Her Dad’s Best Friend

"Gotcha!" I say. I pull my dress up so that it's sitting on top of my shoulders. I pull on my bra and slid my arms through the straps before yanking my dress down. I make a face at myself in the mirror. I'm all sleep-rumpled and not particularly appealing, but I don't want to keep my dad waiting.

When I go downstairs, I'm trying to get a hairband to stay in place with some bobby pins. My dad has his laptop in a bag, which is slung across his chest.

"Ready?" "Yup."

We walk into the cool night air. I shiver a little. My sundress wasn't meant for nighttime. But it's just next door, so I start sprinting over. I'm not even wearing shoes, so my feet are freezing. When I get to the porch, I ring the doorbell at the same moment that Jeff opens the door. We're very close to each other, just inches apart. I can smell his breath from here.

He takes a step back. "Come on in, Elia."

I blink because Danny is sitting in a playpen, shaking a teddy bear.

"I'll take care of him. You two do whatever you need to do."

My dad and Jeff head to Jeff's home office. Danny is yawning and battling his eyelids, but he doesn't seem to want to go to bed. He is still vigorously shaking the teddy bear for an unknown purpose. When he finally drops it, he turns to me and holds out his arms.

"Out?" I ask. I crouch down to get him. I pull him into my arms and sit with him on the couch.

"Did you have a nice dinner, Danny?" I ask.

He puts his tiny head on my shoulder and lets his eyes half-shut. I begin gently rocking him the way my mother used to, humming a little to help put the baby to sleep. His little rosebud mouth opens with a huge yawn.

"Be careful, Danny! You could dislocate your jaw," I tease. I touch his tiny nose. His big eyes blink fully open before drifting downwards. He blinks a little more before he lets them stay closed. I carry him upstairs to pop him into his crib. Danny sleeps better in Jeff's room, I know, but my dad would go ballistic if he found me in there. I put him in a crib in his own room, but I drag a chair over so that I can keep my hand around his. He grabs at my thumb, totally asleep, and I watch his eyes move while they're still closed. I hope he's having a good dream.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and settle in with a good book. Year of the Griffin is one of my favorite books ever, and it seems perfect right now. I fall into a story about griffins, kings, wizards, and emperors. I'm so deep that when the door opens behind me, I jump a foot in the air. My phone goes flying and hits a metal lamp. It makes a sound so loud that Danny wakes up. He immediately starts screaming. "Danny," I say, pulling him into my arms and rocking him. "You're okay."

"Let me have him," Jeff says. "Your dad is ready to go home."

I whirl around, not eager to give him the baby. I notice the circles under Jeff's eyes.

"I'm okay. I can stay until he goes to bed. It's not like Dad is giving me a ride, anyway. We live next door."

"Okay," he says. He steps out of the room to yell down the stairs, "She says she'll go home after the baby goes to sleep."

"Roger that," my dad says. I hear the front door close. Then it's just the three of us, Danny now quietly chewing on the end of my hair.

"Don't chew on that," I tell Danny. He took advantage of a momentary distraction.

When Jeff comes back into the room, Danny tries to wiggle out of my hold to get to his father. Jeff takes him and kisses Danny's hair. "You can go home, you know." "Is everything good? It's not normal for you and my dad to have a late-night meeting like this one."

He rubs his eyes. "Your dad might need to go on a trip soon. Honestly, I need to go, too, but there's no way that I can leave Danny for that long." He hums a little bit and pats Danny's back. "And they won't come to the US."

"Where is Dad going?"

"China," he says. "We're having some problems with the quality standards at one of the factories that we've contracted production to. We want to be on the ground and see things for ourselves." "What's going on?"

"There are some watchdog activists that are saying that there are major human rights violations going and trying to drum up negative press."

"But it's not real, right?"

"We don't know for sure, not until we audit them personally." "You should be there," I say.

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