Bad Boy Rich

“I said, are you lis

tening to me?” Flynn repeats, harshly.

“I’m listening!” I yell back. “But what the hell do you mean she’s mine?”

“Yours.” Flynn lowers his gaze towards the baby, quiet and non-responsive. Moments later, through a thickening voice, he explains, “Milly gave birth three weeks ago. The baby came early or something. I thought she was doing okay but she just ran off. Came to visit me yesterday. It’s because Mom’s not doing the best, it’s all fucked up.”

He begins to sob, panicked and gasping for air. Watching a grown man brought to tears was enough to hold my attention but I didn’t know how to comfort him.

“If I don’t show up for Coachella today I am fucked. I can’t take care of this baby.”

It’s like someone switched on the information overload. My mind cannot keep up, spitting out random questions in order to piece together this fucked-up puzzle.

“What…what do you mean Milana is gone?”

“Gone. Exactly that. She wrote me a letter…” He grabs a scrunched-up paper from his pocket but doesn’t read it out. “Take care of her please. I can’t cope…my sister…my mom…I don’t know how to take care of a baby.”

He pushes the carrier into my chest, and with quick thinking—I grab onto the handle before he lets go. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just take her, I need to go. I’ll be back tonight and we can talk more.”

I stare down at the baby again; my stomach churning from the sheer panic of taking care of this baby that is supposedly mine.

As he begins to walk away, towards his car, I shout anxiously, “You can’t leave her with me!”

Flynn stops in his tracks, turning around to face me. “She’s your daughter, Wesley, not mine. There’s no greater love than that from your own father, trust me—I know. So, if you want to do something right for once, take her, now, when she needs you the most.”

He turns back, only for me to yell at him one more time.

“Wait, what’s her name?”

Without turning around, he stops, posture slumped and his head falling forward. “Katerina. She’s named after our mom.”

The sadness lingers in his tone, and after a quick moment of silence between us—he walks to his car and drives off. As soon as his car is out of sight, the baby begins to stir. What the fuck do I do? Okay, breathe, take her inside, that would be the first step. I grab the carrier and the bag beside her. A balancing act which had me almost dropping the carrier.

Placing the carrier down on the lounge, I sit beside it and gaze at her face.

I had no connection to this kid. I thought that when you had babies, you supposedly looked at them and became overwhelmed with this love that was impossible to explain.

My anger towards Milana—overshadowed this moment. How the hell did she keep this from me? We were careful, used protection most of the time and I recall her telling me she took the pill religiously. She wasn’t interested in starting a family, odd yet I respected that decision. I only brought it up occasionally because I thought that’s what all women wanted and in order to keep her—I had to sacrifice a little, or a lot.

But this…this was fucking unbelievable.

And how could she abandon our kid? What type of monster had she become?

“Baby, where are you?” Felicity calls out, stumbling on the bottom step of the staircase and lunging forwards to the ground. With a delirious cackle, she searches the area, locking eyes with me in the living room.

“Who the hell is that?”

I keep quiet. I needed to process.

“Wesley… who is that?”

“Mine.”

“Yours? Is this some sort of sick joke? Let me see.”

Felicity moves closer, naked and barely able to compose herself. Armed with a look of disgust, she complains, “Jesus, Wesley, get rid of her. What a killjoy.”