What are you doing, sweetness? Don’t laugh, but I’m ridiculously proud right now—I managed to get Sammy down for her nap without having to ask you for help this time.”

I looked up to see Grazer standing in the doorway to my office, cradling a mug of coffee in his hand. He’d been with us for almost a month now, and we were still living in our peaceful little bubble.

He’d really come a long way with Sammy too. I wanted to tell him how proud I was of how well he’d adapted, but didn’t want to sound patronizing.

But still… As much as I loved curling up next to him at night, I was halfway waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was it really possible for us to be this happy without any major drama? Only time would tell. I waved a hand at the empty chair beside my desk.

“Come on in, babe. I’ll show you what I do for a living. Have you ever seen my channel?” I closed the email tab I was working on, and clicked over to my YouTube account.

“I remember you talking about the Omega Manny Diary when I knew you a couple years ago, are you still doing that? Sorry, that sounds stupid. I know you’re still doing YouTube, I’m just asking if your brand is the same.” Grazer looked interested as he leaned over to look at my monitor.

“Yeah, that will always be my main bread-and-butter. On that one, I have a series of popular videos ranging from newborn issues all the way up through the teen years. Working as a manny for over a decade gave me a lot of real-life experience that I’ve been able to pass on through my channel.”

Grazer took a sip of his coffee. “I am sure your manny experience has really come in handy with Sammy too, yeah?”

I rested my chin on my palm and looked at him thoughtfully. “I guess? I mean, I knew the basics of how to take care of an infant. Obviously, that wasn’t an issue. But it was so different being the parent! For the first time in my life, I found myself second-guessing everything.”

“In what way?” He looked genuinely interested to hear my thoughts. This was nice, sitting here talking about parenting with my… boyfriend? Partner? Co-parent? I shook off my thoughts and focused on the conversation.

“Well, little things. Like… Where I would normally advise people to let the baby cry it out, I found myself worrying about causing psychological trauma. Or, take solid foods, for example. Most babies, I would advise putting on solid food at about four months. But Sammy seemed hungrier, and I wondered if I was being a bad parent by not starting her on at least rice cereal a little sooner. Even though the doctor backed me up on waiting a bit longer.”

Grazer shook his head. “I still have to give you props, because I’m not sure I would’ve made it through even the first week on my own with an infant. There aren’t enough parenting videos on the planet to help me through a night of no sleep with a screaming infant, you know?”

I chuckled and leaned back in my chair. Steepling my fingers, I chewed on my lip and stared off into space as I gathered my thoughts.

“They don’t really have as many nights of screaming for no reason as one might think. Usually it’s something like teething or colic when you have those nights, but occasionally there are legit medical issues like ear infections or something major. It’s enough to make you question yourself, I’m not even going to downplay that. But you’ll see, wait until you see Sammy sick for the first time. Not being able to magically make her better is one of the hardest parts of parenthood, I think.”

“So you said that was your main bread-and-butter. Does that mean you have a side gig?”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry, I got sidetracked—easy to do when Sammy comes up in conversation. Anyway, let me tell you about my other channel. It’s basically a vlog where I do on-camera chats about my adventures as a single parent. It’s called The Adventures of the Omega Manny Daddy.”

Grazer leaned forward as I pulled up another tab. “See? This is all about me and Sammy and our life together. I was just about to upload some shots from her first birthday. Although, I should probably either update the information to include you at some point.” I trailed off thoughtfully.

“Or, even better, you could not? Honestly, and no offense to you personally, Luke—but this entire channel is a horrible idea, and I’m disappointed that you’d use our daughter like this.” I looked up in shock to see Grazer frowning at me.

“Excuse you? What the hell, Grazer? That’s not a very nice thing to say. What the hell is your issue?”

My feelings were more hurt by the look he had leveled at me then by his actual words, although those were pretty upsetting too.

Grazer grimaced and pointed at my profile picture. “Starting there. You have the right to put your own image online, but what the hell are you thinking putting Sammy’s up there? She should have the right to decide when she’s older whether or not she wants her image out there in the cyber world. That’s not for you to decide. That’s like trying to decide her sexuality, political opinions, or religious beliefs. Some things are meant to be personal choices, and you’ve taken this one away from her irrevocably.”

I pushed back my chair and spun to stare him. “Wait, are you seriously fucking kidding me right now? You’re really going to compare me putting a picture of my baby on my website with me telling her who to vote for, who to believe in, or who to love?”

“Yes, I am. Do you not realize that once a photo is on the web you can’t take it back? Ever? Luke, any images or messages you post stay in the worldwide network forever. They are always floating around on some server somewhere. Even if you delete them, they’re still out there. Whether because some friend or relative saved it, or someone else shared it—they just don’t go away. And when she’s an adult, and wants to apply to a university, or send out resumes, any of her online information creates her cyber identity. Even childhood photos, Luke. Do you really want to have a future employer or Dean of Admissions seeing a picture of Sammy sitting shirtless in a diaper covered in spaghetti? Not cool.”

“Grazer, no offense, but you sound like a conspiracy theorist right now. I’m not worried about that kind of shit. Besides, I don’t even have her name out there.”

Grazer rolled his eyes. “Have you never heard about facial recognition systems? EXIF data from your phone, camera, tablet—it’s all right there, Luke. Its standard in electronics for storing information. If your device has GPS on it, and geo-tagging is enabled, which it likely is—anybody can not only find her through her pictures, they could narrow down where she lives, goes to school, or even what park she plays at. Thanks to the ease of modern technology in our society, we are making it easy for some Chester to come along and kidnap our children. And aside from pedophiles and kidnapping, there’s also the legitimate concern about fraud. Digital kidnapping is one of the top rising crimes that are hard to fight.”

I stood and began to pace. I was getting agitated at his insinuation that I was being a shitty parent. What a dick! Well, I guess the other shoe had dropped, and I was fucking pissed.

As I turned back to respond, I forced myself to keep myself calm and not start a war here. But one look at what felt like righteous condescension on his face, and I was immediately raging again.

“Are you seriously kidding me with all this? Do you even hear yourself saying that I am not a good parent who is concerned about my daughter’s safety? Sammy is never out of my sight when we are outside of this apartment—and even in the apartment, she’s only out of my sight when she’s safely in her crib. I think you’re exaggerating the danger here.”

“And I think you’re downplaying it, either that or you just have your head in the sand. Listen, kid. I’ve spent my entire adult life working in the investigative and securities field. Since this is literally my field of expertise, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t question me when I tell you that this is not a good idea. Sammy is my daughter too, and I think this is where I need to put my foot down and say that this is not okay with me. Do you at least have GPS disabled on your devices? Tell me you’re at least that smart.”

I was sputtering at this point, and wasn’t sure which point to tackle first.

“First of all, you hope I’m smart enough? Did you seriously just say that to me? Second of all, I may be a decade younger than you, Grazer, but I am thirty-fucking-years old. Do not dare call me kid—unless you want me to start calling you daddy or some shit. That won’t ever happen, by the way, but my point remains.”

Grazer sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, this has taken a turn. Can we maybe just take a step back and focus on the matter at hand? I wasn’t calling you a kid, but you’re right—I shouldn’t have said that. Now, let’s get back to cyber security and why I don’t want my daughter’s picture posted online.”

I held up a hand as I back toward the door. “You know what? I can’t even be here right now.”

“Are you seriously walking away from our discussion?” I heard Grazer’s voice behind me, but didn’t turn to dignify him with any more of my attention.

“No, I’m just acting like the kid that I apparently am. And since I’m such an awful parent, I obviously don’t need to be here since Sammy fortunately has you now. I’ll be back whenever I’m back. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure you’ll be able to track my phone if you get worried enough. I mean, since I’m such a simpleton who can’t be bothered with safety enough to turn off my GPS tracking, I should be easy enough for you to find.”

I didn’t stop to listen to his response, instead I slipped out of the apartment and closed the door firmly behind me. Scott was getting off the elevator as I stepped on.

“Are you okay, Luke? You’re fucking vibrating, dude. Where’s Sammy?” Scott looked around anxiously.

“Sammy is fine. She’s with the alphahole, and I’m taking a walk.”

Scott bit back a grin. “Oh, I get it. Trouble in paradise? You guys had your first fight, huh? It was bound to happen, I’m actually amazed you guys have made it this long. I mean, you had a pretty big issue with the whole Sammy secret to overcome, so I imagine you both had some feelings brewing with that one.”

I shook my head. “No, it was nothing like that. It’s a matter of him being a know it all alpha who thinks that I’m the shittiest parent ever born because I posted Sammy’s pictures on YouTube.”

Scott quirked a brow. “Dude. I haven’t looked at your site in a while, but are you serious right now? You can’t do that kind of shit! I mean, not unless you want every swinging deck of the planet to know what your kid looks like and how to find them.”

I started jabbing the buttons on the elevator panel until the doors thankfully began to close. “Not you too, Scott. You’re supposed to be my friend—you have to be on my side, whether you think I’m right or not. That’s the rules of friendship.”

The doors closed before Scott could respond, thank fuck. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked whatever he would’ve said, judging by the look on his face when those doors closed.

When I got downstairs, I stormed through the lobby and pushed my way through the glass doors. I got about 30 feet away, when I saw that damn bunny again. This time he was lurking under a hyacinth plant that ran along the front of my building.

Even though I knew I wasn’t in the mood to read the fucking fortune cookie egg message, I couldn’t resist walking over and picking up the latest egg after the bunny hopped away.

The painting on the egg showed the two men on the beach, still in silhouette. But this time, they stood back to back with their arms crossed. The hair on the back of my neck raised up at the timing of this egg.

The men on the painting were obviously at odds—just like me and Grazer. The baby sat in the foreground, a little girl that looked eerily like Sammy.

A fat, translucent tear sat on her rosy cheek, as if her little heart were breaking by the two men arguing.

Shaking my head, I dug my keys out and gleefully poked at the hole in the bottom of the egg. This time, I truly didn’t mind breaking the damn egg just a little.

I hesitantly pulled out the scroll, not at all sure I wanted to read what it said this time. After I gathered my courage, I opened it up and read the words that were again hand-written in beautiful calligraphy.

The urge to throw the egg into oncoming traffic was so strong that I almost gave into it, but I didn’t. Seriously, the painting was too beautiful to let it be destroyed. Instead, I glared at the scroll.

“Fuck you, fortune cookie egg. You don’t fucking know me—or my life. So you can take your fucking scroll and shoved up your egg-shaped ass, because I didn’t ask for your two cents.”

A few passersby skirted around me when they saw me standing there shouting at the egg in my hand. I blushed when I realized how crazy I looked, and heaved a sigh.

Dammit. If I wanted Grazer to treat me like a grown-ass man, I needed to act like one. I heaved another sigh and did the only thing I could—I turned around and went back inside.