Cowboy Baby Daddy

All things considered, the only thing he really did wrong was got too drunk.

I’ve done that.

I don’t know why I’m so angry with him, but the feeling’s not going away.

We get into the bathroom and I stuff him in the shower and tell him to take off his clothes.

“All right,” he says, a grin working its way up his face. “Hey,” he whispers.

“What?” I ask, leaning toward him.

“If you jump in the shower with me, we can pretend it’s a waterfall.”

With that, I’m done talking to him.

I turn on the shower, hoping that the jolt of the cold water brings him back to a more tolerable version of himself, and I walk out of the room.

It’s a miracle that neither of us got cut on the shards of ceramic plate scattered all over the kitchen floor.

The dishes were nothing fancy, but that doesn’t make me any less angry. My only consolation is that it doesn’t take long to pick up the remnants.

I can hear Dane in the bathroom.

It’s unclear whether he’s singing or just talking really loud, but I could do without hearing that voice for a little while, so I walk over to the television, fully intending to crank the volume up and drown his voice out entirely.

That’s when I hear what he’s singing.

I step into the bathroom.

“…Leila, Leila, Leila, Leila…”

The guy’s a mess, but damn it, he’s my mess.

He’s drenched and I know how cold the water is, but he’s just sitting there on the shower floor, arms open wide, eyes closed, singing my name.

It’s pretty hard to stay mad at him.

Chapter Twenty

Rough

Dane

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the sunlight creeping through my window is hell.

I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk in my life.

My only comfort from this massive hangover is the soft, warm body lying next to me.

With my eyes as near closed as I can keep them while still managing to see what I’m doing, I lean over and kiss Leila on the forehead. She takes a deep breath and continues to sleep.

I remember meeting with Wrigley yesterday.

To say that I’m confident in trusting her to leave us alone would be a lie, but at least she put forward the lip service.

I get up and stagger my way into the kitchen. Now would be the perfect time to have one of those coffee machines that starts brewing at a preset time, but that’s a luxury for a different morning.

There’s a bottle of ibuprofen on one of the shelves in the cupboard, but I’m not ready for the physical effort it’s going to take to reach for it just yet.