Madison

The baby coming makes me sleepy. I hear Johnson's ringtone singing somewhere off in the distance, but I wouldn't say it wakes me up. It's more a little tune playing in a dream.

The tune goes away and comes back. This time I wake up and fumble for the phone sitting on the night table.

“Fuck time is it?” I ask.

“Eleven. I'm sorry, babe. It sounds like I woke you up.”

“It's OK. I should have gotten up at eight. But my body's all messed up, I guess.” Now that I'm sitting up, I feel a little faint.

That's how it starts. First I feel light-headed. Then I want to barf.

Morning sickness is the key reason I no longer want to get up until morning has safely passed.

“You will not believe who came sniffing around the club looking for you last night.”

The silver-haired Dutch billionaire. I think about closing my eyes and pulling the covers back over my head. “Oh God. Not again.”

“Oh, I know what you're thinking, and you're not even close, girl. You are going to stand amazed.” He's got that teasing tone in his voice that makes him sound like a bratty older brother. Somebody's completely forgotten we're exactly the same age.

“Well, don't keep me in suspense. I'm all ears.”

“I hope you're sitting down.”

“Johnson! I'm flat on my back in my bed wondering when my stomach's going to start sticking out. Just fucking tell me what you've got to tell me.”

“Maybe this is something better said in person.”

Is he trying to drive me crazy? “For fuck's sake. You have to tell me right fucking now after saying something like that.”

He takes a deep breath before he gets the name out. “Noah Hammond.” His voice goes up on the last syllable like he's asking a little question.

“Oh God. Is this your idea of a fucking joke?” Although I already know better. All this build-up isn't because he's kidding around.

“For fuck's sake, Madison. I wouldn't do you like that.”

“You have to tell me everything. Every-fucking-thing.”

“There isn't much. He showed up at the club and asked for your number. I told him to fuck off.”

My heart skips a beat.

“He doesn't deserve you after all his shit. I told him, ‘Don't call us, babe, we'll call you.’”

I'm speechless.

“I'm texting you his contact information, and you can think about where you want to go from there. If you don't wanna deal with him, there's lawyers. He's got money, and your kid is entitled to child support.”

Still speechless.

“You there, Maddy? You breathing?”

I swallow. “Yeah.” Another swallow. “Yeah, I'm breathing.”

“You don't ever have to see the son of a bitch if you don't want to.”

“He's the father of my child. I think I do have to see him.”

“It's all your decision, Madison. I'll back you up no matter what. You want to meet him somewhere, and you're worried about being pressured, I can come with you.”

Johnson is going to be one hell of an uncle.

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks. Wow. Thanks.”

I don't mean to hang up just like that, but I do. There's a metal waste basket I've been keeping near the bed, and now I roll over to hang off the end of the mattress. Why do babies make you throw up? Maybe I should have paid more attention in health class.

After, I get up and rinse out my mouth. Splash my face. My cheeks are pink, and I look better than I feel.

From the bedroom, my phone warbles a reminder. I'm due at the bridal shop in thirty.

Fucking hell. Somehow I pull it together enough to waltz through those wide glass doors only fifteen minutes late. A bored Czech receptionist gestures toward another door, and I enter a dressing room meant to be spacious but somehow packed to the overflow point.

Beautiful billionaire Brecka is the center of attention. A flexible young woman on her knees at Brecka's feet adjusts a hem. The owner, who affects a vaguely European look— hair dyed a too-dark shade of auburn, accent mostly French except when she gets excited— is leaning back against the nearest wall, arms folded, as she considers the scene.

The long cutting table is scattered with rolls of fabric, mostly white, but all the other pastel colors too. The other three members of Club Sugar Daddy are studying Brecka's dress with a critical eye.

It's an Arctic shade of white, French silk, French lace, and I don't have it in my head to be any less interested. I know it's gorgeous, at any other time I would be utterly captivated, but right now I couldn't give any less of a fuck.

Noah's in Vegas, and he's looking for me. My baby's father.

The other girls keep squealing with near-orgasmic excitement.

“Look at these buttons,” Ashlee says, flipping back her long black hair to take a longer look. “Is that genuine rock crystal?”

“It is.” Brecka's smile is smug, her belly oh-so-attractively curved. You can barely tell she's pregnant, and she's already a freaking madonna.

Emily plucks a section of fabric with her fingers, turning the crystal buttons to catch the light. You can see the rainbows trapped inside of them.

Who does that? Who thinks of that? What the hell does that even cost?

A billionaire's dress, I think. The cost of the wedding, the reception, and the honeymoon is several million dollars.

I know that. I've known that all along. Even if Brecka, in her capacity as president of Club Sugar Daddy, hadn't kept us fully informed, the tabloid press would. Lane refused to tell her what he paid for the pink diamond, but TMZ spilled the beans.

Twelve point two million dollars.

More money than Noah Hammond has in all the world. Just for that. A rock on a finger.

She's chattering like a bird about the fit, and the other girls are chattering back, and I realize I have fuck-all to say. Absolutely fuck-all. I don't care about the placement of a crystal button. Don't care if it needs to be repositioned one perfect quarter of an inch higher or lower.

Don't care about any of it.

I'd marry Noah in thrift store vintage. I'd marry him in a paper bag.

If only he'd have me.

No use thinking about that. He's with Barbie Strange. A rich fucking girl who can buy anything she wants, and evidently what she wants is Noah Fucking Hammond at her side.

My eyes fill with tears.

“I need to finish fitting my bridesmaid dress and go.” It's the first thing I've said since I walked in, and my voice cracks as if it's been out of use for a long, long time.

“Hey, girl, you all right?” Brecka gestures, and the tactful owner touches the equally tactful seamstress on the shoulder.

The two of them bow out of the room soundlessly.

Now it's just the five of us, the members of Club Sugar Daddy, Brecka in a million-dollar dress wearing a twelve million dollar ring.

Twelve point fucking two. Can't forget that two.

Callista pulls out a metal chair from where it's jammed under the long table and pushes it under my butt and I'm sitting down hard.

“It's him,” I say.

They all know who I mean by “him.” The father of my baby.

“He's back.”

Four pairs of eyes flick toward my stomach, which is still reasonably flat. Well, maybe not flat. But only a little curvy. My flirty little peasant blouse with the ruffles at the bottom hides my secret, if you don't already know it.

“You have to tell him.” The silver tips of Emily's braids flash when she leans in to squeeze my shoulder. “I don't care who he is, he has a right to know he's going to be a father.”

“Yeah,” I say. “There's a problem though. I've screwed up.”

“Oh, honey.” Brecka's southern accent is sugar-sweet and not in that sarcastic way you hear sometimes. “It's all right. We know.”

“He's not rich enough, is he, honey?” Callista has picked up the word “honey” from Brecka, although she'll never pick up the accent. “We know that. We kind of always knew that.”

“I'm letting down the club big time. He isn't even close. We're not talking eighty million dollars instead of a hundred. We're talking maybe ten million, and he's got to support a whole team.”

They're all pushing in on me, hugging me from all directions, and for a minute I'm breathless from the warmth around me.

“None of that stuff matters now, honey,” Brecka says. “Don't worry about that. You'll always be a founding member of Club Sugar Daddy. No matter what.”

“Seriously, girl. We're not what you need to be worrying about right now,” Ashlee says.

“I need to talk some things through.” I take a deep breath and rush through the words fast to get it over with. “It's Noah Hammond. When I went to that concert by myself, he spotted me and had his people pull me out of line and, well, I was swept off my feet. It's what every fan dreams about. Right?”

“Girl!”

“Squee!”

“Damn, he's a cute one, girl.”

“I wasn't thinking about the club. It was my night off. My last night just for me before I got serious. And, then, well... you know. It just happens.”

Everybody's hugging me and talking at once, and for a time the dressing room is a scene of much confusion and few conclusions.

“Back off, guys,” Brecka says. “She's getting a little breathless.”

They do, and I can see them clearly— billionaire Brecka in her wedding gown, a pink diamond weighing down her left hand. Emily, Callista, Ashlee. So beautiful and brilliant. So determined to get to the place in life they feel they deserve.

Except for Johnson, who's really the brother I never had, the four of them are my best friends in all the world. And yet I feel so separate from them. So alone. So different. They're all focused on the future and, me, my future hit me out of nowhere like a runaway train. Like fate.

Like destiny.

And yet they are still my friends. They care. They do.

“He cut me off,” I say. “Headed off to fucking South America the very next fucking day. But now he's back.”

“Oh, honey,” Callista says. “Is he back? He's with Barbie Strange now. They're a power couple. Making a big movie.”

Like she needs to tell me that.

“He slipped his phone number to Johnson. Says he's in town for the weekend.”

Silence as everybody digests that.

“So what the hell do I do now? Johnson says let the lawyers handle it.”

“And what do you think, honey?”

“I think... I don't know what I think.” Although I do. I want him back, simple as that. Want him by my side. Want him to be a father, not a fucking wallet. “Can we talk it through maybe, the whole club?”

“Sure, honey. That's always what we were really all about,” Emily says. “Not the money. Although, I have to tell you, the money's kind of a big deal for me.”

A knock at the door. The shop's owner comes in with a tray. Some sparkly non-alcoholic strawberry punch. Cookies. Refreshments for a pregnant woman and her friends. She's gone again, the door already swinging shut behind her before we can say so much as, “Thank you.”

Tact and silence. That's what a billion dollars buys you. She'll let us use the room all fucking day for our unplanned meeting if we need to.

Money's a big deal for anybody, especially in Vegas, which was built on money and dreams of money.

But it isn't the only big deal.

“So let's vote on whether Madison should have a sit down come-to-Jesus talk with Mr. Noah Hammond, or whether she should leave it to the lawyers to put the fear of God in him.” Brecka doesn't actually wield a gavel but she could. “A lawyer would probably hammer out a better deal. He's on the cusp of breaking out. Hell, he'll be in the hundred million dollar club within a year or two if that movie breaks out. Which it will. I kinda vote no, don't talk to the drooling sperm donor. Go through the process, get the max for the kid.”

Ashlee looks at me with sympathy in her eyes, but her chin makes a little back and forth motion. An almost invisible head shake. “I'm sorry, Madison. I have to agree with Brecka. There's so much no to getting back in touch with this guy. Not calling you back, that just isn't right. It's disrespectful. My vote is no. Barbie Strange deserves the warbling little shit.”

Emily's been looking at me all this time. Callista too. “Wait,” they say, both of them together.

They exchange looks, and then Callista says what they're both thinking.

“Can't you guys see she feels something for this dude? I think she owes it to herself to see him in person, make him look her in the eye and explain what the hell he thinks he's going to do to make this right. I vote yes. Meet with the guy.”

Emily nods. “I have to say, Madison, I don't think you're going to like what you're going to hear. This is a guy who's used to fucking around on the road, and he probably didn't plan on a little surprise. But I think for your own peace of mind, you need to hear it for yourself from the horse's mouth. See him. Talk to him. That's the only way you're going to accept it. My vote is yes.”

Wonderful. Two in favor, two opposed.

I'm the tie-breaker.

I'm the one who has to decide.

Maybe I always was.