Phillip

The code my assistant sends me works on the lock. I open the left door of the duplex VdH provides to long-term research contractors when they stay for extended periods of time to consult or participate in a project.

The entry way is part of a living-room kitchen combo with a staircase that leads upstairs. I've been to dozens of these, and the only distinguishing feature is the address. Gray-beige walls. Identical sleeper-sofas.

My eye runs over the blond floors, thin carpet, soulless prints on the wall and the equally bland milky blinds on the door leading to the backyard. Musty and pot-pourri sweet, the smell reminds me of the attic space at Dad's house with trunks of Mom's stuff he agreed to put away but not throw away.

To me, this apartment is a drab replica of a mid-level hotel a newbie assistant once booked me into. Nata would've been more comfortable at Dad's place with high-end everything, but this is better than sharing a space with her ex. I finish my inspection of the room and find the door on the other side of the living room that leads to the garage we parked in front of. I find the button and push the garage door open.

Nata paces by her car, as if waiting in her driver's seat was too much inaction. By the time the door is high enough for me to see her face, her nervous energy transfers to me. My off-beat heartbeats push me into action. My assistants have assistants, but helping Nata feels natural, and logical, and right.

Nata pops the trunk and takes some of the bags out. "Where to?"

I point at the door behind me. "You can drive in."

"Later." She passes me and disappears into the house, only to return for the next batch of bags and boxes.

I join her silent assembly line, emptying my trunk and back seat, setting the things in the living room, and watching the small mountain of stuff grow.

Helping Nata pack brings memories of me moving out of Linda's penthouse.

My assistant hired the movers and did the bulk of the physical work, but he couldn't help me with the emotions of ending a relationship that seemed to have so much potential only a couple of years prior. Leaving Linda's penthouse for good felt like another failure.

When I moved out, I knew it was time. I had no hopes of reconciliation or fantasies that Linda and I might work out. Things end as they begin. And my marriage to Linda Baxter was a sham from the start. Neither of us went into it because we wanted to be with each other. Ours was a marriage of our families' interests.

The timing was right. Our financial situations were on par. I brought in the business connections, Linda—the high society ones that came with the Baxter name. Arranged marriages worked before for centuries, and Linda and I had plenty of fun in bed, so on paper, we were supposed to work. In reality, we should've been friends, maybe with benefits, but never partners.

She wanted to get her father out of her life, and marriage afforded her that. I thought me having a wife would make my father happy. The sliver of the Venn diagram where we intersected included sex and visits to our families.

Two years of marriage was plenty for us to know neither of us got what we wanted out of our marriage. I've never loved Linda the way movies talk about it, but our was the longest romantic relationship I've had.

I hoped for the end of it to be liberating. It felt like a clever chopped me into two. A clean, precise cut that'd heal well, but hurt like hell when the metal sliced through. I was depressed for months after the move.

What Nata's going through with the kind of history her and her ex seem to have must be on a whole other level of pain. She's probably devastated.

When there's nothing else left, she drives the car into the garage and joins me on the couch, the only place to sit in the living room.

"Thank you," she says, her voice tired and cracking. The sadness in her tone leaches out and matches the darkening room. "If someone would've told me a week ago, I'd be breaking up with Samson, and you'll be the knight in shining armor helping me move out, I would've sent that person to get checked by a doctor. How funny." She chuckles in a defeated way and chews on her lip. "Thanks."

"You said that already. Maybe there's been a sufficient amount of thanks. Just helping out a friend. Let me know if there's anything else I can do."

"I think you've done more than enough. Unless you want to help me with the baby situation. Fancy becoming a father?" Another sad chuckle from her end clearly states she's joking, but my heart sputters.

"I'd love to. Are you offering?" I try to match her joking demeanor.

She rolls her eyes. "I wish I were. Why can't this be easy? Why do we need all this relationship mess? Can't we just have an agreement to have a baby and leave the romantic bullshit at the curb?"

"How would you imagine that would go?" I set my foot over my knee and shake my foot. "Seems like you've given it a thought."

"Theoretically, it's like matching a woman to a sperm donor, but in this case, the sperm donor is also looking to have a kid." Nata draws imaginary figurines in front of her as if she's in front of a whiteboard. "And the contract includes the rules on custody, just like a divorced couple would have: figure out the financial part of the child support, who has the child when, etc." Her mouth forms the first smile I've seen since Samson messed up our date. "They can even live near each other if they want to make the whole shuffling of the child between parents easier."

That part didn't sound theoretical. "Sounds like you know a lot about being shuffled between parents," I say.

Her smile disappears. "That's what you get when your parents get a divorce, but also sometimes live in different countries, so the shuffling includes unaccompanied minor flights across the world." Nata wraps her arms around her torso and reclines on the couch, eyes to the ceiling. "And then there are so many messes that come with a divorce, and the child becomes part of the battle to prove something: who's a better parent, who suffered the most in the marriage, whatever unresolved issues linger." She blows a breath through her nose. "It's never as fair to the child as it should be."

"Maybe this new theoretical baby Tinder of yours isn't in the best interest of a child." The image of a lonely teenage Nata flying between her parents across the world doesn't seem like an ideal parenting solution.

"You're wrong." Nata sits back up eyes ablaze. "In this co-parenting scheme, the parents can logically and reasonably agree to everything in advance. The living situation, the financial one, the childcare, education, potential future siblings. The interest of the child will be at the forefront. A child prenup. The co-parents can be the real partners working on a common goal. Everyone wins."

Her explanations make logical sense, but something is missing. The heart of it lost in the technicalities. "I can see how that could work. But won't the kid be sad knowing his parents don't love each other?"

"Maybe. But much less than in case of a divorce." She twists my way, drops her slip-ons on the floor, and sits cross-legged across the couch cushion. "It'll just be the norm for them. And the co-parents will treat each other with respect and lead their separate lives where the kid isn't concerned."

Not sure I've ever seen that happen. Sounds like utopia more than reality, but I don't want to dash her hopes. Nata needs proof. Reasons. I go for the scientist side of her. "How would you know who's the right person to co-parent with?"

"The scientific method, of course." She shakes her head at me.

Yep, I do still know her. I keep a firm hold on the smile that wants to burst on my face at being right. I only nod. "Of course."

She ignores the touch of sarcasm in my voice. "We can have some questionnaires, similar to what matchmaking sites use, but with a focus on compatibility of being partners, friends, the whole trust and respect part, not hot sex and insufferable dinner and movie dates that show nothing about what it'd be like to share a child with that individual." Her eye sparkle, cheeks pink, breathing nonexistent as she delivers the information with the speed of an auctioneer. "We can do grocery shopping dates. Exercise dates. Dates picking an activity to do and compromising and agreeing if both don't have the same hobbies." She raises a ring finger up, as if the most stellar idea just visited her. "A drive each other to a doctor's appointment date. The stuff real people do in real lives."

Practical Nata. I can't help but poke at her practicality. "People do dinner and movies too."

She rolls her eyes at me. "Like once in a blue moon."

I'm not ready for her to win. I face her and make sure our gazes meet. "Why is having hot sex a negative?"

"For raising well-adjusted kids?" Nata blinks rapidly. Her lips move as if scrolling for appropriate answers, while the pink spots on her cheeks grow, and small satellites of them appear on her neck and chest. She swallows and clasps her hands. "How is that going to facilitate any child-rearing parts of the deal? And no one said there'll be no sex." She's using her tutor voice. "Think of it as an open marriage. Without the marriage part."

"Instead of friends with benefits, it's co-parents without benefits unless they directly result in conception?" I tilt my head as I watch her face for a reaction.

She narrows her eyes at me. "Everyone is chill with the friends with benefits concept." She shrugs. "How is this worse?"

"Not worse." I match her shrug. "Different. Requires someone with an open mind. Imagine telling your parents that you're in a co-parents with benefits relationship. Or introducing each other at the party that way?" I sit back on my side of the couch, our bent knees almost touching. "The stares."

She chuckles again, but there's no sadness in her this time. "And this lovely gent is my baby-daddy with benefits," Nata says in an affected voice of a stadium presenter.

"No." I exclaim and cross my hands in a timeout sign. "I won't want anyone to call me a baby daddy. Co-parent. Partner."

"Fair." She shoves my hands out of the way. "I'll call you want you prefer. And who says we have to announce it to the world?"

"We don't?"

Nata purses her lips and raises her eyebrows in the no-we-don't expression.

My turn to roll my eyes at her air of superiority. "So no need to mention the details at parties. That works. How would the conception part work?"