“I’m sorry, Mr. Brooks, but I cannot let you in Ms. Parker’s office. She’ll flip on me!”

“Fine, I’ll give you the post-it notes I have for her and you put them all over her office,” Lucas said, pulling the pack of post it notes out of his pocket. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Rob exclaimed, looking as if his big eyes would fly out of his head.

“Okay, 200,” Lucas said, pulling another hundred out of his wallet.

“Oh my God, she’ll kill me and probably fire me! She specifically told me not to let you anywhere near her office!”

Why was that?

“Okay, 500 bucks and if she fires you, I promise I’ll hire you. I’ll pay you double too, but that’s only if she fires you,” Lucas added because he swore he saw dollar signs in Rob’s eyes.

“Fine, but I need that in writing!”

“Sounds good to me. Type it up and I’ll sign it.”

After an hour of negotiation, because for some reason Rob really thought Fallon would fire him, and explaining what Lucas wanted Rob to do, Lucas finally walked to his truck with a satisfied grin on his face.

If his plan didn’t work, he didn’t know what would.

****************************************************

“Elli, he had no teeth,” Fallon said as she looked at the picture of the man that had volunteered for the Assassin/Rocky Top Wine campaign. Martin Sidorov was a nice-looking man, but he didn’t have any teeth! And he said he refused to wear his dentures!

The horror!

“Sidorov is the only guy who volunteered that you would even consider taking, Fal. What am I supposed to do? Make a guy do it? I can’t do that,” Elli said, causing Fallon to look up.

“Consider taking? There was someone else?”

Elli looked down at her finger, picking at the nail. “Um, yeah.”

“Who?”

Fallon knew it was Lucas before his name even left Elli’s lips. “Lucas Brooks.”

“No f**king way,” Fallon said without thinking.

“Jeez Fallon, cuss much?”

Fallon giggled as her face turned deep red. “You’re just as bad.”

Elli shrugged her shoulders. “True, so anyways, since you brought up Lucas…”

“I didn’t bring him up,” Fallon countered but Elli went on.

“Aiden, Lucas…”

“Yeah,” Fallon nodded, waiting for Elli to look up so she could pin her with a glare.

“He doesn’t know, I take it.”

“You take right.”

Elli finally looked up and Fallon could see the worry in her eyes. “Oh Fallon, why? You’ve struggled to give that baby everything he wants, when Lucas could have been helping. Along with the fact that he deserves to know about his son.”

Fallon looked away. “I didn’t come to be lectured Elli. I know what I’ve done wrong. I don’t need you to tell me.”

“Fallon, come on. I love you and Aiden, you know that. I’m not lecturing you, I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine, everything will be fine.”

“I don’t think so,” Elli warned.

“It will be,” Fallon promised, even though she really couldn’t do that. She didn’t know how Lucas was gonna take finding out about his son, and she really didn’t need to worry about it as long as she stayed away from him and everyone kept their month’s shut.

Simple, really.

“Why don’t you want to tell him? He’s a good guy, Shelli adores him.”

“She’s four months Elli, come on. She likes the sparkly ball I bought her a couple weeks ago, too.”

“Hey now, Shelli is smart for her age.”

Fallon rolled her eyes. “I know that Elli, I’m just scared that he will hurt Aiden the way he hurt me. Of course, he will love him — hello it’s his kid — but what happens when he gets married and has another. He’ll totally forget about Aiden and I’m not doing it.”

“I doubt that, you’re overreacting.”

“I’m being practical.”

“You’re being dramatic. Give him a chance, at least tell him.”

Fallon shook her head. “I am not!”

“Yes, you are, and you are going to regret your decision when Aiden gets older and really needs his dad. Right now he’s good but about when he needs daddy advice, or wants to play a real sport.”

Fallon rolled her eyes. “Oh Lord, there are other sports other than hockey, Elli.”

“No there isn’t. Everything else is a sissy sport, baseball being the biggest.”

“Oh hush, Aiden likes it.”

“Because he doesn’t know any better, poor baby. More of a reason to give him a chance to know Lucas, he’ll probably want to play a real sport,” Elli said with a grin.

“That is not a good reason to introduce Aiden to Lucas,” Fallon insisted.

“I think it is, but mostly because they need each other. Lucas deserves to know his son and Aiden deserves to know his dad. If Lucas decides to be a douche and not be a good father — which I don’t think that well happen — then at least Aiden will know who his daddy is and that he is a douche. Let him make up his mind on Lucas. It isn’t fair that you get to make that decision for him.”

Fallon knew that Elli was right, but that didn’t mean she was gonna run out and introduced them. Fallon hadn’t heard from Lucas since she called him, yelling. So hopefully, she wouldn’t even have to deal with him anymore.