Boy Toy

by Sarina Bowen

  It causes a little pain in my heart as I allow myself one more comparison to my former life. The truth is I never once saw Decker elbows-deep in kitchen chaos with a kid on one arm. Starting breakfast with twins in tow? He was more likely to captain a NASA expedition to Mars than he was to do this simple Saturday morning thing.

  I feel like crying for no reason at all. Clearly I’m on some kind of emotional overload. Maybe coffee will help.

  Sliding into the kitchen, I go right for the coffee grounds.

  “Mama!” Amy says. “Wiam making pancakes.”

  “That is amazing,” I say in a wobbly voice. “What a lucky girl you are.”

  “Sorry about the mess,” he says, casting a glance in my direction. And I know he doesn’t just mean the flour on the counter, but the bigger mess of waking up naked in my bed.

  “You know,” I say with a small sigh. “Messes shouldn’t scare me so much. It’s going to be fine.”

  Liam’s smile is so filled with relief, that I now feel like an ogre. This man wants to make pancakes with us on Saturday morning, and I said no to that before? I’m clearly insane.

  “Which frying pan should I use?” he asks, casting an eye on the cookware hanging from the rack over the sink.

  “Oh, no. You want this.” I pull a double-burner griddle out of a lower cabinet.

  “Oooh,” he says. “Mommy has the fancy pancake griddle.”

  Kate giggles. She’s gazing at Liam as if he invented fun.

  And in my life, I guess he did.

  Here’s the tricky thing about being a shrink—sometimes you notice that you’re doing something that’s exactly contrary to the advice you’d give your patients.

  I’m having one of those moments right now.

  If I had a single mom in my office telling me there was a lovely guy in her life who was kind to her kids—and yet she was giving him the stiff arm? I’d tell her: “Be kind to yourself. Don’t push away the good people in your life, especially if you think you don’t deserve them. Let people surprise you.”

  I’m such a hypocrite.

  Also, I need caffeine.

  Ten minutes later I’m sipping from a mug of coffee, but Liam’s is cooling on the countertop. The man has his hands full right now as he puts pancakes on the griddle with “help” from my daughters.

  “How about a few of these?” he asks, holding up a bag of chocolate chips. Meanwhile, Kate waves the spatula around like a ninja. “A guy needs to make smiley faces in his pancakes sometimes.”

  Good. Lord. It’s a miracle I’m not just a puddle of my former self right now. This is some serious mommy porn I’m watching. Shirtless guy feeds toddlers before eight a.m. I walk over to the high cabinet where I keep the ramekins. “We could make smiley faces with dried organic currants,” I say, just to be a pain in the ass.

  Liam makes a face of disgust as I take the chocolate chips from his hand and pour some into a ramekin. “Joking! Here.”

  He gives me a big, hot smile. Okay, it probably wasn’t meant to be hot, but I feel flutters down below.

  “Choc-it!” Kate yells, grabbing for the ramekin.

  “Easy,” Liam says with a laugh. “That’s for my artwork. Come here and I’ll show you.”

  I set the table and pour the sippy cups of milk. And Liam manages to serve up two smiley pancakes—one for each girl—at exactly the same moment, in exactly the same size. This is a man who knows his way around toddlers.

  “Not cut it!” Amy yells when I approach her plate with a knife. She picks up the pancake in two hands and takes a bite right out of the side of its face.

  “Okay, right.” I back away. Forks are optional today, then. No big deal.

  Liam takes advantage of this moment of quiet to quickly pour six more pancakes onto the griddle. He leans over his work, dotting them with chocolate chips.

  I step closer to him and put a hand on his lower back. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “For trashing your kitchen?”

  “No.” He glances at me and I give him a shy smile. “For being so amazing all the time.”

  His eyes get very warm, and I just want to stay right here in that blue-eyed gaze as long as I can. “This might be a good time to confess that I didn’t make smiley faces on my own pancakes.”

  “No?” I look down at the griddle. Side by side, two of them have a different design—little bullseyes in their centers. “Those are…?”

  “Boobs,” he whispers. “My inner fourteen-year-old has a dirty mind. He can’t shut it off sometimes.”

  “Drink your coffee,” I whisper, handing him the mug. “Sit down. Let me finish these for you. Or go put on a shirt because my inner fourteen-year-old has her tongue hanging out all the time, too.”

  He gives me a wicked, wicked smile and then runs upstairs to find his shirt.

  I only have a few moments to panic and draft the speech I ought to be giving the girls. “He’s only visiting,” or “Liam is Mommy’s special friend,” or “Liam isn’t permanent. Can you spell per-ma-nent?”

  But I don’t give any of those speeches. Liam is back, shirt on, and looking like a nerdy Adonis. What a combination. In fact, he’s so fast that I don’t even have time to process anything.

  I have the pancakes stacked neatly on a plate. I’m about to serve his to him, when he reaches over, grabs one, blows on it a little, and takes a big bite. “Needs a little butter,” he says, then reaches to the other side of me, grabs the butter knife and spreads a little pat on what’s left of his pancake.

  And I can’t breathe. Liam is standing here, fully clothed, in my kitchen, eating pancakes straight from the griddle, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  I wish I was that pancake.

  He winks at me. Winks! The flirt.

  “I gotta eat and run,” he says, grabbing another pancake for the road.

  He grabs his backpack, gives the girls fist bumps, and kisses me on the cheek, chastely, and then starts to head out the back door.

  “Hey!” I call, and he turns around, a cocky little grin on his face. And a bit of scruff from not shaving yet. Oh, how I like that scruff. “Thanks,” I say. “For last night,” I add.

  “Totally my pleasure,” he says with a glint in his eye.

  “Not that,” I whisper. “Staying here so I could help with, you know, the baby?”

  “I know. What else could I possibly mean?”

  What else, really. He walks a couple steps closer to me and checks to see if the girls are watching. They’re not. Then he leans in and whispers, “Let’s just say you owe me one.”

  I gulp. I literally gulp. I’m happy to owe him one. Or two. Or however many he wants.

  “Okay,” I say. And if you can say okay all husky like, I do, because oooookaaaaaay.

  This time he actually leaves.

  I turn around to find the girls and take a deep breath gearing up to explain the complexities of my relationship with Liam and why he was here and why he made them pancakes, but before I can say anything, Kate head-butts Amy and then Amy, in a fit of fury, turns Piggypoo into a ninja and full-on attacks Kate. Man, that Piggypoo has a mean kick. Inwardly, I’m all Good for you!, but outwardly, I have to handle this.

  So maybe the conversation with the girls will have to wait.

  Or maybe it doesn’t have to happen at all.

  Huh.

  17 Meg. The Ballbuster.

  Liam

  A week later, it’s like Sadie and I never had a tiff. And it’s sort of like we’re dating. For real. After the accidental sleepover and how completely underwhelmed her girls were, she told me tentatively, “Well. Maybe we don’t have to be a complete secret. But there still has to be firm boundaries.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I won’t ask them to call me Dad. They can call me PawPaw.”

  She laughed but also gave me a nudge. I guess PawPaw is out.

  Sadie and I just dropped the girls off at their dad’s. I sat in the car, but I could still feel that dick nozzle’s bad e
nergy wafting through the air like a fart. I still haven’t met him, but I admit to being totally curious.

  What kind of superhuman won over Sadie? He must have a seriously impressive resume, a genius IQ, and a giant dick.

  Wait—he can’t have a genius IQ. Because he left her. He must be as dumb as a bag of hammers. And I really don’t want to think about her ex’s dick. At all.

  I’d rather think about my own, because Sadie and I are about to have another weekend together. This is wildly exciting, and I’m already sporting a semi. My plans are: sex, sleeping in, late night pizza in bed, and more sex. It’s going to be epic. And since the girls are away, I can hold Sadie all night and then start everything over again in the morning.

  We’ll be spending the night at my house for the first time, and I can hardly wait. Just as soon as she packs a bag.

  Oh, the things I hope she puts in that bag.

  I’ve already panic-cleaned my place and shopped for supplies. Like whipped cream and strawberries. Make of that what you will. Both Liams—the fourteen-year-old and the grown-up—have big plans.

  But then… Hold up. “There’s a car in your driveway.”

  “What the…” She inhales.

  It’s an old red Volvo and it’s crammed full of stuff. There’s no way the driver could see anything in the rearview mirror on account of the boxes and suitcases. I also see a big plant, and what looks like camping gear.

  I put the car in park and Sadie is off like it’s the start of the hurdles event at a track meet. “Sadie?” I call.

  “It’s my sister!” she calls as she’s running. I can’t tell if her voice is excited or panicked.

  But I know how I feel—depressed. If Sadie’s sister is here, for whatever reason, our weekend at my house just went up in a whoosh of flame.

  Goodbye to naked pizza in bed.

  I take a moment of silence behind the wheel of my car, just to tamp down my disappointment. Just as I’m about to climb out, though, Sadie’s sister opens a door and plops into the back seat, followed quickly by Sadie, who buckles up in the front.

  Meg leans forward. She pats my shoulder. “Hi, Liam. You look gorgeous as ever. I absolutely approve of the fact that you’re boinking my sister. She needs it bad. I, on the other hand, need a martini.”

  I can shift gears just as quickly as the next guy. With a glance at Sadie, I say, “Rose’s?”

  “Rose’s,” she confirms.

  * * *

  I drive over to the restaurant on Reed’s Lake where, if you’re lucky, you can get a seat out on the deck right by the water.

  We are not lucky. We’re inside, on the covered patio, and it’s fine. They’ve opened the floor-to-ceiling windows so the ceiling fans can stir the humid air.

  Above us, there’s a giant anchor made from rope, serving as a rustic chandelier. I keep staring at it, wondering who makes things like that. Who woke up one morning and decided the world needed a giant anchor made from rope?

  We’ve ordered our drinks and an appetizer and Meg starts talking about some doctor she was dating in Atlanta. Blah blah blah. He lied to her in a pretty spectacular way, which stinks. But I can tell we’ll be here all night hearing about it.

  I watch her lips move, but tune her out. There are words. Lots of them. One after another. Meg hasn’t changed a bit. She always was a talker.

  We went to the same high school. But I don’t think of her as a classmate. To me, she was Sadie’s Sister. I’m pretty sure that every time I bumped into Meg I always asked the same things. How’s Sadie? Is she still in school? Is she travelling? Is she coming back?

  To which Meg would reply: Obsess much, Liam? Or maybe Fuck off. Grow a pair and ask her yourself. Meg was a bit of a firecracker then. Now she’s matured into more of a fireball. Or maybe a ballbuster.

  Or a cockblocker.

  She and Sadie aren’t much alike. Everything Meg does shouts notice me! For example, she’s wearing a tight cowboy shirt and pigtails, Daisy Dukes, and strappy heels in bright red. I mean, she looks great, but if I was driving eight hundred miles, I’d dress for comfort.

  Sadie, on the other hand, isn’t wearing flashy colors or fuck-me heels. But damn if she doesn’t turn me on more. I reach under the table and place my hand on Sadie’s thigh, luxuriating in the thin silkiness of her skirt.

  I’m trying not to harbor a grudge at Meg for interrupting all the wicked plans I had for this weekend. But it’s not working. I’m totally harboring here. I’m Pearl fucking Harbor. Not even a plate of root chips with goat cheese dipping sauce in front of me can put a damper on it.

  So I just try to focus on Sadie. I squeeze her thigh, imagining I’m rubbing my body up against her.

  Suddenly, she leans in close to my ear and whispers, “If you rub me anymore, I’m going to explode.”

  Busted. I lean back, putting a more respectable distance between us. But not by choice.

  I turn my focus to the dip and the beer in my glass. And to Meg, who is clearly in turmoil. I will focus on her and not on Sadie and her luscious curves that are lurking underneath the swaths of fabric.

  We’re totally peeling that off her later, fourteen-year-old Liam says.

  I hope to God he’s right.

  * * *

  Sadie

  When we pulled into my driveway and I saw Meg’s car, I just knew that my sister’s latest drama was about to suck me in. And that any plans I had of, well, the fun kind of sucking just evaporated.

  Now my sister is on her second martini. I’m trying to listen but also to size her up. Meg was always the dramatic one, and today is no different. She’s dressed to seduce. The mother in me wants to cover her up.

  We’ve been here a half hour already and she hasn’t asked a single question about me, or inquired as to what plans of ours she’s interrupting. With Meg, everything is always about her. She’s the little sibling. I guess they get away with that sort of thing.

  Liam’s hand is a welcome presence on my thigh, which makes it all easier to take.

  “I’m heartbroken,” Meg whines, taking a big gulp of her martini. She’s playing the part of Heartbroken Lover to the max. “If I’d known he was married, I never would have slept with him.”

  After all that I’ve been through, I can’t believe my sister was sleeping with a married man. “Didn’t you get suspicious when he said his house was being fumigated six weeks in a row?”

  “Termites are really bad in the South, okay?” Meg whines.

  I know nothing of termites, so I guess I don’t have an opinion about that. On the other hand, this guy sounds like a loser straight from loserville. “Is he even a doctor? Was that part true?”

  “He’s a podiatrist,” she sniffles.

  “Oh,” I say, doing my best not to make even one more negative comment.

  “In training,” Meg adds.

  Liam shoves another chip in his mouth. I think he’s trying not to speak up, too.

  “I went ahead and fell in love with him,” Meg says with a sigh. She takes another big gulp of the martini and it’s gone.

  “But he was married,” I say and my voice is a little weak. “He’s not available.”

  “Not true!” she yelps. “He told me he was single. And then later when I found out, he told me he wanted to leave his wife for me. What an asshole. I want no part in that.” She waves to the waiter for another drink.

  I may need one soon too.

  “I just wanted to have a little strings-free sex. You know? No commitment. No expectations. Just like you and Liam! And then I had to get feelings for the big oaf. And then he had feelings for me and…”

  Liam turns white and looks the other way.

  Oh Meg, shut up! I should be giving Liam a blowjob right now. Instead I’ve subjected him to my sister. This is bad. I need to change the topic. “So why did you leave? Why all the stuff? In your car? I mean, that’s more than a visit, Megs.”

  “Because I’m over it.”

  “What?”

  “All
of it. Antonio the foot doctor. His midlife crisis. Atlanta traffic. Casting directors with bad teeth.” She sighs. “I just want to be carefree. I’m in my twenties!”

  “For about three more weeks,” I point out, because I’m evil.

  She ignores me. “I should be having fun, not putting money down for a mortgage. And I’m over Atlanta. I’ve been there what? Two years? Trying the whole actress thing? It’s no better than LA or New York. It’s all just playing games. I need a fresh start.”

  Liam squeezes my leg. I don’t even need to look at him to know what he’s thinking. Meg is pushing thirty, but she acts like a college girl. And Grand Rapids is not going to hold her interest for long. Grand Rapids is just the place you return to to settle in and get a mortgage. It’s not a place to sow your wild oats.

  Like I’m doing with Liam.

  I wonder if he can hear me gulp.

  Just as I’m wondering what to say to my sister, I see Barb and Brad Thornapple walking toward us. They’re friends of my parents. Well, not friends, exactly. More like they lived next to us when we were growing up. Meg and I moved out, our parents got a condo, and we all moved on.

  But Barb still wants to get up in everyone’s business. Her unwillingness to change is sort of comforting, really. And in spite of myself, I do like her. When Mom was really sick, Barb helped us all through it. She brought us casseroles and drove us to school, and somehow, despite her brashness, she wiggled into my heart. There is something refreshing about a person who will just say anything at all.

  Barb is big and bold and bright, and she’s spotted us. It’s fair to say she’s bearing down on us. Tonight she’s wearing pink, orange, and yellow with beige pants. She looks like a walking scoop of sherbet. She’s twice the size of Brad. When he stands behind her, which is frequently, he actually disappears. “Meg…” I whisper, trying to warn her about what’s coming. About who’s coming. The Walking Volcano.