Lost and Found Page 23

  Grabbing hold of the diaper in the only two spots that don’t have poo on them, I try to pull it down. Nothing happens.

  “What are you doing?” he asks, annoyed.

  “I’m doing what you asked me to do!”

  He scowls at me. “Shhh, don’t yell, you’ll make her cry.”

  I shift down into a loud whisper. “Fine. I’m not yelling. Her diaper is stuck, though.”

  “You have to un-do the tapes.”

  “Tapes?”

  “Jesus, you really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

  I sigh loudly in annoyance. “I believe I said that from the beginning.”

  “Just … come around to this side and pull the tapes off.”

  Grumbling, I walk around to the other side of the baby, stopping when I’m next to him. “What tapes?”

  He points towards the baby with his chin. “Near her hips. One on each side.”

  I lean in and squint through my massively thick false eyelashes. Now that I’m closer I can see a piece of tape or something holding the diaper together. A smile pops up unbidden. “Oh. There they are. Cool. That’s handy.”

  He sighs, but says nothing.

  I reach in very gingerly and grab the edge of one. It pulls away with a slight ripping sound. I glance at the side of the doctor’s face. “You ready for number two?”

  “I was ready five minutes ago.”

  I roll my eyes at his rudeness. “Okay. Here goes nothing…” I pull the last bit of tape away and the diaper, released from its tether, slides down her chubby little legs and lands with a stinky plop on the bathroom floor.

  Something wet splatters all over my ankles.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  NO WONDER THE DOORMAN TOLD me to have fun with that tone in his voice. As she looked at herself in the mirror, I was trying to decide if she was a transvestite prostitute or just a badly misguided teenager, but when she came over and stood next to me, I knew she wasn’t either. I’d recognize that smell anywhere. Leah Betty smells like an incense burner, an impossible scent to forget. I cannot believe she snuck past the doorman and got into my condo with that costume on. Talk about balls.

  “Oh my god,” she says in a desperate tone, “I have baby poop on my legs.”

  “You and me both.” I’m too annoyed with the smell situation to bust her ass for sneaking into my condo, and I can’t afford to alienate the one person who could help me right now. Besides, I know she’s here to unload that ring on me, and I need to keep her distracted long enough to throw her out of here … with that ring still in her bra or wherever it is she’s hiding it. Maybe it’s in the lo mein. I’ll have to chew carefully.

  “Come on,” I say, stepping over the towels towards the shower.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  “We’re hosing this baby down.”

  She laughs for a second and then stops. “Are you serious?”

  I look over my shoulder at her. “You have any better ideas?”

  Her fake-slanted eyes crinkle up at the corners. “Shouldn’t we try to use some toilet paper first?”

  I battle to keep the smile from my face. Later I’m going to tell her that her eye makeup is crooked, making her look mentally unbalanced.

  “No, it’ll just stick and then we’ll clog the drain with paper when we try to rinse it off.”

  I step into the large Italian shower and gesture at the shower handle with my elbow. “Grab that and then turn on the water.”

  She leans in really far and before I have a chance to stop her, turns a dial.

  “Not that one!” I yell, just as the water bursts out of the showerhead and hits me square in the face. “I told you to grab the handle first!”

  “Oh crap!”

  Right now I’m really glad I paid to have the plumbing fixture that makes water come out at exactly the right temperature without having to wait, because I’m pretty sure Cassie would not have appreciated having her bare butt sprayed with ice cold water. As it is, she looks a little shocked.

  “Get it!” I yell, water filling my eyes and mouth. “Get the handle off the wall!”

  She leans in as far as she can, but it’s clear she won’t be able to reach without more of a commitment.

  “You get it,” she says, her tone desperate.

  “I can’t!” I roar, spitting out water. “I’m a little busy holding a shit-coated baby right now!”

  Cassie starts to cry.

  “Goddamn it, Boo!” Leah Betty steps into the shower far enough to grab the handle off the wall. One side of her head and face gets wet along with half her dress. Her left eyelash comes undone at the outside corner and hangs awkwardly from her eyelid.

  She stands across from me, pointing the handle at Cassie’s butt.

  The power of the spray sends all of the baby’s nasty business to the front of my shirt.

  Leah Betty and I stand there in complete silence watching as the disaster unfolds and drips down my pants to my socks.

  Slowly, she moves the spray, up and down, around to the front of the baby, and then finally to my shirt.

  “Who’s Boo?” I finally ask, trying to forget the fact that I’m standing in the shower with a faux half-Asian, half-hippy girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

  She looks good wet, which is saying a lot considering the fact that her eyes are falling off and the smell in here is enough to gag a normal person. I’ve smelled too many things at the hospital to be overly bothered by it, though, leaving me free to notice things like the fact that Leah Betty can look her very worst and still be attractive.

  She sighs, refusing to look at me, staring at the front of my shirt instead. “Boo is the fake name I gave you as my ex fiancé to my fake father.”

  “You have a lot of fake relationships, I gather. Any real ones?”

  She bites the inside of her cheek but says nothing.

  “Listen, I know why you’re here, and it’s not going to work.”

  “I’m just here to bring you some food.” Her jaw goes off center.

  “No, you’re here to try and give me that ring. But I told you before I don’t want it back. I want you to keep it.”

  She finally looks at me, her makeup running down both sides of her face, leaving a trail of black streaks. “Because you love me?”

  I’m too shocked to remain cool. “Love you? What? No!” I frown at her. “Are you nuts?”

  She smiles. “No. Just testing you. Seeing if maybe you’ve been stalking me or something.”

  I hold Cassie up higher so my wannabe-Asian friend can get her undercarriage better. “Please. This is the third … no the fourth … time you’ve tried to sneak in to see me. I think we know who the real stalker is.”

  She drops the shower head to her side. “What is your damage, anyway?”

  I lower the baby, turning her around and flipping her sideways so I can hold her like a football over my forearm. “Damage? I don’t have any damage. What’s your damage?”

  “Of course you have damage. How else do you explain refusing to take back a five hundred thousand dollar ring that belongs to you?”

  “I don’t care about the ring.”

  “Obviously. But why can’t you just get your money back? Cartier will take it back for a full refund, they already said they would.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with that ring or the money used to buy it.” I step around her to get out of the shower. Pulling the last towel off the rack on the wall, I carefully wrap Cassie in it and put her on my shoulder. Once she’s all set, I work my way out of my shirt, dropping it to the floor and leaving myself bare-chested. It’s tempting to leave my pants there too, but I don’t want to scare this woman away. Not yet anyway.

  “But why?” She follows me out of the bathroom.

  I go right for the bags in the front hall. Surely there are some diapers in there somewhere.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just keep the ring and leave me alone about it.”

  “I can’t.�
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  I wait for her to explain, but all I get is silence. I pause searching the bag I’m in to look over my shoulder at her. “Don’t tell me you don’t need the money, because I know you do.”

  She puts her hands on her hips. “You are the rudest person I have ever met in my entire life, you know that?”

  I shrug and go back to my search. “I’m just being honest. Take the money. Make a new life for yourself.”

  “No. I told you, I don’t want it and I don’t need it. I’m leaving.”

  She walks past me and leans down to grab a black backpack from the floor.

  I snatch it away from her before she can lock her fingers around the strap.

  “Hey! That’s mine!” she yells.

  “You can have it back after I find a diaper.”

  Her expression goes from angry to happy in a nano second. “That’s okay. You can keep it.” She turns to walk towards the front door.

  “Try to leave and I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  She spins around and glares at me. “I never did that!”

  “Sure you did. You didn’t knock, did you? I never told you to come in.”

  “That’s not fair!” she yells.

  Cassie starts to cry again.

  “Great.” I glare back at her. “Look what you did.”

  Leah Betty’s expression goes slack and then concerned. “I’m sorry. Oh, shit, I’m sorry.”

  “Help me find a diaper, would ya?”

  She points to a bag behind me. “My guess is they’d be in the diaper bag over there.”

  I twist around to look at what she’s pointing at. There’s an edge of a diaper sticking out of a side pocket. “Good call.”

  Standing and putting her backpack over my shoulder, I walk by and grab the diaper bag on my way to the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?” she calls out behind me.

  “To the scene of the crime!” I yell back, hoping she’ll follow me.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  WHEN I WALK BACK INTO the bathroom, the baby is completely naked, lying on her back on a towel on the floor. My shirtless, fake ex-fiancé Boo Oliver is examining the fresh diaper like it’s a specimen in science lab. God, even in baby pooed pants, he looks good. Asshole.

  “Here, give me that.” Taking the diaper from him, I lower myself carefully to my knees at his side. It’s easier to move around since I left my wet shoes in the front hall. I was worried I was going to bust my ass if I kept trying to walk around in them on all this marble. This place has the coldest decor I’ve ever seen. There are solid white surfaces everywhere. Even the carpet is hard.

  I’ve never put a diaper on anyone, but it looks pretty self-explanatory to me. I lift up one of the baby’s legs and the other one goes with it. I smile. “Hey, look at that. That’s handy.”

  “What’s handy?” He looks first at the baby and then at me.

  I use the diaper to point at her legs. “You lift one and the other goes too.”

  “Are you going to put the diaper under there?” he asks, obviously not as impressed with baby mechanics as I am.

  I hand it to him. “No, you are. I’m doing the heavy lifting.”

  He glances at me sideways and sighs, but then he slides the diaper under her tiny butt.

  I let her down gently and her two little fists move towards her mouth. Her tongue starts licking all over them and then she makes sucking sounds.

  “I think she’s hungry,” I say.

  Boo is looking all over the diaper, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “I’ve gotta do this first before I tackle that problem.”

  “What are you doing now?” I ask. He looks mentally challenged the way he’s frowning so hard at the poor diaper. A mentally challenged hot guy. I hope he puts a shirt on soon. He’s making it hard for me to want to leave.

  “Trying to find those tape things,” he explains. “I swear I saw them a minute ago.”

  “They’re right there.” I point. “But I think they need to be on the other side, otherwise you’ll be taping the diaper back on her spine.”

  “Very observant,” he says to me, giving me a quick grin before he pulls the diaper out and flips it around.

  I lift the baby once more so he can position the diaper under her.

  “We make a good team,” he says, taping the thing in place.

  When he lifts her up off the floor the entire thing slides down her legs.

  “Put her back down. You need to do the tape tighter.”

  He follows my orders and I fix the tapes, bringing them closer together. “See? Fits like a glove now.” I feel pretty proud of myself, actually. First diaper changing in life? Check. Done it. Awesome at it.

  “Wow, you really know babies, don’t you?” He grins at me again.

  I’m immediately suspicious of all these compliments.

  “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?”

  “I’m always nice.”

  “Lie. You just told me I look like I could use money,” I remind him. “You basically called me a derelict.”

  “It’s just basic economics. You need money, I have money. Take my money. Please. Take it.”

  “No.” I kind of laugh when I say it. He’s too ridiculous. Who gives money away to a stranger like that? No one I’ve ever heard of. And certainly no one with abs like that. “I don’t just take money from people. I’m not a beggar. I work.”

  “Where do you work?” he asks, as if he doesn’t believe me.

  “Never mind where I work.” Like I need him showing up and busting me after I get rid of that ring, which is what I still plan to do before I leave here.

  “You’re not a prostitute are you?”

  “I can’t believe you just said that.” I stand moving away from him.

  His gaze goes from my feet up to my head. “Can you blame me?”

  “This is my Chinese food delivery costume!” I yell. “Have a little respect!”

  He laughs. I think he’s just going to giggle a little, but he keeps on going. And going. When he finally gets to his feet, he staggers out of the bathroom and over to the couch, holding the baby in the crook of one arm still laughing.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.” I’m trying not to smile, but he sure is cute when he’s laughing, even when it’s at me. And that shirtless, baby-in-the-arm thing he has going on is like, whoa. Sex drugs.

  “Where’s the ring?” he asks, sinking into the couch cushions with a sigh.

  “In my bag.” I point to it. He’s left it on the floor at his feet.

  He reaches down and dumps the backpack upside down, causing everything to spill out.

  I throw my hands up. “Rudeness. Again. Why am I not surprised?” I’m not angry he did it, even though I sound like I am. Maybe I’ll be able to find a way to convince him to keep the ring if I work this just right. I change my scowl to a smile.

  He grabs the wad of tissues that hides the ring and holds them up. “Come here.”

  I walk over and sit down near him on the couch. Not too near, but near enough that I can grab my stuff if the opportunity arises. It’s suddenly very warm in his apartment.

  “Try it on,” he says, pulling it out of the tissues. He holds it out between us. The light from the overhead fixture catches it and sends sparkles out everywhere. It really is a beautiful bad luck charm. It’s alluring, like The Devil himself.

  “Are you crazy? I’m not putting that thing on.” I frown at him and fold my fingers together tightly.

  “Why not?” He holds it out closer to me. “Come on, let’s just see how it looks.”

  “No way, José. That thing has bad juju vibes all over it. I don’t want that crap on me.”

  He waves a hand over it, mumbles some nonsense, and then looks up at me smiling. “There. Bad juju gone. I just fixed it.”

  “With a spell? No thanks.” I can’t help but smile. Who knew Doctor Boo Oliver could be so silly? He looks good with some silly going on.

&n
bsp; He sighs, dropping his hand to the couch. “What can I do to make you take this ring and keep it?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” I nod to be sure he knows how serious I am.

  “How about we turn it in to Cartier and you keep the money?” he suggests.

  “No, I told you, I don’t want it.” My heart seizes up a little at that lie, but I know this is the right thing to do. It’s a massive karmic test, and if I pass it, the universe will reward me with riches beyond measure. I can feel this in my bones. I just need to convince Boo to keep it. Or I have to trick him into keeping it.

  “But why? You could buy an apartment with it or rent one for the next thirty years. You could stop working.”

  “But I like working.” I realize as I say it that it’s true. Hanging out alone in my apartment is boring. Plus there’s that added bonus of random Larry sightings if I were home all the time. No thanks. Avoid.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. It gives me a reason to get out of my apartment, talk to people, hang out with my friend Belinda, learn new things. It’s great.”

  He tilts his head a little and draws his brows together. “Where is it you work again?”

  I point at him and grin. “Nice try.”

  “How’d you find out where I live?” he asks, his expression going serious. So much for the nice-guy act.

  “I’m not sure I should tell you. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.” Veronica sounded very happy to give me his address. Maybe a little too happy. It makes me think I should warn him about her. I’m feeling very conflicted right now. Where should my loyalties lie? With the girl who gave me the inroad to offloading this bad luck or the guy whose naked chest and baby handling skills are tugging at my heartstrings?

  “No one’s going to get into trouble. I just want to know who to thank.”

  “Thank?” My chin backs up into my neck. “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No.” He smiles. “You saved Cassie and me from sure doom. I appreciate it.”

  “Oh.” I smile back. “Well, you can thank Veronica, then.”

  His expression goes stormy. “Veronica? She gave you my address?”