Page 25 of Just a Client

A craft room... Cameron’s craft room.

Bits and pieces of hazy memories fluttered through my pounding skull. Losing at darts. Slow dancing with her in a parking lot. And comparing her boobs to an endangered species of bird. Embarrassment and a hangover were a hellish combination.

I’d gotten drunk and stumbled way past the line between professional and romantic.

Maybe the death by dehydration plan had merit. I rolled to my side, shifting my bladder. Damn, I needed to piss like a racehorse. Pros: the activity would push me toward my dehydration goal. Cons: I would have to find a bathroom.

I rolled out of the lace-covered daybed and ended up on all fours, knee-deep in a white faux fur rug. The violently feminine room made me want to scratch my balls and chop down a redwood with an ax—once my hangover passed. Right now, standing was about all my poor abused middle-aged body could handle.

Halfway to dead summed up my morning perfectly.

I lurched to my feet and took stock of the situation. One sock on, one off. Boxer briefs on. Pants and shirt rumpled and tossed over a white wood chair in front of a sewing machine. Shoes nowhere to be found.

In a flash of clarity, I recalled the guy I lost my money to at darts, making fun of my loafers. Fun times.

I burped, and fire raced up my esophagus and out my nostrils. So painful. There was a special place in hell for the inventor of the jalapeño martini. And based on my condition, I might meet him or her soon. I tugged on most of my clothes and rushed to find a bathroom.

When I emerged, music, laughter, and clanging pots and pans drew me out of my self-centered misery. I followed the noise down a hall lined with family photos. It felt like snooping, but that didn’t stop me from examining each one.

Teenaged Cameron with a crown and sash at a pageant. A bouquet of yellow roses in her arms. On her wedding day with a tall, good-looking man standing next to her. They were both so young. The family completed with a baby in arms sitting in a field of sunflowers. After that, the pictures were only of Cameron and her daughter. Soccer tournaments. School plays. Family get-togethers.

The photo gallery depicted an entirely different way to have spent the twenty-plus years after college than how I had. A wall like this in my house would have photo after photo of my head bent over a desk or lab workstation. I’d built a company while my contemporaries married and had families.

Back then, I hadn’t thought I was missing out. Not after my one brush with marriage had gone so wrong. And now, when I thought of starting a family from scratch, it felt uncomfortable. What did I offer a younger woman? Sperm and a big bank account. I’d be collecting social security before any potential kids of mine graduated college.

The last frame held an acceptance letter to Vassar addressed to Bailey Morgan and what must have been her senior portrait. She looked so much like Cameron from the beauty pageant picture that it startled me.

Vassar. Excellent school. Cameron must be proud.

I followed the music toward the kitchen. The morning playlist was an odd mix, vacillating between classics of every genre and current pop songs made famous on social media. I strolled in to the legendary Johnny Cash’sRing of Fire. An apt description of my head that morning.

In the bright and airy kitchen, Cameron and her daughter were singing poorly and making breakfast. Enough food to feed a small army based on the stack of biscuits next to the stove. The smell of frying sausage and eggs hit me, and my stomach debated its approval. Other parts of my anatomy had no problem deciding they loved the clingy purple tank top Cameron wore. Her cleavage was worth waking up for, even with a hangover.

“Morning.” I sounded ready to audition to voice Darth Vader.

The two women turned and looked me up and down. Cameron stifled a laugh behind a spatula, and Bailey cocked her head, trying to decide what the hell was going on.

“That bad?” I ran a hand through my hair, knowing it stuck out in a million directions. I’d have showered, but the bathroom I’d stumbled into had been a half bath. And frankly, a shower sounded like a level of exertion I wouldn’t have been able to handle yet.

“Would coffee help?” Cameron waved me toward the pot.

“Yes.” I descended on the liquid black gold with trembling fingers.

“Here, um, you’ll need this.” Bailey handed me a large earthenware mug.

“Thank you.”

“No worries.” She shrugged and gave her mom major side-eye.

“Ah, honey, this is Wilson Phillips.” A slight blush stained Cameron’s cheek. I surmised that random men didn’t often make appearances at breakfast in this house. Part of me savored that intimate bit of knowledge.

After a gulp of coffee, I extended my hand to the daughter. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Bailey. You’re the rich vacation house guy, right?”

I nodded.

She then looked from me to her mother and back again, her eyes growing wider, the accusation or assumption on the tip of her brash teenage tongue. “Hold on. Hold on.” She held her hand up like a cop stopping traffic.

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