“The two chicken breasts for $4.00. It’s what I always get,” I say.

Dania starts to dig through the chicken and hands me the package. “Here you go,” she says and she smiles. It’s not the smile she used to have on her face when she was saying things to me that hurt.

This is a nice smile.

I still don’t like her.

Her baby starts crying, and I frown. I have never been around a baby before. She’s loud. I put my hands over my ears.

“Tell her to stop,” I yell over the crying.

Dania makes a noise with her mouth as she leans close to the baby. Finally the baby stops crying and I lower my hands.

I look closer at the baby in the sling on Dania’s chest. “She’s funny looking,” I say because it’s true. Her face is all wrinkled looking and she doesn’t have any hair.

Dania laughs, and I wonder what I said that was funny. “Babies do look funny. But her looks will change as she gets older.”

“That’s good. It would suck to look like that forever,” I tell her. I drop the chicken in the basket I’m holding and head towards the next aisle.

“Mayonnaise. White Bread. Dog Treats,” I say, looking for the next thing.

I finish the rest of my shopping and head to the cash register. I stand behind Dania who is trying to get something out of her purse but can’t because of the baby strapped to her chest.

“Do you need help?” I ask her because I need to pay for my groceries and go home. I need to make dinner and grade papers. I like grading papers. It relaxes me.

Dania looks at me and hands me her baby. “Can you hold Lyla just for a second?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to,” I tell her. I have never held a baby. I don’t want to hold Dania’s baby.

I have thought about Ellie having babies. Of us having babies together. I like the idea of being a dad. I think I would be good at it. Like my dad was before he died. I won’t care that babies are loud because it would be my baby. And Ellie’s. Our baby together.

“Just for a second, Flynn. Please,” she says and I take the baby who is now awake. I hold the baby away from my body, not sure how I should do it. She isn’t very heavy, which is strange since she’s really just a little person. Not a very pretty one though.

“Hi,” I say to the baby that Dania calls Lyla. Her eyes are blue and she smells strange. I lean down and sniff her head, trying to figure out what she smells like.

“What are you doing?” Dania asks.

“Smelling the baby. She smells…good.” She does smell good. It’s weird.

“Here I can take her back,” Dania says, but I like holding Lyla. She isn’t crying which is good and she is just looking at me. And not in a way that I don’t like.

Maybe she isn’t so funny looking.

“Flynn,” Dania says, and I shove the baby away from me. Dania takes her. “Thank you,” she says.

Dania takes her bags and moves away from the cash register. She smiles again in that way that isn’t like her old smiles.

I think she’s trying to be nice.

“If you and Ellie ever have kids, I think you’ll make a good dad,” she says and I like the way that makes me feel. Warm and happy.

“Thank you,” I tell her, knowing that is important to say after someone says something nice to you.

“Bye, Flynn. Tell Ellie—“ She stops talking.

“Tell Ellie what?” I ask.

Dania touches the baby’s head and smiles again.

“Never mind. Don’t tell her anything,” she says.

And I don’t.

Chapter Twenty-one

-Ellie-

The sound of Dania’s moans on the other side of the wall made me want to throw something. It was the fourth time this week she had brought home a random and screwed his brains out…with her door open…and very, very loudly.

I turned up the volume of the television, trying to drown out the obnoxious shriek of my best friend’s mating call. Someone should probably tell her that she sounded like a screeching dolphin. But that someone wouldn’t be me. I had some sense of self-preservation left.

I had only been out of Spadardo’s for a week and I was starting to almost miss it. By the end of my stay I had established a reputation for punching first, talking later, which allowed me a modicum of respect. Which also meant I was left the hell alone.

They had a library and a decent cafeteria. I got regular exercise and even got my GED. It was sad to admit that I had been more productive in juvenile detention than I had ever been on the outside.

I had thought living with Dania would at least give me a bit of time to figure out my next steps. I should have known sleeping on her couch would involve being subjected to her out of control sex show multiple times a week.

Forty minutes later a guy walked out of her bedroom, his jeans unbuttoned, pulling his T-Shirt over his head. He was greasy and unwashed and looked to be around forty with a bald patch and patchy beard. What in the hell had Dania been thinking?

As he walked toward the door, I noticed the gleam of a gold band on his left ring finger. Geesh, he was a real winner.

He didn’t acknowledge me. He left, slamming the door behind him. Dania came out a short time later wearing only a cami and her underwear. She was beautiful in a completely natural way. But her good looks were marred by her complete lack of self-esteem. It was hard to think much of someone who clearly didn’t think much of themselves.

“Did Joe leave already?” she asked, looking around for the middle-aged loser.