The Rules of Dating

Slam.

“Colby, what the hell?” Billie looked at my front door, horrified.

“Whatever she wants, I don’t want to hear it.” I walked back into the living room, filled my wine glass, and chugged half of it down.

“So you just slam the door in Saylor’s mother’s face? What does she even want?”

“First of all, she’s not Saylor’s mother. Biology doesn’t make you a damn parent. And second of all, I don’t give two shits what the hell she wants. Third of all—” My rant was cut short.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Billie and I both turned and looked at the door.

“You need to answer that,” she said.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

My eyes locked with Billie’s, and we stared at each other. I hadn’t thought there was anything I could say no to this woman about, until this moment.

Fifteen seconds later, the knock on the door grew louder.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Billie sighed. “Colby…”

I stayed rooted firmly in place while I lifted my wine to my lips and guzzled the remainder of the glass.

“Open the door, Colby! I need to talk to you!”

I felt anger rising inside my body. It started in my toes, traveled up through my legs and torso, and settled in to heat my face.

“Colby, she’s going to wake Saylor. And then what?”

I still hadn’t moved. Not until my daughter padded out from her bedroom, rubbing her eyes. “Billie, were you just yelling?”

Billie immediately walked over and bent down to Saylor. “No, sweetheart. There’s someone outside. Umm…a woman got locked out of her apartment, so Daddy is going to go outside and help her.” She turned and gave me a look. “Right, Colby?”

I still didn’t respond. Billie shook her head at me and frowned, then lifted Saylor to her hip. “How about if I tell you another story while Daddy goes out and helps the woman?” She glanced back at me. “I have another one about the witch who flies away on her broom because the handsome prince turned out to be a frog after all…”

My daughter smiled, none the wiser. “I want to hear about the frog!”

“Okay. Let’s go, girlfriend.” She carried Saylor to the bedroom, stopping once more to look back and motion with her head toward the door, silently telling me to go deal with things.

The minute Saylor’s door shut, Maya started again.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“I’m not leaving, Colby! So you might as well open the damn door before I wake up all the tenants in this building!”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It did nothing to calm my nerves or quell my anger, yet what choice did I have? I did not want Saylor asking questions. I didn’t want her to see the woman’s face or hear her voice.

Maya straightened her posture when I stepped out into the hall. This woman really had some balls. I pulled the door shut behind me and folded my arms across my chest.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“I need your help.”

I bent my head back in maniacal laughter. “You need my help? That’s a good one. What about your fucking kid? Do you think she might’ve needed your help in the last four years? You’ve got a lot of balls showing up at our door and saying you need anything from me.”

Maya looked away. “I never planned to have a child. When I found out I was pregnant, I thought I could handle it. But I couldn’t. The child is better off without me.”

I leaned forward and put my face in hers. “Saylor. The child has a goddamned name. And you better believe she’s better off without a woman who thinks nothing of handing her flesh and blood off to a guy she’s only met once. You never even called to check on her, for Christ’s sake. Where the fuck have you been for four years? I had a private investigator search for you.”

“You are her father. Not a stranger.”

“So what? The Green River Serial Killer murdered forty-nine women. He had a child, too.” I shook my head. “Though right about now I’m starting to understand how someone can be a parent and murder a woman.”

Maya frowned. “I planned on coming back. I just needed a break, and I had no one to turn to. The baby wouldn’t stop crying, and I thought one night away would help. But one day led to two, and two led to a week. And then I started to get my life back.”

“How nice for you…”

She shook her head. “Listen, Colby. There’s a lot about me you don’t know. First of all, my name isn’t Raven. That was just my stage name.”

“Yes, I know. Raven wasn’t much help when the private investigator tried to find you, Maya Moreno.”

“Oh. Well, do you know I’m not here legally? I came on a summer visa from Ecuador when I was seventeen and never went back.”

“I knew that, too. Anything else you want to tell me about your life?” I shrugged, giving her no time to actually answer before continuing. “No? Good. It’s been great catching up, but why don’t you go back to wherever you came from and forget I exist? Enjoy the rest of your life as much as you have the last four years.” I turned and reached for the door handle, but Maya put a hand on my arm.

“Wait!”

I glared at her. “Don’t you goddamn touch me.”

Maya held up both hands. “Fine. I won’t. But I need a favor from you. I can see you’re upset right now. So why don’t we meet for coffee in the morning to talk after you’ve had some time to cool off? I can explain everything then.”

My face twisted. “I’m not meeting you for coffee.”

Maya raised her voice. “Listen, Colby. You’re going to have to get over your problem with me for the sake of our daughter.”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “My daughter.”

Maya sighed. “I didn’t want to do it like this.” She lifted a flap on her purse and pulled out a thick, manila envelope, holding it out to me.

I continued to glare at her with my arms folded across my chest, making no attempt to take it.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be at the coffee shop on the corner tomorrow morning by eight AM. If you’re not there…” She dropped the envelope to the ground between us. “I’ll be filing those papers at nine.”

***

I sat at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey and a now-empty glass, staring at the envelope. Billie walked out from Saylor’s room and quietly took the seat across from me.

“I got her back to sleep.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded. “Talk to me. What’s going on, Colby? I thought Saylor’s mom wasn’t in the picture.”

“She wasn’t. You know the entire story. I met her at a strip club on Halloween a few years back. She came home with me. We had a one-night stand, and she skipped out the next morning, leaving me a wrong number. Next time I saw her was when she showed up at my door with a baby, saying it was mine, and I needed to watch her for a little while because she had an important job interview. She ran out my door as fast as she’d showed up.” I shook my head. “Haven’t seen or heard one word since. I tried looking for her after she disappeared, but she was here illegally, so it was easy to vanish without a trace.”

“What did she say outside?”

I refilled my glass with whiskey and shook my head. “Not much. Just said she wanted a favor. I went off on her. Then she threatened that if I don’t meet her tomorrow at eight AM at the diner down the block, she’ll file those papers.” I motioned to the envelope with my eyes, then lifted the whiskey glass and chugged back a heaping gulp. It burned, but not enough.

“What’s in the envelope?”

I looked at it again. “Take a look for yourself. I can’t say the words…”

Billie slipped the packet of papers out. Her head moved slightly from side to side as she scanned the typed print. I knew the second she read the caption. Her eyes flared wide and her head snapped up. “A motion for petition of custody?”

I felt like throwing up, hearing the words out loud.

“Colby, oh my God, is she serious?”

I shook my head. “Looks that way. I only skimmed the papers, but she’s got affidavits from doctors saying she suffered from postpartum depression and that’s why she left. Some bullshit about her being worried for the safety of her baby. There’s even a certificate in there saying she took some sort of a parenting class. As if they can teach you to love someone and protect them with your life, or stay up all night watching them when they come down with a fever. Or teach you to forget you once had a life of your own.” I shook my head. “A fucking class.”

“Oh, Colby…” Billie reached across the table and took my hand.

I’d been so damn angry the last fifteen minutes, yet that one little touch made a chink in my armor. I felt all my nerves start to flood out through that crack.

I just kept looking down and shaking my head. “They can’t do that, right? Give my daughter to a woman who walked away from her child and never even called to check on her?” I swallowed and tasted salt. “They can’t, right?”

Billie shook her head. Her face was so sad. “I don’t know, Colby. But I do have a friend whose baby daddy didn’t see his kid for five years, and they gave him visitation. He was an addict and sobered up though, so it’s a little different.”

“Different than what? A woman who has a letter from a doctor swearing she had postpartum depression? Both are diseases, right?”

Billie squeezed my hand. “Let’s slow down for a minute. I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves by trying to guess what a judge might do. It may not even come to that. You said she didn’t file the papers yet, right?”

“I don’t think so. She said if I didn’t meet her at eight, she’d be filing them at nine tomorrow.”

“What does she want you to meet her at eight for?”

“I have no damn idea.”

“Well, I think you need to find out…”

***

I barely slept all night.

Billie had gone home after all. She’d said she wanted to give me time to think, and I didn’t fight her too hard on it. I wouldn’t have been good company anyway. Talk about a quick turn of events. One minute, I’m the happiest I can remember being, maybe ever—my girl’s going to stay over, Saylor and Billie clearly adore each other, and the woman I’d thought might run away when she saw what my day-to-day life was really like wound up running to me because of it. And then there was the knock.

The fucking knock.

With the same woman standing on the other side of the door who had turned my life upside down four years ago. And she was trying to do it a second time.

Maya.

Isn’t there a limit on how many times you can sucker punch a guy you’ve spent the sum total of less than eight hours of your life with? If not, there goddamned should be.

“Daddy…” Saylor padded into the kitchen where I was drinking coffee and held up a pair of my socks. “Are you being silly?”

My brows dipped together. “Why do you have my socks, honey?”

She grinned. “Because you left them for me to put on when you laid my outfit on the bed.” She pulled something from behind her back. “And these!”

I blinked a few times. Had I really done that? Left my underwear and socks for her to wear instead of her own? I guess I had.

Saylor tilted her head. “Are you sad, Daddy?”

Shoot. “No, honey, I’m not sad. Just a little tired, that’s all.” The last thing I wanted was to worry my little girl before I dropped her at school. So I scooped her off the floor as I stood and put on my best fake smile. She giggled.

“I was wondering why my underwear were so tight that they were going up my butt. I guess it’s because they’re yours…”

Saylor’s eyes widened with a sparkle. “You’re not really wearing my underwear are you, Daddy?”

“I don’t know. Do you have pink ones with little purple butterflies on them?”

She nodded fast.

“Hmm. Okay, well, good thing then. Because the ones I have on are black and don’t have any butterflies on them.” I rubbed my nose with hers. “You don’t really think I can fit into your undies, do you?”

She giggled again, and it felt like a salve had been rubbed on the gaping wound in my heart. I carried her into her room and opened her dresser drawer, pulling out a pair of her underwear and socks. “Here you go. But you better get a move on. We only have ten minutes before we have to leave for preschool.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

A half hour later, I rounded the corner back onto my block after dropping Saylor at school. I felt angry and bitter, but also a whole lot scared as I opened the door to the diner and looked around.

Maya held up her hand and smiled and waved like we were besties having a friendly breakfast. Is she serious? I took a deep breath before marching to the table. My face was anything but friendly.

“Hello, Colby.”

The first thing I noticed is that she was dressed differently than last night. Today she had on a business suit, while last night she’d worn jeans and a top I couldn’t even remember. I only knew she’d been casual, and now it looked like she was all business. Her dark hair was tied up, and she had on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. I had no idea she even wore fucking glasses.

I nodded and sat down. “What do you want?”

The waitress walked over. “Can I get you some coffee or juice?”

I waved her off. “Nothing for me, thank you. I won’t be staying long.”

Maya smiled at the woman. “I’ll take a coffee, with milk and sugar, please.”

I barely waited until the waitress disappeared. “So what do you want from me?”

Maya folded her hands in front of her on the table. “I need you to marry me. They’re trying to deport me.”

My brows jumped. “Are you freaking high?”

“No. I’m very sober.”

“Then just mentally insane? I’m not fucking marrying you. I can’t stand the sight of you.”

“If you do it, I will sign over full custody of Saylor. My attorney has advised me that I have two ways to stay in the country at this point: either file for custody of my daughter and apply for a green card as the primary caretaker of my child, or marry an American citizen. You’re the most logical choice, and I’m told we would likely sail through the immigration process if we say we’ve been together since Saylor was conceived.”

I stared at her for the longest time before speaking again. “Saylor’s doing great. Thanks for asking.”

Maya took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m trying to keep emotions out of this, Colby.”

“Well, isn’t that grand of you? It must be nice to be able to see your child as nothing more than a business transaction you can barter.”

The waitress returned with coffee and poured a cup for Maya. She looked back and forth between us. “Are you guys ready to place an order?”

Maya shook her head. “We need a few more minutes, please.”

“No problem.”

I leaned forward. “You don’t even want custody of her, do you?”

“Like I said, I think it’s best if we keep emotions out of this conversation. Let’s just make it simple. I need something from you. You need something from me. Marry me, and as soon as I get my green card, we’ll divorce, and you will forever not have to worry about custody.”

I glared at her. “I’m not worried about it now. No judge in the world is going to give you custody.”

“You’re speaking from an emotional place because I’ve made you feel threatened.”

I lifted my chin. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Do your homework, Colby. Consult a family law attorney. Whoever you pick is going to tell you that I will get visitation once I file that paperwork. It may be limited at first. But courts like mothers in their children’s lives, especially a little girl. Eventually, when I do everything correctly and a little time passes, I’ll be awarded shared custody.”

“You’d uproot a little girl’s life to serve your own purposes without blinking twice? You already walked out on her, isn’t that enough damage?”

Maya picked imaginary lint off her pants.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Her nonchalance had my blood boiling. I stood, the bottom of the chair scraping loudly against the tile floor. “I’m done here.”

When I turned, Maya grabbed my wrist. “Go see a lawyer,” she said. “Confirm what I’ve told you. Then meet me back here one week from today at the same time. I’ll hold off filing the paperwork until then. I realize this is a lot for you to digest.”

I pulled my wrist from her grip and looked her in the eye. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Same time next week, Colby. I’ll see you then.”