Page 7 of Fundamentals of Being a Good Girl
“I’m Madelyn Kowalczk,” she says. “The agency said you needed a—”
She finally realizes who she’s talking to, and she stops. We stare at each other.
Which is the moment the missing frog chooses to emerge from the fort. The frog gives us both a salutatoryribbitand then flings herself out the front door and toward the road.
“Well, fuck,” the brat says.
Chapter Two
Maddie
There is now what appears to be frog goo on the toes of my thrifted camel-brown Coach loafers, the ones I was very proud to debut last year at Gentry’s grandmother’s birthday party (proud until his mother complimented me on my Burberry dupes, at least). Which was really just one of the many moments of foreshadowing that brought me here—to the doorstep of my hot, nameless hookup who also just so happens to be my new boss. Great.
“Okay.” I press my fists into my eyeballs as though I could literally shove the memory of last night into the furthest recesses of my mind. Except... nope. It’s all still there. Fresh as a daisy. Giant, burly, bossy daddy pulling and yanking on my ponytail as he filled the first of three condoms. Him eating me out from behind—a terrifying but thrilling first for me. Me coming so hard my scream might have actually been loud enough to compete with the bar noise below. Walking back to my car, sore and absolutely content. (Content until now.)
“Okay,” I say again, pulling my fists down as my vision slowly blurs back into focus. “This cannot be—”
“Porcupine!” screeches a little girl with unruly dark brown curls, wearing oversized high heels and a superhero cape. A silent but equally adorable and nearly identical girl tromps down the steps of the porch after her.
“Not the street!” Bossy Daddy bellows as he barrels past me after them and into said street.
I spin around to see the frog bounce back onto the sidewalk and in the direct path of an oily teenage boy on a scooter slurping a Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
“Fucking frog,” I mutter, and sprint down the steps to the sidewalk, where I jump out in front of the boy, sending him flying into the grass just before he flattened the stray amphibian.
“Hey!” he snipes at me.
“Maybe you should watch where you’re going next time,” I say as I retrieve the frog (blech) and give him the same withering glare I’d used on opposing counsel during various moot courts and mock trials. The boy practically melts into the grass before silently retrieving his scooter and walking it past me. I wish—not for the first time—that I’d mastered that glare in high school.
“Porcupine!” the girls sing as they crowd around my knees like little cult followers who have chosen me as their idol.
I gladly hand the frog off to one of them before wiping my hands down the front of my floral dress. And then think about how I’ll manage having a wardrobe that’s mostly and ill-advisedly dry-clean-only in my current circumstances.
“Dad! She saved Porcupine,” says the first girl who ran out into the street. She looks up to me. “You’re our hero. Thank you!”
“And you’re so pretty,” the other girl says softly as she takes possession of the frog, who I can only assume is named Porcupine.
Bossy Daddy swallows as he nods, and the way his Adam’s apple bobs reminds me of my tongue on his neck last night.
I look down to the girls. “You’re welcome and thank you.” My style is more on the bland side than it once was, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t live to impress little girls. I glance over at their father (who I have to stop mentally referring to as Bossy Daddy before it slips out). “This isn’t going to work.”
He roughs his fingers through his still-damp hair before smiling down at his girls. “Letty, Berry, can you girls head inside and put Porcupine back in her aquarium?”
The pair skip off to the front door, leaving us alone. Just the two of us and a wall of sexual tension.
I take a step back. Not that I would pounce on him in broad daylight in his front yard. No, my life is messy enough without this further complication. “So, yeah,” I tell him. “Your kids seem really sweet, but this can’t happen. Good luck.”
I turn to walk back to my car, parked across the street. I need this job, but my horny, heartbroken ass had to go ruin it all because I was feeling bad for myself on my birthday. Now, what felt like a harmless and truly memorable hookup is setting me back even further. I immediately regret even letting myself go out last night and spend money on frivolous things like shots and cheese fries and a cupcake from that food truck between the shots and cheese fries. It had been my first birthday alone, and I was convinced that it was no big deal and that it hardly mattered... until I had no one to share my cupcake with and it suddenly felt like it mattered a lot.
“Wait,” he calls, and that same commanding tone sends tingling sensations down my spine. I hate myself for stopping and turning around the moment the word leaves his mouth.
“Just come inside for a minute while I call the agency, okay? Maybe we can get this sorted out.” There’s a hint of desperation in his expression that there was definitely no trace of last night.
“Fine,” I concede. Maybe a client call would at least be faster than contacting the agency completely on my own and waiting to be reassigned.
He steps aside and waits for me to walk up the stairs ahead of him. “There must be some sort of mix-up. The agency had said that the childcare provider they were sending over was a lecturer here at Astra.”
I turn back. “Do I not look like academic material?”
