better be the best damn beard of all time.

“I say we go at her like she’s a greased pig,” Lenard’s eternally humored voice said from beside Evie. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Evie, like a fellow soldier preparing for battle.

“Or we can bribe her with a cookie and when she’s distracted wrap her up like a burrito, then take her outside and hose her off,” her mother said. Today she was wearing her hair in wavy curls, a polka-dotted sundress—Pretty Womanstyle—with stilettoes on her feet. She was also standing beside Evie. Then there was Camila, who was behind Evie, using her body as a shield.

“She’s not a dog,” Evie said.

“Sink or shower?” Moira said to Lenard.

“I’m not sure Jonah wants to wash his vegetables in a sink doubling as a makeshift changing table,” Evie said, noting that he was suspiciously MIA.

“Hose it is,” her parents said in unison. Even though they’d been divorced for over a decade, they were inseparable. Which was a testament to her mother’s generous spirit.

“Jonah,” Evie called out, her voice one octave shy of manic. “My parents are about to power wash your kid.”

Only silence answered back.

“Where is he?”

“Um, he said if there was any problem to call you and you’d help out. There was a problem so I called you,” Camila said. “I told Mr. Stark that I’d watch Waverly until he got back.”

“And he’s where?”

“Having coffee with someone.”

“Of course he is.”

What had she agreed to? That was a question she’d been asking herself all week. Yes, it had been her idea, but she’d clearly been out of her mind when she’d come up with it.Desperation could make people do crazy things.

Like staging a fake relationship to trick America. Was she willing to lie to her family to get them off her back? Sadly, yes. While Evie hadn’t posted anything on ClickByte, someone had videoed her and Jonah holding hands, and she could already see a reduction in suitors. Better still, other fans of the account were continuing to pour through the doors, but Evie was starting to wonder if she’d ever have privacy again.

For heaven’s sake, she had taken to wearing a ballcap low on her forehead, an oversize sweatshirt, and hunching over to make herself as inconspicuous as possible just to get groceries without incident. But this. This!

This was not a part of their pact.

She whipped out her phone and angrily whipped off a text.

Evie: My parents are about to corner and hogtie your kid like cattle.

She waited five seconds and when no dots appeared she pocketed her phone and shot Camila her mom-glare.

Camila grimaced. “He offered me a hundred bucks to get her ready for school.”

“It doesn’t look like she’s ready,” Lenard said, amused.

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