Life's Too Short Read online

  “Okay. Got it.”

  “And you need to bounce her. She likes that.”

  “As evidenced by the earth-shattering wailing,” I said dryly.

  She narrowed her brown eyes at me.

  “I’m kidding. I’m very capable of this, I promise you.”

  She still didn’t move. I waited patiently.

  She finally nodded. “Okay.” She got closer to hand the baby over. Close enough that I could smell her hair as she leaned in to put the baby in my arms. Vanilla—and a touch of spoiled milk.

  I cradled the tiny angry bundle. She was red faced and furious. She couldn’t be more than ten, eleven pounds, tops.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked, eyeing me.

  “Go. I got this. And take your time.”

  She paused for another moment. “I’ll be right on the other side of that door if you need anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s Grace. My name is Vanessa.”

  “Nice to meet you, Vanessa. Now go. Take. A shower.”

  She stood another few beats, then finally turned and rummaged clothes from the dresser and headed to the bathroom. She closed the door slowly, looking at me through the crack until it shut.

  A higher-pitched cry came from the wiggling pink blanket in my arms. I peered down again at the baby.

  Not much made me nervous. Actually, outside of flying, nothing made me nervous. I was a criminal defense attorney. I looked pure evil in the eye daily. But it surprised me when a sudden sense of—I don’t know what it was. Anxiety?—overcame me looking down at that little person. She was so fragile. Thinner than the forearm she nestled in.

  It felt safer to sit than stand, so I moved to the couch.

  The screaming continued as the water turned on in the shower. It was amazing how long something so small could cry.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I mumbled.

  I tried to think of what might be causing this distress. There was a finite number of issues that could be bothering someone who didn’t yet know about things like taxes and existential dread.

  Vanessa had said she’d fed her, so she wasn’t hungry. She was dry. No gas, no pain. She had to be tired, but something was keeping her from sleeping.

  What kept me from sleeping?

  And then I had a thought.

  I laid her down on the couch cushion, opened the blanket, and started to feel around her little footie pajamas. I ran my fingers along the seams and about mid-belly I found it. A clear T-shaped plastic tag fastener, still stuck to the outfit. Totally invisible.

  “No wonder you’re pissed. I’d be pissed too,” I said. I looked around for scissors. Didn’t see any. So I leaned down and pulled the thing off with my teeth. Then I unzipped her little pj’s and took out the rest of the offending object and rubbed the red spot on her belly with a knuckle. “Shhhhhhh…”

  She stopped crying almost immediately.

  CHAPTER 2

  HOT GUY TAMES MY BABY!

  VANESSA

  I wasn’t entirely truthful when I said I didn’t know him. Adrian Copeland was the hottest guy in my building, so of course I knew him. Or, rather, I knew of him. Everyone did. He was sort of this bachelor legend around here.

  He probably didn’t know me. And when I finally met him, it was 4:00 in the morning, my poor parenting skills had woken him up, and I had barf in my hair—because of course I did.

  I was honestly too tired to care. This had been the worst night of the worst two weeks of my entire year. I’d been thrust into instant motherhood, I’d gotten into a huge fight with my sister, and now Grace was having some sort of epic meltdown that I couldn’t figure out.

  I just didn’t understand it. Grace was a mythically good baby. Like, ridiculously good. If I was going to have a surprise infant dropped on my doorstep, I couldn’t have asked for an easier one. She wasn’t a crier, she slept well, we’d gotten our routine down over the last two weeks—and then all of a sudden right after her bath she lost her ever-loving shit.

  I’d tried it all. I even did a video call with her pediatrician who seemed wholly unconcerned and suggested I bring her in tomorrow if she was still “fussy.”

  Adrian’s offer was too good to refuse.

  One, his reasoning made sense. What I was doing—or not doing—was not working. And I was extremely open to suggestions at this point. I would have tried an exorcism if the person who had knocked had been a priest instead of a hotshot attorney.

  Two, the man had too much to lose to do something stupid.

  This was a guy who made it into the Star Tribune at least once a month for his legal prowess. I knew this because every time he did, Yoga Lady in 303 sent me a link along with twenty heart-eye emojis. I think she had a Google Alert set up. She was practically his stalker.

  Adrian was like me. He had a reputation and a public persona to safeguard. Murdering Grace and me would be highly out of character and really bad for business. Plus, he thought he was in an apartment full of cameras—which he wasn’t—but he didn’t know that.

  And lastly? Nobody was coming to rescue me. No one else was banging my door down to help me in my seventh level of hell. And I needed that shower. Bad. I just needed to wash off the barf and the sweat and change out of pants that didn’t have baby pee on them. And Grace needed someone to hold her while I did it. Every time I tried putting her down she started crying so hard she looked like she was going to explode.

  All I needed was five minutes. Just five short minutes. Maybe it would help—and if it didn’t, at least I’d be in a better headspace to keep dealing with the screaming because as it stood, I was two seconds away from a complete mental breakdown.

  I stripped and washed myself like I was being timed for speed. Approximately four minutes after I’d gotten in the shower—which was by far the best, if not the shortest, one of my life—I turned off the water to get out, and I was met by eerie, cold silence.

  My heart plummeted.

  Oh my God.

  Something was wrong.

  I wrapped a towel around me so fast I almost slid on the tile.

  What had I been thinking? I didn’t know this man. I mean I did, but I didn’t. What if he kidnapped her? Dropped her off the balcony? What if he was a perfectly normal guy who had been on the verge of a psychotic break and the crying had pushed him over the edge and now he’d shaken her to death? I was so stupid!

  I threw the bathroom door open, braced for Lord knows what, and froze.

  Adrian was lying across the sofa in my dim living room, head on a throw pillow with a finger pressed to his lips. Grace was nestled in the crook of his arm on her back, and she was sleeping.

  I just stood there gawking at him. I couldn’t even believe it. I had to tiptoe over to them dripping wet to see it close up.

  What was this sorcery? How did he do it? The man was like a baby whisperer or something. Grace cooed softly in her sleep, and I had to clutch a hand over my heart.

  There must be a primal internal switch that flips when you see a man take care of a child, because I swear I fell a little bit in love right there. I mean, the guy was gorgeous without this witchcraft, but now? Holy shit.

  I was sopping wet, just staring at him. When I didn’t move to go, he blinked at me and made a small shooing motion. I blushed, forcing myself to go back to the bathroom to get dressed.

  When I returned, working my hair into a damp braid, Grace hadn’t moved. I stood next to the sofa twisting an elastic around my hair.

  “All done?” he whispered.

  I nodded and leaned down to pick her up.

  God, he smelled good. Something sleepy and warm and masculine rolled off him. Clean cotton and testosterone.

  I lifted Grace into my arms and prayed that she wouldn’t wake up and start crying again when I put her in her crib.

  She didn’t.

  When I turned back to Adrian to thank him, he was already walking to the door. He stopped and wrestled my garbage from the kitchen trash
can, carried it with him, and without another word, he was gone.

  I pushed the bangs off my forehead with a palm. Oh. My. God.

  I needed to make a video. Now.

  The last two weeks had been a content desert. My YouTube channel had gone completely dark. I’d had to lay off my entire production team for this hiatus. Only my cameraman, Malcolm, was still on the payroll. Not only was I not making any money, I was also letting down my subscribers on top of it all. But I’d had nothing to talk about.

  Being a stay-at-home mommy isn’t exactly exciting. I’d had a video chat with Malcolm yesterday to discuss segments I could do from home. They were all pretty lame. Mostly beauty tutorials. Me trying crazy mud masks and dying my hair random colors. A vlog of me opening fan mail. Boring.

  But this…

  I grabbed my laptop and tiptoed to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet seat and titled the video “Hot Guy Tames My Baby.” I didn’t bother to blow out my hair or do my makeup. I liked my content to be authentic. I took a deep breath and hit Record.

  “Hi, all! Look, I’m alive!” I gave the screen a wave. “Well, it’s been an interesting two weeks here. I’ve been getting your concerned emails. Thank you for worrying about me, guys. And yes, I bailed on the L.A. conference last week. I know a lot of you were disappointed and I’m so, so sorry. If you bought a ticket to see me, send a picture of it and your address to Malcolm at the email here.” I put my finger up above my head where Malcolm would make an email address pop up. “And I’ll have him send you a signed picture of me. I know it’s not quite as good as the real thing, but I promise you I had a good reason.

  “I’m sure you’re all wondering where I went. As you can see from the title of my entry, I have a baby! Surprise! Are you surprised? Because I know I was.” I tilted my head and gave the camera crazy eyes.

  “Somebody I care about was expecting. Three weeks ago, she had a healthy baby girl. Then two weeks ago she dropped the baby off with me so she could run to the store for something, and she never came back.

  “Grace’s mom is unfortunately not in the best place right now. Grace’s dad isn’t in the picture, so I am now the temporary guardian of a newborn I have no idea how to take care of. Needless to say, the trip I planned to Mexico for my Christmas segment in three weeks is now canceled and instead we’ll all be exploring the exciting eight hundred square feet of my studio apartment for a while.”

  I sat there for a heartbeat before continuing to let this all settle in.

  “Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering how the hot guy comes into it. So it’s just after four in the morning here and I was up with my little angel. We were on about a million hours straight of unabridged crying. Both of us,” I added. “And my next-door neighbor knocked on my door to ask if I needed help.

  “Let me tell you a little about my next-door neighbor. This is the hottest guy in my building. Maybe the hottest guy on my block. He is so attractive that if he rolled up on me in an alley in a windowless white van, wearing rubber gloves and waving duct tape, claiming he has candy—I’d get in. Not only is he a prominent, single professional, but he also pulls off a really magnificent beard. When I moved in here back in September, he was going for all these runs with his shirt off and the man has Jesus’s abs. In fact, that’s what we’re gonna call him. Jesus’s Abs.

  “So he comes in like some kind of knight in shining pajama bottoms. I have barf in my hair, and not in a fun, too-many-tequilas-in-Cancun kind of way. In a tiny-human-vomited-in-my-hair kind of way. He offers to hold the baby while I go take a shower. I let him. Please don’t judge me. It was a very quick shower. And when I come out, he has baby whispered this child. They’re both lying on my sofa together. It was quite honestly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like one of those staged photos Instagram models post of themselves doing casual stuff around the house while looking effortlessly sexy. Nobody looks this good lounging in real life. Seriously.

  “As you guys know, I’m a sucker for hot bearded men. It’s my weakness. But honestly, after this last week? I’m starting to find dad bods attractive. Like, I’m at the point where I see a man at Target with a beer belly, a receding hairline, and a kid strapped to him in a BabyBjörn and I’m checking him out like ‘I bet that guy could change diapers allllll night.’ So seeing this man with my cranky baby on his chest—I maybe fell in love just a little bit.

  “‘Are you ready for love?’ you ask.” I cocked my head to the side and let my braid fall over my shoulder. “No. My position on dating has not changed, Jesus’s Abs aside. So don’t get excited. Also, even if the attraction was mutual and this is a guy willing to overlook my many, major shortcomings—oh, and this—” I got up, opened my bathroom door, and turned the camera to scan the disaster that was my apartment. I shut the door and came back to me. “Yes, those are actual diapers full of human waste, on my coffee table. This is what it looked like when he came over. How could he not fall in love, right? Anyway, I am still not on the market for the foreseeable future, for reasons previously and frequently discussed. But a girl can still window-shop.”

  I yawned into the back of my hand. “Time for bed. A couple of things before I go. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to my channel. And, as always, any donations to my favorite charity are deeply appreciated. Together we can find a cure.”

  I ended the video and sent it to Malcolm. He would insert links, add hashtags, and within the next two hours have the video uploaded to my YouTube channel, where my subscribers, who probably thought I was dead after not posting anything for almost two weeks, would likely descend on it like rabid bears.

  From there I had only a rough idea how this would all go. I was a travel vlogger. My videos were almost always filmed on location. I had never made a video from inside my apartment. This was a far cry from my norm, and I might even lose subscribers for this. I honestly didn’t know.

  I had loyal fans who would stick with me no matter what. But most of the Internet had very short attention spans. If I wasn’t consistently giving them something entertaining, they’d leave.

  If I lost my ability to make money…

  I tried not to think about it.

  I mean, I sorta knew what would happen with the video. All the usual stuff would go down in the comments. Some people would be supportive, some people would not, and the supportive ones would attack those hating on me. Probably more than a few would harp on my judgment for letting a stranger hold my baby. A few others would shit-talk the state of my living space. There would be the standard hateful comments about my appearance.

  Most of it would roll off my back. After being the focus of this type of attention for more than two years now, nothing could hurt me. Also, I had a little thing called perspective, in higher doses than most people, and I don’t sweat the small stuff.

  Ever.

  And most things were, in the grand scheme of things, very, very small…

  Especially when you might only have a year left to live.

  CHAPTER 3

  CHEATER GETS BUSTED!

  ADRIAN

  I ran the trash from Vanessa’s down to the dumpster. When I got back to my apartment, the light was on in my room. Rachel was out of bed and whirling around the bedroom, tossing things into her carry-on.

  I stood blinking at her in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  “Packing.”

  I drew my brows down. “What? You’re leaving? I thought your flight wasn’t until three. We were supposed to have lunch.”

  She didn’t answer me. She went into the bathroom, and I could hear her moving around, drawers opening and closing, the click of the medicine cabinet. She came back in and put her makeup bag into her luggage and zipped it, extending the handle.

  “Rachel…”

  “I’m getting the seven fifteen flight,” she said without making eye contact. “We’re training a new recruit and I need to be there.”

  “You need to be there? You just decided this at fou
r in the morning?”

  She paused for a moment, looking at the floor before her eyes came up to mine. “Adrian, I think we need to take a break.”

  I froze where I stood. “What? Why?”

  She peered at me from across the room and her chin trembled. “I shouldn’t be here. I have responsibilities and commitments, and I shouldn’t be halfway across the country—”

  I nodded. “Okay. You’re right, it shouldn’t always be you coming here. Let me come to you for a while. I’ll drive out, take a week off.”

  She shook her head. “No. This isn’t working for me. This isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t expect things with us to get so serious. I can’t let myself get further into this, not with my circumstances…”

  I shook my head at her. “What circumstances?”

  “Adrian, I’m married.”

  The words hit me like a smack. “What?” I breathed.

  Her chin quivered. “I’m married,” she said again.

  I stood there staring at her for a solid thirty seconds.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispered. “I planned on leaving him, and then I didn’t and…This was supposed to be a one-night thing with you and it just…wasn’t. And I wasn’t ready for how I’d feel about you and…”

  I dragged a hand down my mouth and sat on the edge of the bed in shock.

  I went through an onslaught of rapid-fire emotions. Surprise, betrayal, hurt, confusion. We’d been together for eight months. Eight fucking months. And she was married???

  I let out a steadying breath and looked up at her where she stood by the door.

  She swiped at her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what else to say.”

  She swung her laptop bag over her shoulder, then paused for a long beat. “I’ll miss you.”

  She gave me one more apologetic look and then let herself out.

  * * *

  Ten hours later, my paralegal dropped a file on my desk, and I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes.