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“My uncle doesn’t want my baby,” she shrieks, her face distraught with horror. “My uncle wants to be a single dad. He’s looking for a surrogate, and I’m helping him.”
I inspect her for a moment, noting she’s clearly a little nuts. Then again, so am I, so I press on. “Why doesn’t he just adopt?”
“A lot of adoption agencies won’t give him the time of day because he’s a single man.” She fiddles nervously with the strings of her sweatshirt, and I wonder what kind of man would inspire this much devotion from a teenage girl. It’s impressive.
My lips thin because his rejection sounds very familiar. “Adoption agencies can be just as bad as this surrogacy agency. Especially the private ones. Both are rackets trying to monetize on babies.”
She nods and glances up at the surrogacy office with a forlorn look on her face. “And now this place is dumping him too. My uncle was just here yesterday, and they basically released him because they couldn’t find him a good match.”
“And you’re sure nothing is wrong with him?” I can’t help but ask. These surrogacy agencies aren’t really in the business of turning away good money.
“Of course I’m sure,” she replies defensively. “My uncle is the best, and you’d know that if you met him.”
“If you say so,” I murmur under my breath and shake my head ather. “But picking a random woman up off the street can’t be a good plan for finding someone to carry his baby, right?”
“I’m just following my gut.” She shrugs helplessly. “I have a good feeling about you, and, well, I think it sounds like you and my uncle both might need each other, so maybe there was a reason we met.”
She looks down at the paper currently stuck to her sleeve and yanks it off to hand to me. It has a piece of duct tape stuck to the top of it, and I wonder briefly if she was planning on sticking this to the window of the agency. The thought of it makes me smile. The girl has balls, that’s for sure.
Thirty-eight-year-old single male seeks surrogate to carry his baby. Compensation will be market competitive. Applicants must sign a legal contract with agreed-upon terms and prepare to sign away all parental rights upon delivery of baby. Rural mountain housing outside of Boulder available upon request.
“Rural mountain housing,” I hum, my heart rate doubling in speed at the mention of that. I look up at her with renewed interest. “What does that mean exactly?”
“My uncle lives on a mountain, and he has this barn with an apartment on the upper level. I know that doesn’t sound real fancy, but it’s nice and private and has running water. The view is so pretty. I’ve slept up there plenty of times.”
“It sounds perfect,” I whisper under my breath as my own housing issues come flooding to the forefront of my mind. I lick my lips nervously because regardless of my less-than-pleasant circumstances, this all sounds a bit too good to be true. “Okay, so how do I know your uncle’s not a creep?”
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, looking more like a teenager every second. “Would a creep put together a slideshow of all our pictures and sync them to Taylor Swift songs for my sixteenth birthday?”
My face falls, and I turn to walk away…immediately.
She rushes over to chase me down. “Okay, out of context, maybe that sounds a bit creepy, but he concluded the slideshow to inform me that he bought Taylor Swift concert tickets for me and my friends…but I ended up taking my uncles instead because they’re honestly more fun than my friends.”
“This all sounds made up,” I reply, picking up speed to walk the two miles to the only free parking spot I could find.
“Why do you say that?” the girl asks, her long strides easily keeping up with me. Man, she’s tall.
“Because no family gets along that well.” I should know.
“Mine does,” she says, her brows puckered with determination. This girl might be crazy, but she’s also kind of charming. And persistent. How long is she going to walk with me? “And for your information, my grandpa had just died, and we all needed that time together. Taylor is extremely cathartic.”
I stop walking and turn to face her, my brow quirked. “Show me some proof.”
“Proof?”
“Pictures or videos. Something to see this family who goes to Taylor Swift together to grieve and enjoy each other’s company.”
“Oh!” She bites her lip and smiles as she pulls her phone out to search through her camera roll. I glance at her outfit, noting her expensive Lululemon activewear and fresh Nikes. The girl clearly comes from money. But the odds of having money and happiness?
Slim to none.
She holds her phone up to me and plays a video of them at the concert. Two bearded men in flannel sing every single lyric to “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” At one point, they press their backs to each other and join hands above their heads. It’s intimate and hilarious, and I have to fight to hide my smile. This shit could go so viral.
The phone pans to show blondie here with tears in her eyes from laughing, and then she moves the camera to another bearded guy who’s not singing along. In fact, I can’t even tell if he’s having fun.
Except for the fact that he’s wearing a Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert tee and has a stack of bracelets running up his inked forearm.
Who the fuck are these people?
