We Ran From Our Babies' Fathers, Then One Toddler Went Viral novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: That's My Daughter

Jack Ferris walks into the bakery past twenty phones, Bridget slaps him, and Preston tells every camera that Poppy is his daughter, so the landlord gives them one hour to leave.

By nine the next morning there were twenty phones pointed at the bakery door.

I watched them from the upstairs window while Poppy ate yogurt at my elbow.

The baker had propped a sign against the glass that said CLOSED, and the crowd outside had decided it was a joke.

"Nobody goes down there," Bridget said behind me. She had not slept.

"Nobody has to," I said. "The milk is downstairs. Poppy needs milk."

"I'll go."

"You'll go and stand next to a man you told me was in Los Angeles."

"I thought he was."

She said it fast.

I let it go, because the crowd outside parted at that moment, and a man in a grey ball cap walked through the middle of it with both hands open.

Even from the window, I knew the walk.

Everyone in the world knew it.

"Don't," Bridget said. "Hannah, stay up here."

But she was already moving, and Max, who had been quiet, shouted, "Mommy, the TV man!" and shot down the stairs after her.

I scooped up Poppy and followed.

The baker's shop was full of cold morning air and shouting.

Jack Ferris stood just inside the open door, cap in his hand, with every phone behind him recording his back.

He looked tired.

He looked at Bridget and didn't look anywhere else.

"Bridge," he said.

"Don't call me that."

"Is he mine?"

Max stood between them, holding Bridget's knee.

He looked up at the stranger with his own blue eyes and said, "You're on the TV."

Jack's face crumpled in front of fifteen cameras.

"Yeah, buddy," he said, in a very small voice. "I am."

Bridget slapped him.

It was loud enough that the phones outside went silent for a moment, and then every one of them tilted for a better shot.

"Three years," she said. "Three years, and you fly in because a bird video got views?"

"I didn't know. I swear on my mother, Bridget, I didn't know."

"You said it into a live mic. At the wrap party, in front of two hundred people. 'A kid would end me.' I was standing right there."

"I was twenty-nine and drunk and an idiot."

"You were honest."

"I was scared," Jack said. "Then you were gone, and your phone was off, and your family said you'd moved. I looked for you. I looked until my agent told me to stop."

"Liar."

"Ask anyone."

"I'm asking you, in front of everyone: where were you?"

"Right here," he said. "I'm right here."

Somebody outside called, "Jack, is the boy yours?"

A flash popped.

I stepped between them with Poppy on my hip.

"Everybody out," I said, to the door. "Out. There are three-year-olds in this room."

"Who are you, miss?"

"Nobody. Go."

"Are you the nanny?"

"I'm the best friend," I said. "And you're standing in a bakery."

A woman with a camera slid in sideways and angled it at Poppy.

"Little girl! Look here, sweetheart!"

Poppy hid her face in my neck.

I turned my shoulder to block the lens, and the woman followed it.

"Back up," I said. "That is a child."

"The viral clip child? She looks like a Preston Aldridge, doesn't she?"

My stomach dropped.

Then a hand closed over the camera lens from the side.

Preston.

He had come in through the crowd with two men from his security team, and he'd put his palm flat against the glass without any hurry.

"You will not film her," he said.

"Mr. Aldridge! Is the girl yours?"

He looked at me over the woman's head.

I shook mine, once, fast.

Don't.

He saw it.

He didn't care.

He took Poppy out of my arms, very gently, tucked her face into his shoulder, and turned his back to every lens in the room.

"That's my daughter," Preston said, loud and clear, to every phone in the doorway. "Her name is not for sale. Anyone who posts her picture will hear from my lawyers before lunch."

The shop went completely quiet.

Then it exploded.

Questions came from every direction.

Jack put a hand on Bridget's arm and she shook it off.

Poppy lifted her head from Preston's shoulder, looked at him, and said in a normal voice, "Your shirt smells like pancakes."

Somebody laughed out loud.

I wanted to take her back so badly that my hands shook.

I wanted to be furious at him.

I was, mostly.

But my daughter was calm on his shoulder, and I could not make myself pull her off.

Within an hour the clip was everywhere.

Preston Aldridge in a bakery doorway, holding a girl with grey eyes.

Jack Ferris sobbing over a toddler in dinosaur pajamas.

Two women in the corner, both with their mouths open, one holding a baby bag.

Our street name was in the caption.

Our building's number was in the third post.

The baker came upstairs with his apron still on and his phone in his hand.

"Miss Hannah," he said, sorry. "The owner of the building called. He's seen the news. He says one hour. The cameras are scaring his other tenants."

"One hour for what?"

"For you to go."

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