Page 106 of Baby Daddy
CHAPTER 43
Dee
The impulsive trip to Las Vegas was supposed to be a fun, healing escape. Lulu had suggested it—I needed to get my mind off Drake and reboot before our big move. Bask in the desert sun, swim, drink Mai Tais, take Ty to the Vegas attractions, and maybe see a show or two. But none of that happened. Fun? It was anything but.
The road trip, which should have taken five hours, took close to ten. Torrential rain, which fell the whole way, brought traffic to a crawl, and halfway into the trip, my truck broke down. Both of us starving and needing to pee desperately, we had to wait forty-five minutes for a tow truck to come by. And then we spent two long hours at a mechanic’s garage while the battery was replaced. That cost me a couple hundred bucks I couldn’t afford to spare.
It got worse. The hotel in Vegas, which looked so nice in photos online, was a dive. Off the beaten path, our room was grungy and smelled of cigarettes. It was supposed to be a non-smoking room, but I quickly came to the conclusion those were non-existent in this joint. The guests inhabiting the hotel looked as seedy as the hotel itself. Not a child in sight. I tried to book another hotel on The Strip, but they were either way out of my price range or all booked up on account of some hair stylist convention happening in town.
It rained for five straight days. We never got to sit at the pool, and running around Vegas in the pouring rain with a lot of the city under construction was both nerve wracking and frustrating. To make matters worse, most of the attractions were shut down for one reason or another. Poor Ty. Disappointment after disappointment. Whatever could go wrong, did go wrong.
The huge Ferris wheel across from the MGM Grand didn’t operate in the rain.
The roller coaster at Circus Circus wasn’t working. And Ty wasn’t tall enough to ride the bigger one at New York New York.
The animated movie at the M&M factory stopped in the middle, and the technicians couldn’t fix it.
The Treasure Island pirate show couldn’t go on because the winds were too high.
Taylor Swift, Tyson’s favorite recording artist, was in town, but the concert was sold out with last minute scalper tickets going for five hundred dollars apiece.
The one show we were going to see got canceled because the magician fell ill.
And the striped snow tigers at the Bellagio, where the legendary fountains were shut down because of the weather, made my baby girl burst into tears.
“Cupcake, what’s the matter?” I asked, lifting her into my arms.
“I’m so sad for the pretty tigers. They should be in the jungle with their mommies and daddies and brothers and sisters.”
Her words totally crushed me. My sensitive, creature-loving little girl.
“They like it here.” Please…who was I kidding?
She shook her head vehemently. “No, they don’t! They want to go home!”
And then she began to bawl. Big fat tears rolled down her cheeks as her shoulders began to heave. My inner alarm siren sounded. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t like it here,” she spluttered. “I want to go home. I miss Drake.”
She was gutting me. Her sobs like knives to my heart, I floundered for words.
“Cupcake, we can go home right this very minute if you want.” I paused. “But we can’t see Drake anymore.”
“Why, Mommy, why?” she sobbed out, her endless tears drowning my soul.
“Drake and I aren’t friends anymore.” The words pained me. Killed me.
“But we had the bestest time with Drake.”
I thought about her words. We did have the bestest time with Drake. Every time with Drake was the bestest time. All the fun memories spun in my head like a slow, enchanted carousel.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I murmured, my voice thin and watery, before kissing the top of her head.
“Mommy, I don’t understand. Drake told me he really, really liked you. The way Prince Charming liked Cinderella.”
My breath hitched in my throat. “He did?”
Sniffling, she nodded, the tears still falling. “The night he put me to bed. Please, Mommy, why can’t he be your boyfriend?”