“I’ll have coffee too,” the first guy finally decided. “But I will take mine a little sweet, if you don’t mind.” He might as well have winked after the clear come-on. It took all of my professionalism not to roll my eyes at him, not to flirt-tease too hard and veer in the direction that was definitely more than just good customer service.
“Great. I’ll get those ready for you three, and I’ll be right back.”
“And we’ll try not to watch you leave,” I could have sworn I heard that same man mutter under his breath behind my back.
I avoided Kara as I grabbed the guys’ drinks, unsure if I’d be able to play it cool if she asked me for an update. My pulse was pounding like I’d run laps around the dining room. Christ, how was I supposed to do my job when just looking at the three of them filled my head with all kinds of enticing, booze-addled memories? A warm, sly mouth claiming mine like it belonged to him the second the door to their hotel room clicked shut behind us. Deft fingers finding my aching clit under my panties, thenhelping me strip bare so he could have better access. The strong hands that massaged my ass when I found myself on top of the man with the beard, riding him hard.
Taking a deep breath, I headed back to the offending table of men with my head held high despite the flush in my cheeks. I became my best waitress self, and I almost didn’t even think about the fact that they’d each been inside me before as I placed their drinks on the table in front of the tall one, the pretty one, and the bearded one. My brain malfunctioned when I was finished with my simple task though, leaving an awkward pause before I finally asked, “Alright, guys. What are we thinkin’ next?”
“I was, uh,” the shyest of the men started, clearing his throat and meeting my eyes with his own golden-hazel ones. I remembered the way he drank me in with his eyes once I was fully undressed in that hotel room, and I struggled not to blush. “I was looking at the Vegas Special, actually.”
Oh, Christ. It was one of our most popular menu items, so just hearing a reminder of the place where I first met these three shouldn’t have been too much of a shock. But something about the seriousness of his tone, the way his two friends seemed to watch for my reaction at the same time, told me he’d chosen this precisely for the reason I feared: he remembered me. Theyallremembered me. And that meant there was no way this little visit to Marv’s was coincidental.
The bearded one spoke up, then, and confirmed it further. “You remember us, don’t you, Allie?”
Sure, I was wearing a name tag, so the fact that they knew what to call me didn’t necessarily mean anything. But I’d have to be willfully ignorant to ignore the subtext here. I looked at each of the men’s faces in turn, moving slowly between them as if I could postpone the fallout of this realization. I’d already had to cope with the biggest life shift after our hookup—how the hellwas it fair that I had to deal with this drama now too? And in the middle of my otherwise normal workday?
“I, uh … I mean, yes. But …”
“But?” the dark-haired, dark-eyed flirt asked, cocking one well-groomed eyebrow at me.
“Well, I…don’t remember your names.” God, that was embarrassing to admit, and there was no hiding the fact that my face was heating up with the revelation of it. “What…what are you guys doing here?”
“We’re here to see you,” the bearded one said gruffly. The warm roughness of his voice was so familiar, and it practically brushed against my skin. “To…clear some things up.”
“I don’t think we have anything to clear up,” I protested. I could have sworn the long-haired sweet one’s face fell a little, but he recovered quickly enough to move things along, try a new tactic.
“Forgive my friend’s rudeness,” he started smoothly. His voice, by contrast, had an almost musical smoothness to it that I remembered as heightening my experience of his body that night we first met. Soft skin, soft voice, but firm touches, just the remembered ghosts of which had my body clenching internally even now. “What we meant is, can we talk to you? Someplace more private, maybe when you’re off work?”
Jesus, this was confusing. One second my body was begging to be ravished by them and the next, I was on edge for a much less fun reason, worried that they were here for the worst possible reason—to deal with the potential legal ramifications of our little visit to the chapel.
It was almost too easy to ignore, practically forget, the fact of our unorthodox quickie wedding. It had driven me to run away the morning after, and I was avoiding thinking about it still. Years ago, when I was back home in my sorority house, I’d tucked the three stupid rings into a compartment at the back ofan old jewelry box my mom had passed down to me from my grandma. They’d lived there ever since, and when I moved into the small apartment I now shared with Daphne, that jewelry box had found its home on the top shelf of my closet, way in the back where I couldn’t see it without seeking it out on purpose.
The marriage side of things had scared me far more than the pregnancy, to be honest. Though I’d grown up with a good example in my parents’ stable, enduring marriage, the idea of being permanently shackled to one person—or, I guess, in this case, maybe three—was nightmare fuel to me. I couldn’t even commit to a cute, small tattoo to put somewhere on my body forever. How was I supposed to commit to a life partner? I’d never even been in real love. Wasn’t sure I had room for that in my heart now that Daphne took up all the space.
Besides, part of me had always, always thirsted for excitement. Adventure, though not necessarily the traveling-the-world kind. I just craved experiences, newness,fun.As much as I loved and appreciated them for all they’d done for me over the past twenty-five years, I’d always known that I never wanted to become boring and settled like my parents.
That fear, the avoidant tendencies I clung to despite knowing I should probably grow up and face things eventually, was what kept me from investigating the marriage myself. I had no idea if I was legally married to any of these men—of course I couldn’t be married to all of them, but had any of the silly drag queen ceremony stuck? Was such a thing legally binding when we’d all been drunk as skunks? Did I have the power to undo it somehow? It wasn’t logical, but it was comforting to just ignore it. Pretend I’d never made such a silly impulse decision in the first place. Especially since I had no intention of letting Daphne follow my example or even find out her mommy had done something so dumb.
Not to mention the fact that raising her had taken over my whole life. There wasn’t a lot of time for anything else, even if that “anything” was “trying to undo a marriage I probably shouldn’t have participated in in the first place.” If I had any spare time, spare brain space even, I’d be using it to pursue the dreams I’d put on hold since becoming a mother. But outside of singing lullabies to my little girl every night, humming tunes I thought up while I cooked dinner for us both, and scribbling a potential song lyric or two on any scrap of paper I could find in our apartment, my longtime dreams of pop stardom hadn’t been top of mind since Daphne either.
I’d wanted to move to LA once. Try to make it big in the music industry, despite all of the pitfalls of such a career choice. It was the kind of excitement that filled me up; I’d always known that music, singing, was the career I was meant to hold. Well, besides being a mother. And maybe it was naive, but I still held out hope that I could do both on some level. Daphne loved hearing me sing, watching me strum a string of chords on my guitar in rare idle moments. I knew that if I had a band someday, she’d be thrilled to come with me on a tour bus as we flitted from low-level gigs to midsized venues, wherever the road and the music could take us. Sweet and demure as my daughter was, she was still mine, and I was one of the only people who saw how deeply curious she was, how intrigued by the prospect of exploring.
“When are you off?” One of the guys—the tallest, I thought—snapped me out of my thoughts and back into the present clusterfuck. I swallowed hard and let out a huff of breath.
“I’ve got another hour or so. If you really need to talk to me, you can wait until then.”
Surprisingly, they agreed, and as I handled their checks, they told me to meet them at a coffee shop down the street when I wasfree. It would be nice, at least, to not have this confrontation in my place of work.
I ducked into the back room as Ricardo bussed the barely-used booth, clearing away partially drunk beverages and all trace of my three maybe-baby daddies. Or really two maybes, one definite—fuck, how had I not thought aboutthatcomplication yet? I was so not prepared for a potential paternity showdown. Or even to think about Daphne as not entirely mine.
That wasn’t happening. I pulled out my phone, calling a familiar contact. Mom answered me after two rings.
“Hey, Alliebear,” she greeted me cheerily. “What a nice surprise.”
“Sorry, Mom, I know I’ve been busy. But I actually need a favor. Could you pick up Daph from daycare? I, uh, remembered I have a couple of urgent errands to run, and it’ll just be easier if I do them on my own. I can grab her from your house as soon as I’m done, I promise.”
Mom didn’t question my flimsy explanation, though I could hear the subtle probing curiosity in her calm voice. But she agreed, and I managed to hang up without revealing to her what was actually going on with me.
