The Girl in the Hoodie is Mine

DYLAN POV

It all went downhill the moment Ella said, "I need to pee."

Let me rewind for you.

Max and I had been proud godfather candidates all afternoon. We took pregnant Ella to the park, fed her everything under the sun—biscuits, chocolate, some weird fruit with a name I can’t pronounce but she swore the baby wanted it—and now, hours later, it was getting dark, and we were trying to get her back home.

Keyword: trying.

"I’m not walking," she had declared while lounging like a stubborn queen on the park bench. "Do you know what it’s like carrying a watermelon strapped to your bladder every hour of the day?"

Max—sweet, misguided Max—had offered, "We’ll carry you?"

Ella narrowed her eyes. "Carry yourselves. Carry a watermelon every day. Try that and then talk to me."

I tried bribery again. "We’ll get you more biscuits. Chocolate. Name it. Want an alpaca? I’ll find one."

Nope. She folded her arms. "Bring me a teleportation device."

Long story short, we finally lured her towards the park exit with a promise of extra fries and back rubs (Max volunteered me for that one—traitor). Just when we were five miles away from salvation—the taxi—we heard the splutter.

That was not Ella.

That... was the damn car.

The taxi gave a few death rattles and promptly died like Romeo on steroids. I stared in disbelief. Max groaned so loudly it echoed.

"Oh, come on!" he shouted, slamming the hood with his hand. "We finally get her to move!"

Ella blinked at the car. "So... that’s broken?"

"No, it’s just pretending to be broken to teach us a life lesson," I muttered.

She gave me a look that screamed not today, Dylan.

We called the driver over. He popped the hood, checked a few things, and in the universal language of all doomed mechanics, gave a slight shrug. "Battery kaput. You’ll have to call another."

Ella sat down dramatically on the nearest boulder. "I. Will. Die. Here." and began crying.

"Stop being dramatic," Max said, bending down to check her ankles. "You’re fine."

That’s when it happened.

Ella stiffened. Eyes wide. Her voice turned frantic. "I need to pee."

Now, when a pregnant woman says she needs to pee, it’s not a suggestion. It’s not a warning. It’s a five-alarm fire and you better respond like a soldier in wartime.

I blinked. "You... you need to...?"

"YES, DYLAN!" she screeched. "I need to pee and it’s coming!"

"In a car that doesn’t work, in the middle of nowhere?" Max muttered, like a man who’d just been told he was living in a horror movie.

Ella stood, then doubled over slightly, clutching her stomach.

"Is it the baby?" I asked, panicked. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"No, it’s my bladder, you idiot!"

That’s when Max phone rang.

Jason.

Max and I locked eyes. We knew we were dead.

He picked up, plastering a calm tone. "Hey, bro! How’s the meeting?"

Jason didn’t bother with greetings. "Why is Ella crying?"

"Oh, she’s not crying crying, more like... hormonally expressing herself through tears."

There was silence.

Then the voice of death: "Where. Are. You?"

Max blurted it out. "Road near Maple Park. Car broke down. Don’t kill us."

I heard him sigh. "Don’t move a muscle. And she better not be crying when I get there."

Then he hung up.

Max looked at me. "We’re so dead."

Then Ella wailed, "I’M GOING TO PEE ON MYSELF!"

Jason arrived seven minutes later like Batman with better hair.

He didn’t even look at us. Went straight to Ella, crouched next to her like she was a wounded soldier.

"What’s wrong, baby?" he asked, soft.

She burst into tears again. "I NEED TO PEE AND THERE’S NO TOILET AND I’M GOING TO DIE A SHAMEFUL DEATH!"

I swear I saw Jason’s soul leave his body for a moment.

Then he stood, looked at us, and said, "Turn around."

"What?" I asked.

"Turn. Around."

Max and I turned like the obedient idiots we were. Jason helped Ella to her feet, led her behind a tree.

There were sounds.

Uncomfortable ones.

I hummed aggressively and stared at the stars.

"Think he’ll forgive us?" Max asked, not looking at me.

"Nope."

"Think we’ll get to hold the baby?"

I snorted. "Only when we reincarnate."

A few minutes later, Jason helped Ella into his car. She was calm. Peaceful. Radiating post-pee serenity.

Jason closed the car door, then looked at us—finally.

"You’re lucky she my first priority," he said.

We nodded in unison.

He got into the driver’s seat.

"Jason, wait," Max called. "Can we at least—"

"Use your common sense," Jason said, then drove off.

Max and I stood in the dust like the two last survivors in an apocalypse.

I turned to him. "We’re officially the world’s worst babysitters."

Max clapped my shoulder. "Well, at least we still have our dignity."

A bird pooped on his shoulder.

I didn’t even laugh.

MAX POV

Let me just say this: There’s something deeply humbling about watching your best friend’s taillights disappear into the distance as he drives off with your very pregnant punishment and leaves you behind like two unwanted extras in a low-budget sitcom.

Jason didn’t even blink. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t give us a ride. Just "use your common sense," he said—then poof. Gone.

Dylan and I were now standing next to a broken-down taxi on a lonely patch of road outside Maple Park, with nothing but crickets and our collective shame to keep us company.

I kicked a pebble. Hard. It flew right into a bush and rustled something inside it.

"Please don’t be a raccoon," I muttered.

Dylan leaned on the hood of the useless taxi and sighed, arms folded like he was waiting for a divine miracle to descend.

"I swear," I grumbled, "if this baby doesn’t come out with your assistant’s punctuality genes, we’re doomed."

Dylan ignored me and dialed his assistant again for the sixth time.

Voice mail.

Again.

"Pick up the damn phone, Marcus," Dylan muttered through gritted teeth. "You’re literally paid to answer calls. That’s like, your one job."

I leaned in. "Maybe he’s dead?"

"He better be."

"Or kidnapped."

"Or both."

At this point, I was ready to walk barefoot through gravel just to get home. I pulled out my own phone and started looking for another taxi.

"I’m calling someone else," I said. "This car is toast."

"Wait—tell the new driver to check his stupid thing first before coming," Dylan said, What about this one pointing at the dead vehicle. "Maybe it’s something simple. Battery wire, a loose fuse. Something. I refuse to believe we’re stranded because of a car that just wanted to nap."

I relayed the instructions, and just as I hung up, Dylan’s phone rang.

He stared at the screen, face shifting into a mixture of betrayal and pure rage.

"Now he calls me back?" he growled. "After five missed calls? Really?"

He answered the call with a sugary sweet tone that scared me.

"Marcus. My dependable assistant. How wonderful of you to return my call seventeen years later."

There was a pause.

Then Dylan turned his head slowly to me, eyes wide.

"Oh. My. God."

"What?" I asked.

He put the phone on speaker.

"Sir, I’m so sorry," Marcus’s voice said, breathless. "I couldn’t pick up earlier. I was in a meeting. With your father."

Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay...? You couldn’t text?"

"I couldn’t risk it," Marcus said. "Your dad thinks you were in a very important business meeting. I told him you were leading a presentation. Couldn’t ruin my cover, sir."

I blinked. "Wait. You lied to Dylan’s dad? The actual terrifying CEO?"

Marcus sighed. "It was that or tell him his heir ditched a quarterly strategy meeting to babysit a hormonal landmine and shop for gender-neutral onesies."

Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose so hard I thought he might crush it. "You lied to my father to cover for me?"

"Yes!" Marcus replied, almost proudly. "I even pulled up fake slides on your laptop. I stood there with a pointer stick and talked about projected revenue goals and synergy—synergy, Dylan. I went full corporate for you."

I had to turn away, biting my lip to hold back the laugh that was bubbling in my throat.

"You were giving a fake presentation to my father while I was being publicly destroyed by a crying pregnant woman and then abandoned in the middle of nowhere?"

"Sir, I wore a blazer," Marcus added, as if that excused all sins.

"Was it at least ironed?" I asked.

"Obviously," Marcus huffed. "I committed."

I had to look away to hide my laugh. Dylan looked like he wanted to eat his own phone.

"I was stranded," he hissed. "With Ella. Crying. In public. Do you know how dangerous that is?"

There was a pause. Then Marcus said, "I’m coming now. I swear. Give me twenty minutes. I just have to change out of this fake committed assistance getup. I’ll bring iced coffee?"

"You better bring holy water," Dylan snapped.

Marcus hung up.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I laughed until I had to bend over and catch my breath.

"Oh, my God. Your assistant is a menace."

"You think this is funny?"

"Yes. Because now I know I’m not the only clown in this circus."

Dylan glared at me, then rubbed his face with both hands. "He told my dad I was leading a presentation. Max. A presentation. About what?!"

"Clearly not how to maintain working vehicles."

We both sat on the car hood in silence for a minute. I pulled out a bag of gummy bears I’d forgotten in my pocket and tossed some into my mouth.

"Want one?"

Dylan waved it off. "I’m too emotionally dehydrated for candy."

"Jason’s going to hold this against us forever."

"I don’t care," Dylan groaned. "I’ve been emotionally waterboarded today."

I snorted. "You did ditch your assistant for half the day to hang out with Ella, though."

"She’s entertaining!"

"She cries when a squirrel looks at her funny."

"She also ate an entire pie without blinking."

"You watched her eat the pie for two hours."

He paused. "It was oddly therapeutic."

We both fell quiet again. The sun was nearly set, and the air was cooling fast. The breeze picked up, and I rubbed my arms.

"Do you think Marcus will actually come?" I asked.

"If he doesn’t, I’m legally adopting a raccoon and riding it home."

"You’d fall off in two seconds."

"Still better than dealing with Jason’s rage again."

We heard a car horn in the distance.

Dylan perked up. "Please be him."

We stood, hopeful for the first time in an hour.

The headlights grew brighter, closer. A silver car pulled up.

The door opened.

Marcus stepped out, still in a button-up shirt and slacks—but now with mismatched shoes and no tie.

"I changed in the car," he explained, waving iced coffees like peace offerings. "One for each of you. Extra sugar. Don’t murder me."

Dylan took his with a sigh, sipped, then grunted. "You’re not forgiven."

"But I’m less mad," he muttered after another sip.

I looked at the coffee. "This is bribery."

"It’s effective," Marcus replied.

We piled into the car.

Dylan slumped in the front seat. "Take us home, Marcus. Slowly. My pride can’t handle potholes right now."

As we pulled away, I looked back at the abandoned, dead taxi.

"Rest in peace, dumb car," I whispered.

Dylan leaned back and muttered, "I’m never babysitting alone again."

I nodded. "Next time, we bring backup."

He looked at me. "Next time, we bring Jason."