"Did he not tell you that?"

"No." I shake my head, as if confused. "I mean…"—I purposely trail off for a moment—"it's just that he never talks about you at all."

Luckily my bitchy mouth always has my back.

"Listen, Sunflower, you may have him for now, but he always comes back to me."

"It's Daisy. My name is Daisy. Soon to be Daisy Kingston, so you might want to shelve any fantasy you have of getting back together with Kyle, because he's with me now."

Margo snorts. "It won't last. We have a history together you'll never be able to compete with. And he always comes back to me."

"I don't need to compete, Margo. I've already won. Now kindly fuck off so I can get to my meeting."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." God, she looks confident. Liar, liar, liar, I remind myself. Why are lies so effective in being hurtful even when you're certain they're untrue? That the person telling them cannot be trusted? Why does simply hearing them feel so awful? And I know she's lying because if she lied about the ring she could be lying about everything.

"Thank you for the warning, albeit unnecessary. I'll pass along your regards to Kyle. Oh, and a word of advice, Margo. You should have held on a bit tighter when you had him, if he meant so much to you."

I brush past her, hoping I'm projecting a cool indifference but knowing on the inside I'm anything but. But why? Why do I care if Kyle was engaged to someone else once? Would I prefer if that someone were nice? Would I prefer if that someone didn't so obviously want him back?

She's a liar, I remind myself.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I think.

14

Daisy

When I arrive back at Kyle's that evening he's already there. We have dinner reservations somewhere or other, he tells me, but I'm distracted and tired and a bit cranky. Then he hands me a card.

A credit card.

With my name on it.

"What is this?" I fan the card in front of him, pinched between my fingers. "Are we doing a Daddy thing now? Like, 'call me Daddy,' instead of baby daddy? Because I'm not into that. And that's really something you should talk about beforehand."

"What?" Kyle looks confused about my outburst, then he looks pissed off. "No, don't call me Daddy. For fuck’s sake, Daisy. It's for expenses. For the baby," he adds, before I can interrupt. "You mentioned shopping the other day and I want to pay for whatever the baby needs. If that's okay with you." He says that part sarcastically, as if I'm being ridiculous.

"Oh." Well, sure, that makes more sense. Did I mention that I'm cranky? "I guess. I don't know. Maybe we could split the expenses?"

"We could." He nods. "But it's hardly an even split. I can't help you gestate. I can't help you breastfeed. I'm kinda behind the eight-ball here in terms of doing my share, so helping financially seems like the least I can do."

"Hmm." He's not totally wrong. He should be in charge of breastfeeding, but biology means I'm responsible for everything so I guess I can use his card to buy a pink astronaut cat blanket for Tubbs. "They do need a lot of stuff," I agree, thinking about that kid on the plane and the gate-checked stroller and the diaper bag and Colechester the stuffed kitten. "Hey, do you know anyone who can implant a tracking device?" I had the worst nightmare last night that I lost the baby’s favorite stuffed thing. There's got to be a way to ensure that never happens, right?

"A microchip only works if you scan it. Anything with GPS tracking would require a cellular receiver and a battery so it's not really ethical. Or possible, even."

"Oh, my God, you weirdo, I wasn't talking about for the baby. I was talking about their teddy bear. Or stuffed dog. Or whatever their favorite stuffed thing is that we can never ever lose."

"Right. That's what I meant too." He tugs on his ear and I don't think that's what he meant at all, but I'm mollified that it's not technologically possible to embed a GPS tracker so I drop it. I've got other things on my mind right now.

When I kick off my shoes Kyle reminds me of the dinner reservations. I groan and walk over to the fridge to see what's inside. "Can't we just stay here and eat dinner on the couch? I'm really tired and I want to put on stretchy pants and talk about your first fiancée."

Kyle swears under his breath.

"I assume she was your first," I add with my back to him while I investigate the contents of the fridge. There's no prepared meal today. We've got turkey, grapes, cheese, eggs, apples, lettuce, tomato and on and on. Damn, having a housewife is the best. "Do you have more than one ex-fiancée? I'm referring to Margo, in case I needed to be more specific."

"Was she there today? At the conference?"

When I turn around he's taking his tie off, with that little tug maneuver that gets me all hot and bothered. Guessing this means he's on board to cancel our dinner reservations, I close the refrigerator and head towards Kyle's bedroom. I've taken over one of his two walk-in closets with my suitcase and the limited items I brought with me for a week in Philly so I head there, slipping out of my dress and evaluating my options for comfort clothing. I think my refusal to buy new clothing in acceptance of the expansion of my waistline has finally caught up with me because my sleep shorts are getting a little tight.

"Yup. She crawled out from under her bridge long enough to show up. She works for you though; don't you keep tabs on her?"

"Not more than necessary, no." His closet is across from mine. He's followed me to the bedroom, stripping down in his closet while I stand in mine, and this is all so domestic I'm not sure what has happened to my life. I walk into Kyle's closet in my underwear and he stops unbuttoning his shirt to stare at me.

"Can I borrow these?" I ask, nabbing a pair of sweatpants from a shelf in his closet. I don't wait for a reply before sliding them on and cinching the drawstring before tying it off in a bow. They're hanging off of me and they're too long but it's such a relief to be wearing something that feels like I have room to breathe. And room for a burrito. "Sexy as fuck, am I right?" I say as I do a little twerk maneuver with my hips like I'm still in high school auditioning for cheer squad. I'm wearing a plain bra and oversized sweatpants. This is the least sexy I've ever been in my life.

"I think so," he says thickly, his eyes lingering on my exposed skin.

"Do you?" I place my hands on his chest, taking over where he stopped unbuttoning his shirt. If he finds this version of me sexy I might as well run with it. He's still a bit of a mystery to me, which is to be expected since we don't know each other that well. But he's been treating me like a virgin saving it for the wedding and I'm most definitely not. I'm not sure if his reluctance is because of the baby or because he feels trapped by himself and his code of honor, but I think maybe I need to just tell him I'd like him to defile me six ways to Sunday.

Instead, I catch a look at the engagement ring on my finger while I'm unbuttoning his shirt and remember I wanted to talk about that, so instead of getting him out of his shirt I blurt, "Was this Margo's ring?" because I really know how to spoil a mood and cock-block myself.