Page 4 of Scotch: Unraveled

We go through the self-checkout. It takes us fifteen minutes to scan and bag what might equate to half the baby department and it’s a good thing I brought my credit card. Just this load came to over $300.

Once we’re back at the car, Elise helps me pack the diaper bag. “Are ya kidding me?” I ask. “They’re going to daycare, not trekking to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.”

“Scotch.” She pats my chest. “You have so much to learn. Just trust me on this one, yeah?”

“I yield to the master.”

Ten minutes later, we pull into the Happy Child Daycare and Learning Center. I hook the diaper bag strap over my shoulder and unclick the seatbelts to heft the baby girls in each hand. Loaded down with kids, Elise and I walk inside.

She shows me where the sign-in is, then we wait for the receptionist to get the forms for me. And that’s when my worst possible nightmare comes true.

“Elise? Is that you?” The voice hits us first. Sweet with just a hint of husky. And then there’s the woman belonging to the voice. A woman I haven’t seen in eight years. The only woman to ever break my heart.

“Frankie?” I ask, and I almost drop the carriers, tightening my grip at the last second.

Francesca “Frankie” Cardone.Fuck me. She’s as beautiful as I remember and I’m sure her feminine wiles are just as lethal. Only now, there’s a tiny diamond twinkling from the left side of her nose and one above her lip like a glittering mole, showing a little more of her bad girl side that she used to reserve mostly for me. My heart races and I almost drop the carriers.

She’s wearing her hair’s shorter than she used to wear it—that’s not hard considering when she used to wear it down, the tips brushed her ass—it’s still long enough to catch a man’s eye and silky enough to wanna run my finger through it. I can tell even through the messy braid she wears flipped over her shoulder, hanging down the front. Though it barely reaches her tits now. It’s lighter in spots, too. Like she’s added highlights or hell, maybe she spends a lot of time in the sun. And good goddam, Frankie can still fill out a pair of jeans like no woman I’ve ever seen. Her pink skin deepens to red at her cheeks and her forearms. She’d always flushed red when she was angry or really turned on. But it’s her eyes that undo me. The sweetest toffee colored eyes that once held so much love for me now look at me like I’m dog shite stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Didthisday ever take a turn in the wrong direction.

She gasps and whips her head to look at me. “No,” she says, then quickly collects herself. “Are you giving Elise a ride?”

“’Fraid not. I’m signing the lasses up for childcare.”

Her ruddy complexion goes ashen and she looks about ready to vomit. I know exactly how she feels.

2.

Frankie

The universe officially hates me.Hates me. There’s no other explanation as to why Rory MacGregor would show up in Thornbriar of all towns toting not one, but two babies. We didn’t even meet here—we met three counties away when I moved to take care of my mamaw after graduation. And his babies are freaking adorable to boot. They look just like him with all their coppery red hair and piercing blue eyes.

Speaking of piercings. The Rory I knew never had his ears pierced, let alone gauges. Though, I’ve always considered gauges hot—no, Frankie. Not on him. Gauges on Rory are bad.He’s bulked up. Rory was always tall, but now he looks like he’s spent the last eight years eating sides of beef for three meals a day and bench-pressing people. How dare he show up here looking that good? The audacity.

The years have been kind to him, too. Really kind. His best friends, in fact. With the exception of the lines around his eyes implying he’s done a lot of laughing, further implying he’s had a lot of happiness, he’s hardly aged a bit. It’s possible the guy vacuum seals himself at night to keep himself fresh. It’s more than possible that the man hasn’t spent the last almost decade pining for me or lamenting making the single biggest mistake of his life in letting me go.

That doesn’t suck, it hurts. Kills. Is it too much to ask to have him show up here a haggard mess of a man regretting every second of the past we weren’t together? Is it?Is it?

I realize I still haven’t responded to him and as a potential client I probably should, but instead I keep my lips pressed together scrutinizing every inch of him on display for public consumption.Come on, there has to be something. Find it, Frankie.

Well… thereisthat scar that slices through his eyebrow now and his hair hangs a shade too long around the ears which I’m telling myself neither are sexy even though they freaking are. There’s light scruff along his upper lip, chin and jaw. So not sexy either, except for I love the scruff.Scruff another woman gets to enjoy, Frankie. Don’t forget that. And he joined a motorcycle club? I mean, he always wanted a bike, but that’s a far stretch from simply wanting a bike.

He has kids.Stop, stop, stop, Frankie.Stop obsessing over that.Water under the bridge. Professional mode engaged, I plaster the best smile on my face I can muster without looking maniacal and lead him to the cubbies where I assign one to each girl. That’s where he can store their diaper bag and lunch boxes as they get older. If we have notes for him, that’s where they’ll be.

“Frankie,” he says once more, but I have to put a stop to whatever he’s going to say and instead of responding, I snatch a baby from each of his hands.

“Saygoodbyeto Daddy,” I say, lifting the girls up to get one last glimpse of him. “I have to get back to my room now, Mr. MacGregor. You can finish up with Felicity, our receptionist.” Then—and no, it’s not my proudest moment—I speed-walk away from him, back into the safety of my infant room.

Boy, little Macie has a set of lungs on her. Bottles. Burping. Diaper changes. Playtime on the mat with the mobiles—nothing satisfies her. I’m determined to make her happy despite her sister being so easy you could almost forget she’s in the room, and thus, being the sweetheart I naturally want to gravitate toward. Mollie gets her time, too. Each of my five babies gets Miss Frankie time. I don’t play favorites.

“That hot dude’s here for them twins,” my coworker Nissa says, popping her cherub-faced head around the doorjamb into the infant room I’m working today. That’s not possible; he literally just left us. I mean, hedidjust leave us, right?

I look up at the old analog clock hanging on the wall and gasp. Has it really been five hours already? As shocked as I am at the time passage, part of me is glad to give Macie back for the night. Today has been too mentally draining to deal with a grumpy baby. Even I have my breaking point. Had she not belonged to Rory I might not have reached it. But the fact remains she does belong to him and I can’t deal with seeing him again after the day I’ve had. “Nis, can you hang in here? I’ll take your room until he leaves, please.” I beg her.

“Girl, did you not hear me? He’s hot. Why do you want to hide your eyes from that tasty piece of man candy?”

“It’s a long story… just,please.”

“Sure, go now before he gets in here.”

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