Page 2 of Baby Daddy
CHAPTER 1
Drake
It was the most dreaded day of the year.
Not Black Friday.
Not Valentine’s Day.
Not Tax Day.
It was fucking Bring Your Kids to Work Day. The third Wednesday in May. God, I hated this day. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and dozens of kids were flocking the halls of Hanson Entertainment, the animation company founded by my father.
My legendary old man, Orson Hanson, loved this day. Kids were after all what made him a multi-millionaire ten times over. Danger Rangers, the series he created when I was eight, was an overnight sensation. The theme song, “Go, Go, Danger Rangers,” became a national anthem among children and stores couldn’t keep the toys in stock. Now in its second decade, the show was still going strong on Peanuts, the children’s television network owned and operated by Conquest Broadcasting. Over the years, our slate of animated series had expanded and included many other hit series. Approaching the ripe old age of sixty-five, my father was looking to retire…sell the business and achieve what he’d always wanted—to become a billionaire and be ranked among the world’s moguls on the Forbes Top 40 list. No matter who he sold the company to, he wanted me to continue to run it.
The kids’ business—not the cartoon kind—had netted me a small fortune too. My old man sent me to UCLA, but he insisted I get a job while I was taking classes. To see what it was like. To build a work ethic and values. And to keep me out of trouble. Dad knew I was a party animal, a lazy son of a bitch, who’d rather screw around than study and who had trouble keeping his pants on. Well, I found the perfect job: Wanking off.
The minute I saw the ad for “Sperm Donors Wanted” on a bulletin board at the campus coffee shop, I knew I was a shoe in. I went online and filled out the form. I was perfect breeding material. Six feet two inches tall (no shorties or fatsoes wanted), dark, thick hair (no gingers allowed because no one wanted a carrot top), baby blue eyes, and straight as an arrow (sleeping with guys eliminated you immediately). I was healthy and came from a family where almost everyone lived to be a hundred. Plus, I had an amazing skill set—I was athletic, could sing like a rock star, and had a 150 IQ. Okay, I goofed off and my C grades reflected that (I lied and said I had a 5.0 GPA), but the potential was there. Plus, I was hung like a horse. I had no STDs and my specimen past the test with flying colors—getting a higher score than I’d ever gotten on any academic test. My sperm count was worthy of the Guinness Book of Records, their morphology museum-worthy, and the real clincher was my little testicular tadpoles were Olympians that could swim like Michael Phelps.
The sperm bank was conveniently located in Westwood Village, a few blocks away from the UCLA campus. It was the perfect “job.” I only had to go in two to three times a week, whenever I chose, and it took ten minutes or less to complete the task. An easy peasy fifteen hundred dollars a month. Not bad for a few hours work. Some called it a sperm bank; but I called it the wank bank. Wank, bank, and go!
“Be a hero!” proclaimed the home page of the website. “Give a childless family their dream.” Looking back, what the hell was I thinking? My nightmares had started a few years ago right after my best bud, Brock, dragged me to see the Vince Vaughn movie, Delivery Man. Vince played a hapless dude, who, like me, had given batches of his seed to a sperm bank while he was in college. Fast forward several years, the sperm bank was being sued for a shit load of money by the women he impregnated, demanding to know his identity. Had I known what the movie was about, I would have never gone to see it.
Given how many batches of Donor 5262 (as I was officially known) sperm I deposited (in sperm-bank speak) and had frozen, half the kid population in LA might be some form of mini-me. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but still there were likely hundreds, if not thousands. And right here, right now in our studios, a few might be roaming around. Though I didn’t do open donation where the parent and donor mutually agree to let the kid contact and meet you at the age of eighteen, I still constantly felt the inevitable would happen. One day, I would run into a clone of myself and my life would change forever.
After taking a sip of my coffee and a bite of a glazed donut that I’d purchased at a nearby Donut King on the way into the office, I booted up my computer. The day, filled with one parent-child activity after another, was going to be a total time suck. I had a lot of shit on my plate, including readying a pitch to Conquest Broadcasting, so the last thing I needed was a presentation to all the little brats about the cartoons we produced. Last year was a fucking disaster…one of the kids started throwing his chicken nuggets at me and before long the entire screening room had erupted into a nasty food fight. This year could easily be a repeat. Even worse.
Studying my calendar and looking less and less forward to the day ahead, I looked up when I heard an unexpected voice.
“Mister, can you tell me where the bathroom is?”
My eyes landed on a chubby little boy, wearing shorts and an Astro Camp sweatshirt. Probably eight or nine, he was a freckled carrot top and wore large horn-rimmed glasses that covered most of his pudgy face. His eyes beneath the thick lenses looked glazed.
“It’s down the hall on the right,” I replied as I sized him up. Nah. For sure this little nerd wasn’t one of mine. From my research on genetics, one could only be a redhead if both parents had the genes in their ancestry. Not one ginger existed on either my mother’s or father’s side of the family.
“Could you please show me?” His voice grew smaller. More watery.
“Fine.” I mentally rolled my eyes. I had better things to do. Reluctantly, I stood up from my desk and strolled over to the youngster who didn’t budge. As I neared him, he paled and clutched his stomach.
“What’s the matter?”
The boy’s mouth opened wide as if to say something, but instead a loud BLEGH! dislodged from his throat.
The sound shot through my ears as a spray of hot molten lava with chunky bits splattered across my T-Shirt.
Jesus!
BLEGH!Another round of projectile vomiting, this time hitting me below the belt. All over my crotch.
Christ!
The kid began to cry. I’m talking big fat ugly tears that rolled down his face from under his glasses. “I want my mommy.”
Shit! With his freckled face now the shade of puke green, he looked like he might barf again. Parents shouldn’t be allowed to bring their kids to work. When I became President of this company, this day was going to be eliminated once and for all. Covered in vomit, I inhaled deeply and regretted doing so as the odiferous smell drifted up my nose. I began to feel nauseated myself. Crap. What was I going to do? A new voice distracted me. It was soft and raspy, innocent and sexy at the same time.
“Hi, I’m Deandra. But you can call me Dee.”
My gaze shifted to the doorway of my office. At the threshold, stood a shapely brunette wearing a gray fitted skirt, sensible black pumps, and a cropped red sweater over an ivory blouse. Her lustrous chestnut hair was swept up in a ponytail, showcasing her flawless complexion, doe-like brown eyes, full upturned lips, and cute as a button nose.