“Hey!” she shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep,” I shrugged in surprise. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“No. No way. Things were already complicated enough before we slept together. Now you want to have a sleepover? That’s a horrible idea.”
I never thought I would be the one talking a woman into a sleepover, but to my surprise, my lips parted…
“Relax, Kate.” I brushed my hand along her hair, moving a few strands from her face and then stroking her cheek. “We’re grownups. We fucked. And now we’re tired. We’ll get up in the morning. Maybe have breakfast. Then go our separate ways until Saturday. It doesn’t have to be complicated at all.”
She batted her lashes under my touch, staring intently into my eyes. I stared back and swallowed hard from the intensity, doing my best to hold onto my own words.
“Okay,” she said with the most adorable little sigh. She curled back into me and closed her eyes.
When I woke up the next morning with her warm skin draped across me, I didn’t want to move. Rarely did I enjoy sleepovers or the morning after. But there was something so pure about laying there with Kate. Which made zero sense, since she might have been the craziest chick I ever met.
Slowly she stirred awake and stretched up, tilting her face towards the light streaming in through the window behind her bed.
“Don’t move!” I blurted. “I mean. Freeze. Just like that.”
I jumped out of bed and searched for my jeans on the floor, pulling out my phone. I opened up the camera and started snapping pictures.
“What are you doing?” she laughed.
“You looked way too perfect just then. I wanted to catch it.” And in the back of my mind I was thinking I wanted to remember the one time I actually didn’t feel anxious about waking up next to a woman.
“Is that one of your lines? Like a thing you do to women to trick them into falling for you?” she asked, sitting up.
I snapped another photo, capturing the perfect way her breasts spilled out in front of her and her hair flowed around her shoulders.
“Contrary to what you might think, it’s never my intention to make anyone fall in love with me. But one thing I definitely don’t do is discuss other women while I’m still in bed with one,” I told her, climbing next to her and kissing her lips.
Maybe a sweet kiss in the sober light of day was blurring way too many boundaries. But at that moment, I didn’t care.
Kate said she was too late for work to have breakfast, which I recognized for the excuse it was. I had used it enough times myself. But I didn’t have to worry. I had the promise of seeing her Saturday. I hopped in my car after leaving her place and drove straight to Joey’s. I figured the whole situation would be better explained in person.
He answered the door with a surprised smile. “Oh. Hey man. I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.” He showed me in, checking his watch. “Aren’t you normally at the gym by now?”
“Got my workout in last night,” I replied. “Hey, do you have plans on Saturday? Or … more importantly, does Olivia have plans on Saturday?”
He shot me a blank look. “She’s a one year old.”
“I was hoping I could take her to this picnic,” I explained.
“Oh. Sure. I’ll check with Angel and see if there’s anything going on at the restaurant. I know she’d love it if the four of us could …”
“Not the four of us,” I added. “Just me and Olivia.” He darkened his eyes, letting me know he wasn’t going to hand her over without an explanation. “Remember that girl I mentioned meeting in the park? The one I wasn’t going to see again? Well. It’s a long story. But basically she lied too. To her boss. About having a baby and a fiancé. It sounds crazy, but it’s all for a promotion. So I went to this dinner with her last night to help her out and pretended to be her fiancé, and her co-workers invited us to this picnic. She knows I’m not really a single dad, but they don’t. So … Can I take Olivia with us?”
He was quiet for a long time before exclaiming, “What the hell are you thinking!? Have you lost your damn mind!?”
“I promise it sounds much crazier than it actually is,” I defended, not feeling entirely certain that was true.
“Lying for a one night stand is one thing. But introducing my child to this woman’s co-workers and passing her off as your own? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”
“Okay. Wait … let me explain. There’s more.” I waved my hands in the air, trying to gather my thoughts. “I kind of think … that maybe … I might really feel something for this girl. Which you know never happens to me. We have this whole arrangement. At least through Saturday. She was obviously pissed about me lying, saying I was a single dad. To make it up to her, I agreed to pretend to be her single dad fiancé.”
“You are playing with fire, man,” he warned. “You remember what happened with Angel and I and our little surrogate arrangement? Things can get complicated. And fast. You don’t want someone getting hurt.”
I nodded, seriously considering his advice. But I couldn’t deny how bad I wanted to see how this played out. “I hear you. I really do. The thing is … for the first time, I think I’m actually worried about being the one to get hurt. It just seems like it’s worth the risk. I can’t remember the last time I felt this intrigued with a woman. I owe it to myself to see where it goes, don’t you think?”
He wrinkled his face. “Are you sure you’re not just getting desperate because the rest of us are settled down? Maybe you’re doing that thing where you pick the craziest woman you can find because you know it won’t work out and then you can prove yourself right about being single.”
“Or maybe I need a crazy woman to be happy,” I shrugged. “It’s been anything but boring this far. I can say that much.”
“Does she know how you feel? That you’re seriously interested in her?” he asked with concern.
“Pfft. I’m just now getting used to the idea of having feelings,” I joked. “Expressing them? Not there yet. But … I mean … we did sleep together.”
He dropped his head and let out a big sigh. “Sure, cause that’s the same thing as telling a girl you have feelings for them. Especially coming from you,” he scoffed.
“It sort of is. I told her with my body,” I winked.
“Alright man. I’ll let you take Olivia one more time. But after that, you and this girl are on your own if you’re going to keep up this crazy lie. Whatever happens … don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”
I rushed over and hugged him, patting his shoulder. “Thanks, man. You’re the best. And you know I’m not totally selfish. I love spending time with Olivia, and she’ll have fun at this thing. Now if you could just start showing her my picture and training her to call me ‘Daddy’ that’d be …”
He flashed a threatening look.
“Okay. Okay,” I put my hands up in surrender. “Too much? Fair enough. I’ll get out of your hair. And see you Saturday when I come by to pick her up.”