My Best Friend's Dad at the Costume Party

The bass thumped through Jenna’s open-concept living room like a bad algorithm trying to match people by vibes alone. Orange string lights snaked around the exposed beams, plastic spiders dangled from the ceiling fans, and someone had spiked the punch with enough cheap vodka that the bobbing apple slices looked genuinely traumatized. Mia adjusted the foam core strapped across her chest—two oversized Excel tabs glowing soft green under battery-powered LEDs, labeled “Q3 Projections” and “Synergy Metrics”—and felt the little LED cursor taped just above the curve of her ass blink on-off-on like it was judging every decision that had led her here.

Twenty-eight years old, marketing coordinator by day, professional overthinker by night, and currently dressed as the most fuckable spreadsheet Silicon Valley never asked for. The black micro-skirt barely covered the cell-grid print on her thighs. Fishnets. Heels that clicked like an impatient status meeting. She looked ridiculous. She looked hot. She was already three cups deep and roasting the entire concept of modern romance to anyone who drifted into her orbit.

“Okay, no, listen,” she said to a guy in a half-assed vampire cape who had made the mistake of asking how the apps were treating her. “Hinge is just LinkedIn for people who want to fuck. You get a prompt like ‘We’ll get along if…’ and some dude writes ‘you bring snacks and zero emotional baggage.’ Bumble makes you move first so you can feel the unique thrill of being left on read by a man whose bio is just a guitar emoji. And Tinder—Tinder is pure chaos theory. Swipe right on a guy who says he loves hiking, show up, and he means he hikes his dick into your DMs at 2 a.m. with a blurry mirror pic.”

The vampire snorted beer out his nose. Mia grinned, warmed by the laugh and the slight buzz blooming behind her ribs. She scanned the room for Jenna—best friend, hostess, currently somewhere in a sexy witch ensemble that somehow made a pointy hat look like a power move—and instead locked onto the tall figure leaning against the kitchen island like he owned the mortgage.

Office Tyrant costume. Sharp charcoal suit that fit like it had been tailored by someone who understood the erotic potential of a good shoulder line. Red power tie loosened just enough. Fake ID badge clipped to the pocket that read “CEO of Your Nightmares.” Dark hair silvering at the temples in a way that should have been illegal. Strong jaw. The kind of mouth that looked like it delivered both performance reviews and filthy one-liners with equal precision. He was nursing a whiskey, watching the party with lazy amusement, and when his gaze slid over Mia’s glowing tabs, one eyebrow climbed in pure, unfiltered appreciation.

She felt it like a cursor selecting her entire range.

“Speaking of workplace horrors,” Mia announced, raising her voice just enough to carry as she sauntered closer, hips rolling under the blinking LED. “Check out Corporate Overlord over here. Bet his dating profile says ‘Looking for a merger with benefits’ and his deal-breakers include ‘uses Comic Sans’ and ‘doesn’t understand pivot tables.’”

A few people laughed. The Office Tyrant’s mouth curved slow and dangerous. He didn’t look away. If anything he straightened, giving her the full six-foot-something of sarcastic authority.

“Bold strategy,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges of amusement, “roasting the guy who could have you written up for inappropriate attire. Those tabs are a workplace hazard. Distracting the entire quarterly review.”

Mia’s pulse kicked. She planted herself in front of him, close enough to catch the clean scent of his cologne under the whiskey—something cedar and expensive that made her want to climb him like a promotion ladder. Up close he was unfair: laugh lines, a small scar through one eyebrow, eyes that were dark and sharp and currently cataloguing every glowing inch of her costume.

“Please. I’ve survived worse performance evaluations. Besides,” she tapped one glowing tab right over her left breast, feeling the warmth of the LED against her skin, “these metrics are up twenty percent year-over-year. Engagement is through the roof. And the cursor—” she twisted, glancing back so the blinking light over her ass did its thing, “—never misses its target.”

His gaze dropped exactly where she wanted. Heat licked up her spine. Around them the party swirled—someone shrieking over a failed apple-bob, the playlist sliding into a remix of a song that had no business being sexy—but the air between them tightened like a formula locking into place.

“Dating apps, huh?” he said, swirling the whiskey. “Let me guess. You open with a joke about spreadsheets and half the guys think you’re offering to do their taxes naked.”

“Worse. One guy sent me a dick pic with the caption ‘Here’s my hard data.’ Another unmatched me mid-conversation because I admitted I still use the default Excel font. The bar is subterranean. I once matched with a man whose entire personality was ‘I have a boat,’ and when I asked what kind he sent a photo of a pool float.”

The Office Tyrant laughed—genuine, head tipping back, throat working—and something low in Mia’s belly fluttered hard. She liked making him laugh. Liked the way his free hand flexed on the counter like he was resisting the urge to reach out and test whether those tabs were as soft as they looked.

“Brutal,” he said. “I deleted the apps six months ago. Got tired of women assuming ‘single dad’ meant ‘looking for a new mom who also does laundry.’ Now I just show up to my daughter’s parties dressed like the boss no one wants and hope someone interesting roasts me.”

Daughter. The word snagged. Mia’s brain did a quick, tipsy inventory: Jenna’s dad was supposed to be… somewhere. Jenna had mentioned he might swing by after a late meeting, that he was “embarrassingly hot for forty-two” and “please do not hit on him even though he will absolutely flirt back because he has no chill.” Mia had laughed it off. She had not expected the man currently eye-fucking her spreadsheet to be—

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh yes.

She felt the realization land like a perfectly timed formula error—sudden red, impossible to ignore. The silver at his temples. The way he stood like the house belonged to him because it kind of did. Jenna’s easy “Dad’s cool, he won’t hover” floating back through the alcohol haze. This was Derek. Jenna’s dad. The single, sarcastic, unfairly built Derek she had only ever seen in the background of holiday photos looking like a walking midlife crisis fantasy.

And he had been flirting the entire time.