"North East Lab Sales, this is Gina speaking, how may I help you? Oh hey Joey, yeah, I have the contract right here, just need to firm up the shipping costs." Gina balanced the phone on her shoulder and searched through her emails looking for the estimate from their freight company. "Well, our normal guys want to charge an extra 15% to make up for the short notice, I'm afraid anyone else will charge us more."

She could picture Joey Mercury frowning and shaking his head, "Gina, that's not gonna work, I can't seal this deal up with such a high shipping cost." Joey was her best outside sales person, almost all of her commissions came off his sales and he was working with a new client who had the potential to make them both a lot of money.

"Joey, I already got them to come down from 30%. And I made a huge scene to get that. Can't we absorb the costs somewhere else? I can add a line item for special services? Or a contingency!"

"Nah, we can't do that to these guys just yet, let me see what I can do. In the meantime, call those guys back and work your magic."

Less than an hour later, she had convinced the freight company that it would be foolish to charge their biggest customer a fee for short notice, finalized the contract, sent it off to Joey and input all the sales figures for the quarter. She had the best outside sales team ever, they met their quota again and this bonus check would more than cover the furniture she needed for the new apartment, no more living out of suitcases!

Jaime Noble came strutting in with a folder full of paperwork for her to scan just as she was shutting down her computer. "We meet quota again this quarter, G?"

"Of course we did!" She grinned and gave him a high five.

"We are all gonna hit happy hour at 101 Pub, come with us," he said scrolling through his text messages and rattling off the names of their coworkers who would be meeting him.

"I can't, Jaime, I have to pick up Nicky by 6:00 and I need to hightail it out of here or I'm gonna hit a ton of traffic."

"Alright, but listen, don't forget, Otunga is bringing bagels tomorrow."

"Jaime, I never forget about free food! Say hi to everyone tonight for me." She grabbed all her bags and ran out to her car.

The weather was still warm, so Gina cruised along the highway with the windows down and the radio blasting and made it to Nicky's school at 5:30, just like normal. She hurried up the front steps lost in thought, when the door opened in front of her, seemingly by magic. She looked up, startled, to see a very large hand, attached to a very nice looking tattooed forearm, holding the door way above her head.

"Oh! Umm, thanks," she said nervously tucking her shoulder length black hair behind her ears, she suddenly felt very tiny. She had wide hips and a large chest and always felt bulky and awkward, never tiny, no one had ever made her feel tiny before.

He smiled, "No problem. First year in town? I don't remember seeing you last year."

"Yeah, I just moved last month," she replied as they walked through the halls to the aftercare classroom. "I'm Gina, by the way."

"Baron. What brings you to North Bridge?" He pressed the intercom button to alert the aftercare teacher.

"My parents live here, so made sense, you know? Free babysitting…"

He laughed, "I hear ya." He held the door for her again and they entered the classroom.

"DADDY!" A little blonde haired girl came flying across the room and leapt up into Baron's arms.

"Heya princess, how was your day?" He said kissing her forehead.

"Hi Mom! I just have to pack my stuff," Nicky yelled from across the classroom.

"Hi Nicky's mom!" Emma said waving, "Daddy, Nicky is my new friend. He helped me read a story book about SNAKES!"

"Hi Emma's dad," Nicky said dragging his book bag over to them, "Hi Mom. I'm hungry."

Gina rolled her eyes, "So what else is new…"

They walked out to their cars together, the kids chattering happily. Gina watched as Baron helped Emma into the back of a black Ford Explorer and buckled her into her car seat. Nicky ran ahead of her and pulled the back door of her Honda open and climbed in, Gina still couldn't believe that he was old enough that he didn't need a car seat anymore. Baron waved goodbye as he climbed into the driver's seat and started the car up, Gina smiled, yeah, hot dad was definitely a good nickname for Baron.

"Mommy! I did all my homework with Ms. D. Can I play video games when we get home?"

"First we have to take Lucy out, then while I'm getting dinner ready, I'll look over your homework."

"But Moooooommmmmm," Nicky whined, "I did it with a teacher!"

Baron pulled into the driveway of his little ranch house, his mind still on Gina. God, she was cute, Blair said she was divorced, he was surprised how curious he was about her. It had been years since a woman caught his attention like this, not since Patty…

"Daddy! DADDY! Did you hear me Daddy?"

"Sorry, Princess, I was preoccupied," he said helping her out of the SUV, "Tell me again, Em."

"Daddy! I was telling you about the book that Nicky read to me. It was about snakes!"

"Really? That sounds interesting."

"Some snakes are really dangerous, Daddy. Nicky says they are called vem.. vemmo… vemmomus!"

"You mean venomous?"

Emma rolled her eyes, "Daddy, that's what I said, vemmomus."

Baron sighed, "OK, well, how about macaroni and cheese for dinner? With broccoli and carrots?"

"And apple sauce?" She said batting her big brown eyes at him.

"Of course, there's always room for apple sauce."

"Yay!" Emma clapped and bounced on her tip toes, "Can I go play ponies first?"

Baron nodded and watched his little girl skip off to her room to get her big basket of My Little Ponies. He prepped dinner and set the table, skimming through the mail while listening to Emma talk to her ponies.

"Princess Celestia wants all the ponies to have fluffy tails today for the big party! Come on Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash! We have to brush our tails!" Emma hummed to herself while she carefully brushed each pony's tail and lined them up on the coffee table.

A few hours later, when dinner was done and Baron sat through yet another Strawberry Shortcake episode, he announced that it was bath time. Emma scrunched up her face and started to wail, "BUT I WANT TO PLAY MORE!"

"Emma Rose Baron, you will not throw a tantrum. It is bath time and you have special bath toys to play with." He paused and looked at her, a big crocodile tear still dramatically rolling down her cheek. "I'm going to put the bubbles in the tub and you will be ready to get in by the time it fills up."

He tried not to laugh as she stomped her feet and followed him to the bathroom, he didn't need to turn around to know that she left a trail of clothes behind her. "Once she gets over the tantrums, I'll work on getting her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper. Baby steps, big guy, baby steps," he thought to himself.

Gina took Lucy for one last visit to the doggy potty before taking a shower and calling it a night, she checked on Nicky and shook her head when she saw his Nintendo 3DS peeking out from under one of his pillows. The little brat snuck in into bed with him and fell asleep in the middle of playing a game, considering that was the worst of her problems with him so far, she considered herself lucky. She double checked the lock on the front door, which was dumb, but she couldn't help it and then turned off all the lights and crawled into her own bed. She snuggled under her blankets, curled up onto her side and imagined that she had a pair of strong arms wrapped around her, which was nothing new. What was new, however, was that one of those arms was heavily tattooed and was attached to the 6'8" hot dad Baron Corbin. "Baron would make an excellent big spoon," she thought as she drifted off to sleep.