Boy Toy

by Sarina Bowen

  I wish my sister Megan lived here instead of all the way in Atlanta.

  “Sadie, honey,” Ash says. “You can’t go out with a guy to a restaurant and order coffee. You need to have a full meal. Have a drink. Have fun. Maybe it’ll be super hot and you’ll end up all pinned against a wall and writhing in delight and…”

  “His name is Earl.”

  That stops Ash cold. “What?”

  “My date. His name is Earl. He’s my receptionist’s half-brother. He’s from Marquette. Apparently he likes deer hunting and making homemade jerky.”

  “Homemade jerky?” Brynn perks up. “That’s a thing? Can you get me the recipe?”

  “Earl?” Ash repeats, ignoring Brynn. “This is who you’re dating?” I can hear the pity in her voice.

  “Well, I’ve got to start somewhere. Don’t I? And it’s not like I was meeting anyone on that singles app.”

  “That’s because you never filled out your profile,” Ash reminds me. “Asking men to pay you a $25 application fee before you’ll give them your name and picture does not send a message of warmth and availability.”

  I think it sends the perfect message. I want my profile to weed out anyone who wasn’t going to take me seriously. Basically, I want to just weed out everyone.

  Suddenly I’m thirsty for more mimosas. “We need something else to toast to,” I say.

  This is honestly the first time I’ve felt relaxed in forever, and I don’t want to ruin it with thoughts of Earl. The girls are with their dad and my BFFs are here. I have the whole morning and afternoon to relax. Brynn has fed us homemade cream puffs and bacon. The only time I eat gluten is when she cooks for us, so I try to ask her to come over as much as possible.

  “I know what we can toast to,” I hear Ash say.

  “What?” I ask.

  “That!” She pokes me in the arm. “Look before he disappears!”

  I turn my head. And then I hear her refilling my glass, but I don’t see her doing it. Because my eyes are transfixed by what’s coming up over the hill.

  It’s a runner. That’s not unusual in this neighborhood. I live close to Reed’s Lake, and there’s a 4.5 mile trail that wraps around it. We get bikers, runners, people with strollers, and more dogs than you can count.

  But as the morning sun highlights this young, firm jogger, I gasp a little and then, much to my dismay, I actually say “Hubba hubba.”

  Brynn snort-laughs and sprays orange juice everywhere, but Ash just sighs.

  The man really is breathtaking. He’s the perfect specimen—broad shoulders, a chest that’s lean and chiseled, rippling with motion. He’s wearing these tiny yellow running shorts that I’m just hoping show off what must be a fine ass as he passes us. But first it’s the V that gets me. You know, that V of muscle from the ribs to the hips, that surely must lead to something I just want to wrap my mouth around and…

  He’s getting closer. Why is he slowing down?

  “Please show a little of your ass,” I whisper. I don’t mean to say it out loud, but if you really want something, saying it out loud helps make it happen, right?

  Brynn, Ash, and I are completely frozen, staring at this luscious man running past.

  Only he doesn’t run past.

  What is he doing? Why is he running up the lawn? Why is he stopping in front of my house and waving his hand.

  And then I figure it out. This hunk of man, this specimen of perfection, this young god—knows me.

  It’s Liam! My girls’ babysitter. The kid I used to babysit. And all I want to do is hump him. Right here, right now. As I gaze upon his beautiful body, the urge is staggering. My hormones are rising into the air around me like a mist.

  No! No no no no! Thou shalt not perve on the younger man! Shut up, hormones! Oh, hell. I’m a cougar.

  Panicking, I look at Brynn and Ash. “Gahhhh,” I manage.

  They’ll understand, right? Surely they’ll step in and save the day? I mean—that’s what best friends are for, yes?

  “This is gonna be good,” Brynn says. Ash laughs.

  Bitches.

  “Hi,” I squeak.

  “Hi,” he says. “This your place?”

  Liam’s sweat-shined chest is rising and falling as he pants from the heat. I’m staring at it. “What was the question?”

  There are giggles from the peanut gallery.

  “Your house, Sadie?” he says, glancing up at it. “Do you live here?”

  “Yup, yup, uh-huh,” I babble.

  Liam leans forward and peers into my empty glass. “I think that mimosa has gone to your brain.”

  “I think so too!” I say, leaping at this excuse for both my flapping tongue and my wandering eyes. “I have no tolerance anymore.”

  “Mimosa for you, too, sir?” Ash offers brightly. “If you drink one, you’ll be saving Sadie from having a hangover. I’m Ash, by the way. And our friend here is Brynn. She didn’t swallow a beach ball, she’s pregnant.”

  “I got that,” Liam says, watching Ash pour a drink. “That’s for me? But I’m in the middle of a run.”

  “You’re taking an intermission,” she says. “Juice is healthy.” Weirdly, he seems to accept this. Ash has that effect on people. He takes the glass from her hand and smiles at me.

  And that smile makes my vaginal muscles contract ever so slightly. What is wrong with me?

  Goddammit. Liam reclines his gleaming body against the porch pillar, and it’s an effort not to swallow my tongue. It feels so wrong to be so attracted to Liam. When I babysat for his parents, he was just a pimply teenager.

  I can’t deny the effect he has on me, though. Every day at pickup time when I thank him for taking good care of my girls, I find myself blushing. A good psychologist knows all the physical signs of attraction—the rapid breathing, the sweaty hands. The dilated pupils and the southern blood flow.

  At the moment I’m experiencing all these at once. For Liam.

  I am obviously a horrible person.

  Liam watches me over the rim of his glass as he takes a sip. “Mmm. Thank you.” He sits his glorious body down on my front stoop. “Where are my favorite two-year-olds today?”

  “At their father’s house,” I say. And then I feel it—the slap of shame that always hits me when I admit that I’m divorced. Half the time I feel like I’m wearing a sandwich board. My husband left me for a younger woman. As if anyone who looks at me will be able to see it.

  But Liam absorbs this information with a beaming smile. “You’re single?”

  Even though I refuse to glance at my friends, I can feel their ears perking up at the tone of his question.

  “Divorced,” I mumble. My husband wasn’t attracted to me anymore. It still hurts. I don’t think it will ever stop.

  “Where do you two know each other from?” Brynn asks.

  “Now there’s a story,” I say, letting out a nervous laugh.

  “Sadie was our babysitter,” Liam says, leaning his head against the porch rail. He looks like a lazy cat. “I was fourteen and desperately in love with her.”

  There is an audible gasp from Brynn and Ash.

  “I know!” Liam grins. “Hot for the babysitter. Such a clichè. But can you blame me? Sadie is everything. She’s cute and super smart. I had really good taste even when I was in eighth grade.”

  Brynn and Ash sigh.

  “What are you ladies doing this fine morning?” he asks, sipping his drink.

  “This,” Ash says. “Drinking our breakfast and trying to get Sadie to sign up for Tinder.”

  His blue eyes lift to mine. “Thinking of dating again?”

  “It’s too soon,” I stammer. “The best I can manage is coffee with a guy named Earl.”

  “Dinner,” Ash corrects. “You’re going to dinner with him like a big girl.”

  “It’s a bad idea,” I insist. Now that Liam is sitting here, it sounds like a worse idea than it did a half hour ago. I’ve obviously been off the market for too long. Men have a strange effect on m
e now. Case in point: I was practically drooling all over myself when Liam ran up the walkway.

  “Nah, it’s a great idea,” Liam says. “Doesn’t have to be a life-changing evening. But just showing up for one date takes some of the mystique away.”

  “It breaks the seal,” Brynn add.

  “It pops your cherry,” Ash puts in.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” I mutter. Coffee is scary. Dinner is terrifying. But the idea of showing a stranger my post-childbirth naked body is all the way into horror movie territory. I doubt I could do it.

  “Did you do your Tinder profile yet?” Liam wonders.

  “Not really,” I sigh. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Oh, please.” Liam makes an impatient noise. “First you take a photo. Just wear that red top with the…” He waves a hand to indicate the flowing sleeves of my gypsy blouse that I was wearing yesterday when I picked up the girls. “That says playful and feminine but it doesn’t say, here is my cleavage.”

  “Good pick!” Ash agrees. “Sadie looks dreamy in that.”

  “It’s very Sadie,” Liam agrees, as if he’s known me all my life.

  And he has, I guess. Our families went to the same church. But I’m still experiencing cognitive dissonance when I look at this hot, muscular stranger. Intellectually I know the old Liam is in there somewhere. But it just doesn’t quite seem real.

  “What should her profile say?” Ash asks pointedly. “We want to weed out the losers.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Let ‘em know right away that Sadie is smarter than they are. Anyone who’s intimidated can fuck right off,” Liam says. He rests a hand casually on his six-pack, and for some reason my mouth is watering.

  “She can’t post her IQ, though,” Ash snorts. “So how do we get that across?”

  “Simple,” he insists. “Hot young MILF with a graduate degree and awesome friends seeks smart man with good teeth. Interest in scary movies a plus. Boom. Done.”

  “Good teeth?” I squeak. “Why add that?”

  “It’s a code,” Liam says, nodding like a sage. “It’s hard to have your life together and not have good teeth.”

  The things I don’t know about online dating. And then I squint, because how does he know I like horror? “And the scary movies?”

  “You don’t remember?” he asks, clutching his chest like I’ve wounded him. “That summer you babysat me and you let me stay up and we watched The Shining. It was a turning point in my life. Then we moved on to Hitchcock, and you gave me a thorough education.”

  And suddenly I do remember. “We watched all the classics,” I say slowly. It was really fun, too. Up until then I did all my scary-movie watching solo. But Liam was eager to be initiated into the joys of on-screen terror. “You liked The Birds more than Vertigo.”

  “Still do!”

  Those were the days when summer seemed a million years long. And I never felt lonely.

  “We had the best time,” he says. “Without your introduction, I wouldn’t have seen It Follows, or The Babadook…”

  I let out a little shriek of excitement. “You’ve seen Get Out, right?”

  “Obvs,” Liam says, and now we’re grinning at each other. “I can’t wait for his new one.”

  Ash clears her throat, and when I glance at her she’s wearing an evil little smile. That’s never good. I make a note to figure out why later. “Okay, scary movies are a good addition to my profile,” I say. “If I make a profile.”

  “Where’s your phone?” Ash demands of me. “Let’s make it right now!”

  “No way,” I say loud enough to prevent argument. “I never agreed to Tinder. I agreed to one date. To break the seal or whatever we’re calling it. Dating again is like getting into a cold swimming pool. I have to inch my way in with tiny little trial splashes to my skin.”

  “I always just dive into the deep end,” Liam says. “Works great.” He gives me a wink, and I swear my friends nearly topple into their drinks.

  “You live in the neighborhood?” Brynn asks. She’s trying to sound nonchalant, but I can hear all the things she and Ash aren’t saying. This stud lives in your neighborhood. You can be fuck buddies!

  “Yeah. One street over.” He points vaguely in the direction of my backyard.

  “Really?” I ask. “Did your family move?”

  Liam laughs. “No? But I did. They’re still knocking around the same place over on Wilshire. Cassidy is living with them just for the summer, until her fellowship at Oxford starts up.”

  “Cassidy has a fellowship at Oxford?” I’m still picturing a nine-year-old with pigtails.

  “Her subject is applied mathematics for crime prediction and criminal law.”

  “Applied mathematics,” Brynn echoes slowly. “My subject is applied sauces and dips. I apply them to food and then put them in my mouth.”

  “Well, you’re eating for two,” Liam says, gulping his drink.

  “Nope. That’s pretty much all the time.” Brynn looks around. “When can we eat again? Does now work for you guys?”

  “But we just ate!” I complain.

  Chuckling, Liam gets to his feet. “I like the way you girls party. Thanks for the pick-me-up,” he says, handing Ash his glass. “I have to finish my seven miles. See you Monday, Sadie!”

  Liam gives us a wave and jogs down my front walk.

  We all watch his ass as he goes. I think I let out a little whimper of confusion. I shouldn’t perve on Liam. Those buns, though…

  “Well!” Ash hisses when he’s out of sight. “Why didn’t you tell us about him?

  “What about him? I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years until I dropped the girls off at daycare. We were never close.”

  “Clearly you need to be closer,” Brynn points out. “Skin to skin, maybe.”

  “Stop it, you guys. He’s too young for me.”

  “How old is he?” Ash asks.

  I do the math. “Twenty-nine, I guess.”

  “Omigod!” Brynn squeaks. “He’s practically jailbait.”

  “Right?” I agree.

  Ash smacks me in the back of the head. “She was kidding.”

  “Oh. But still. So what? I’m sure he has a swarm of single twenty-something women in his life, who are primed and ready to…”

  “...Hone his bone,” Ash puts in.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Brynn insists. “Did you hear him? He totally wants Sadie.”

  “No, he doesn’t!” I yelp. “Please.”

  My friends’ heads swivel, and they give me matching looks of disdain. “Girl, you’re the shrink. You’re supposed to be able to read people,” Brynn complains.

  “He called you a hot MILF,” Ash says.

  “He noticed your red gypsy blouse,” Brynn adds.

  “He was desperately in love with you!” Ash cries. “That’s a direct quote.”

  “He wants to put ranch dressing on your Hidden Valley,” Brynn offers.

  There’s a pause and then all of us, including Brynn, say “ewwwww.”

  Brynn shrugs. “Sorry. I think about food all the time. I can’t help it.”

  “Bottom line,” Ash says. “You have to hit that. Forget Earl.”

  “I’m not hitting anything,” I repeat. It’s too terrifying. I know my limits. “And Liam was just being nice. That’s what he is. He’s nice. A nice boy.”

  “Boy toy, maybe,” Ash says with a smirk.

  I ignore her. It’s best to ignore Ash when she says something that’s a little too truthful.

  I take a big drink of my third mimosa, because I could really use a boy toy in my life. Or at least in my bed.

  3 Whine O’Clock

  Liam

  A few days later I’m at work at the daycare. It’s ten after five, and the last of the kids in my care are starting to sag. It’s whine o’clock in the toddler room.

  “Blade,” I say to a little boy who’s brandishing two wooden blocks like weapons. “Please put those back in the block box. Your dad will be here
any minute.”

  He gives me a sullen face but then ambles toward the blocks. Blade is a good kid most of the time, in spite of his unfortunate name. He’s a very ambitious nose-picker, but nobody is perfect. And I grudgingly admire his dedication to the craft.

  I cross the room and pluck Sadie’s daughter Kate off the roof of the playhouse. Again. “Too high up,” I explain. “It will hurt when you fall.”

  “Boosht,” she says. It’s her favorite word. I’m pretty sure she means bullshit, but I don’t call her on it. You have to pick your battles. “Hi,” Kate says in my arms. But she isn’t talking to me. She’s talking to her twin sister, who I’ve been wearing like a cape for the past twenty minutes. Amy gets cuddly when she’s tired.

  “Mama coming?” Amy asks.

  A glance at the door reveals Sadie just walking into the reception area, wearing a killer short skirt and a slightly frazzled expression. She told me her last appointment of the day always ends at four-thirty, and then she sprints here to pick up the girls, so they don’t have to stay even one minute extra.

  “I don’t know,” I tell the girls. “Who is that pretty lady over there?”

  There is an instant shriek. In stereo. Sadie spots us from the doorway and her face softens. The girls are wiggling, so I kneel down to unload them. Sadie unlatches the half-door that prevents escape from the two-year-old room and makes it about three paces in before she’s swarmed.

  “Hello!” she coos. “I missed you so much!”

  Kate starts up a monologue right away, unloading the days triumphs and miseries. But Amy just snuggles in close to her mother’s bosom.

  Lucky kid. My appreciation for Sadie’s curves is entirely different than Amy’s, but no less strong. It’s fair to say that Sadie was my first real crush. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Sadie is the entire reason that I tend to date older women.

  Sadie and I spent a lot of time together the summer before I turned fifteen. She was a twenty-year-old college student, employed by my parents to take care of my siblings.

  At first I’d protested my parents hiring a babysitter since I was clearly old enough and wise enough to be on my own. I remember my mom trying to convince me that the babysitter wasn’t for me but for Connor, Aiden, and Cassidy who were eleven, nine, and seven years old.