“You’re very wrong, Simone. Deciding to do that was the best decision you’ve made in your life. Now say, ‘Goodbye, Stellan. I’ll see you tonight.’”
“Kiss off, Stellan, I’m going to kick your ass tonight.”
He burst out laughing.
He also made sure she heard it.
She loved it when he laughed and failed every time trying to hide that she did.
Then he hung up on her.
*
When Stellan walked through the door to Susan’s office, he did not offer her a greeting, pass by, and go to his office He offered her a greeting, walked to the opposite side of her desk, and stopped.
She studied him, did not return his Good morning, and instead said, “I don’t like the look on your face.”
Stellan again didn’t delay.
“I know it’s difficult to find a babysitter for Crosby, so how about we take that out of the equation and you, Harry, and Crosby join Simone and I for dinner at my house, perhaps Wednesday? Or if that doesn’t work, Thursday.”
Her brows headed toward her hairline. “You want Crosby there?”
“Yes.”
“No offense, boss man, you picked her, I’m sure she’s something else. But the woman is a fixer and I’ve never met one but even so, I’m not sure they’d be hip on dinner parties including eighteen-month-olds. I can’t say I remember every second of every episode, but I’m pretty sure Olivia Pope never has been near a baby, but I could guess, considering the shenanigans that go on, she wouldn’t have a lot of time for one.”
“It’ll be fine,” Stellan assured.
“Does she like kids?” Susan asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Stellan answered. “Though if I had to guess, I’d say they terrify her.”
It was clear she caught herself before she rolled her eyes.
But she didn’t let this effort stop her from saying, “Well then, take this woman’s advice about your woman who I don’t know but we both share at least that in common. Do not have her meet members of your family in a way that’s more uncomfortable than it’s already going to be.”
“I have a variety of reasons for asking you to bring Crosby.”
“You always have a variety of reasons for anything you do,” she muttered. “First and foremost, you don’t do it unless you can get everything you can out of it.”
Very true.
“She needs to meet you,” he went on. “She needs to get to know you. She needs to get to know me better. You’re Crosby’s mother. I’m Crosby’s godfather. Harry is a very good friend of mine. You’re all an important part of my life. I see no point in drawing out the inevitable.”
“And?” she pushed.
“And I’m going to find it very interesting how she responds to a toddler considering I have every intention of impregnating her eventually, and also repeatedly, so I would say that’s important to know.”
Her mouth actually dropped open.
“You might wish to close that,” he advised, tipping his head toward her, eyes to her lips. “You never know what you’ll catch.”
She snapped her mouth shut but opened it immediately to state, “You’ve decided, one date, one week with this woman, to have children with her?”
Stellan nodded. “For the most part, yes. We still have things to discover about each other, obviously. But I know she has good taste in films. She likes my cooking, can’t boil water herself, and I don’t care. She’s stubborn but hilarious, and made M fall in love with her somehow through a single conversation, and now she’s been adopted.”
Susan assumed a stunned expression.
“Holy Moses, M adopted her?” she breathed.
“Yes, you belong to three sisterhoods with her now, by my count. The obvious one that involves you both sharing the same body parts. The one that involves me. And now the one that involves M deciding you’ll need a mother until you die, even though you have one and even if you leave this earth at ninety-eight. If she outlives you, she’ll mother you. Same with Simone. She forced a dish of vitamins on her this morning. I’m relatively certain I’ve pulled something with the effort it took for me not to laugh. But she took them.”
Susan had an amusing look that was hilarity warring with incredulity when she said, “So with all that, you’ve decided to make babies with a fixer.”
Stellan felt his good mood shifting.
“You need to let go of this idea of her as a fixer,” he shared.
She didn’t back down. “But isn’t that what she does?”
“Not for very long.”
Her expression changed again.
This time she looked worried.
“Stellan, I don’t have to tell you that for a century or so women have been pretty intent on finding ways to make certain decisions for themselves. Like, um … what they do to spend their time, how they make their money, being able to go out and make money, stuff like that.”
Stellan lifted his attaché and rested it on her desk before explaining, “Simone doesn’t do what she does because she enjoys doing it. She does what she does because it’s the persona she needs to inhabit. It has a variety of uses including making people feel the need to keep distant from her as well as tricking herself into feeling alive. And last, giving life the excuse to do what it will with her, the sooner the better. If she did what she did because it was a genuine part of who she is, I wouldn’t say a word. That’s not why she does it.”
“So you have her all figured out,” she noted.
“Not close. She doles information out only under duress. But I have every intention of getting it figured out, so this I will do.”
Susan knew that to be all kinds of true.
“You should have been a psychologist,” she remarked.
“My innate abilities in that arena allow me to be very good at what I actually decided to do.”
She grinned up at him. “Does she have any idea what she’s gotten herself into?”
“She thinks she does, but she has no clue.”
Her grin turned into a smile. “Right then, this I’ve gotta see firsthand. That’s to say, Harry and I don’t have anything on ever. The minute I popped Crosby out, our social life stormed out and slammed the door behind it, like a teenage girl who was denied tickets to the boyband concert she wanted so badly to see but she didn’t keep her room clean. Though to give your girl a fighting chance before we enter the mix, we’ll say Thursday. I’ll call Harry to make sure it’s good with him. Do you want us to bring anything?”
“If I say no, are you still going to bring a bottle of my favorite Scotch, flowers for Simone and some dessert you made anyway?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Then … no.”
She dissolved into laughter.
Stellan smiled.
And watched indulgently.
*
Sitting at his desk, turned to the side, eyes to the non-view, Stellan listened to his phone ring in his ear.
The ass made him wait five rings.
He almost hung up.
But considering he’d do anything, he was doing anything.
“Lange,” the man answered.
“Fred,” Stellan replied. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“If you’re calling about that council vote, I thought we had an agreement about that.”
“We do. I’m not calling about that, unless what I’m calling about makes its way to being about that.”
Fred didn’t speak.
Stellan didn’t need him to.
He needed the buffoon who was a buffoon in a variety of ways—however not in terms of the work he did, in that he was lethally successful … literally—to listen.
And agree.
“It’s my understanding you farm out certain jobs to Sixx Marchesa,” Stellan stated.
He visualized Fred straightening in his chair as he said alertly, “Where’s this go—?”
“You’re going to stop,” Stellan finished.
“I am?” Fred asked.
“Yes you are.”
“You wanna explain how you’re makin’ this decision for me?”
“Not really, but I will. She means something to me.”
“Right … you’re both a member of that club.”
“No,” Stellan negated. “She’s living with me.”
He heard a whistle in his ear as he crossed his legs and stared at the sprawling desert city.
“She’s not who I woulda called for you,” Fred remarked.