Fuck man,” Marko says, shaking his head at me. “When you wanted to get a drink, I thought it would be about your fucking dad.”

I grunt a little. “Yeah, I thought that would be my biggest problem right now.”

“Fuck.” Marko shakes his head, mystified. “I don’t know what to say, man.”

“I know you don’t.”

We sit in silence next to each other. I sip my whisky and stare at the bar, wondering how this is all happening at once, but mostly just picturing Alexa’s face in my mind.

When she said goodbye, I thought I saw something else in her expression. For a second, I thought she was going to ask me to stay with her, or maybe she was going to try to stay with me. Instead, she just turned and left without another word, and that hurt way more than I thought it would.

It took me a day to process all that before I called Marko and asked him to grab a drink with me. We had to meet at this rundown craphole at the edge of town called the Pregnant Pig. It’s the sort of place where your feet stick to the floor ever so slightly and every bit of veneer is starting to peel up, but the drinks are cheap and nobody knows us here. It’s not a mafia bar, and it’s not a political bar, so we’re on neutral ground. It’s where we come when we don’t want to get interrupted.

Marko knows more about this shit than I do. He has a wife and a kid, he’s been through all this before. Well, not exactly all this, and he’s still a fucking gangster, but still. If anyone can tell me what to do, it’s him.

But he doesn’t seem to know what I should do. I don’t know why I expected him to have some insight, just because he got married and had a kid.

“Does it change you?” I ask him after a short silence.

“Being a father?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He hesitates a second. “No, I mean, I’m still the same piece of shit I’ve always been,” he says.

“So why does everyone talk about it like it’s the most important thing in the world?”

“Because it does change you.” He makes a pained expression, clearly having trouble explaining himself. “Look, it doesn’t change who you are fundamentally, at least not overnight. But having a baby, it means… responsibility. In a way you’ve never experienced before.”

I nod a little. “Makes sense.”

“Your life isn’t your own anymore, not entirely at least.” He sighs and sips his drink. “I’m a fucking mob captain, right? But I still have to be home by seven every night to put my baby to bed. I can go out again after, but I can’t skip bedtime.”

“You could,” I suggest.

“Of course I could,” he says, “but I don’t want to. It makes you think more about other people… about that baby. I don’t know, man, it’s a gradual thing.”

I nod again and sip my drink quietly. I think I understand what he’s saying. It’s not some grand, instant change in the person you are, but it’s an accumulation of things, little differences that add up over time until you’re forever altered into something else. TV and movies all make it seem like some amazing and instant thing, but that’s probably not true. It’s not really true for anything in this world. You’re always fundamentally you… until one day, you wake up, and you’re not.

“So what the fuck am I supposed to do?” I ask him again, not really expecting an answer.

“What’s the girl like?” he asks.

I raise an eyebrow, a small smile on my lips. “Fucking gorgeous,” I say. “I mean, she’s not the kind of girl that you’d see in a club, tits out, ass shaking, you know what I mean? But it’s more subtle than that…” I trail off, not sure how to put it.

“She’s classy pussy,” Marko suggests.

I give him a look, but I can’t help but grin. “Yeah, something like that. Although we fucked the first night we met.”

“Classy ladies can still fuck,” he says sagely.

“Point taken.” I groan a little. “She works for my fucking dad.”

Marko raises an eyebrow. “She’s in politics?”

“No, just in his office. Administrative assistant or some shit.”

Marko shrugs. “She doesn’t care about Buddy or about politics. That’s good.”

“She didn’t even know who I was when we first met.” I smile at that. It felt good for someone to like me for me, instead of the usual women I meet that just want to get closer to the mayor’s office. People always think I can do them fucking favors, and I’m tired of it.

“Even better,” Marko says, laughing. “I didn’t realize there was anyone left in this town that didn’t know the son of the infamous mayor.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, and drink my whisky.

He laughs softly to himself. “It sounds like you actually like her. Has this ever happened before?”

I give him a look, but he’s not wrong. I’ve had maybe two girlfriends in my life, and both of them were in high school. As soon as I realized how to get pussy basically whenever I wanted it, I stopped dating.

“So what, I’m supposed to raise this baby just because I like her?” I ask him.

His smile fades a bit, but he still nods. “Yeah, man. Exactly.”

I take a breath and slowly let it out. “I never wanted to be a father,” I say to him.

“I know.”

“Do you? The only fucking father I ever knew was a piece of shit. Why do I think I’d be any different?”

“You’ve got a lot of control over that.”

“Maybe.” I sigh, leaning forward. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

“I want her,” I say without thinking.

Marko grins. “I think you have your answer.”

“Shit.” I finish my drink and order another. “She wants to give the baby up for adoption.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But if I’m going to be a father, I’m going to be a better one than fucking Buddy was.”

“Good man.” Marko pats my shoulder. “You’ve got a few months to change her mind, you know.”

I grin at him. “Oh, yeah? Is that how it works?”

He nods sagely. “I know you’re familiar with the baby-making process, but not so familiar with actually having one.”

I roll my eyes, but there’s a smile on my lips.

For the first time since Alexa came crashing back into my life, I feel like I have a direction.

I’m not admitting to myself that I want to actually raise this baby or any shit like that, but I do know one thing. I want more of Alexa, and I’m going to get it. I can’t pass up this chance, not when I feel like this. Marko’s right about that. He may be a fucking gangster, but he knows a thing or two.