Single Dad Next Door: A Fake Marriage Romance

by Penelope Bloom

  I have never gotten involved with someone that wasn’t in some way related to how I thought my parents would feel, as pathetic and sad as that is. The answer seems simple enough--date someone for me--but after so long, I don’t know what I even want in a guy. I’ve tried dating guys from town and using dating sites to meet guys from the city. I have nothing to show for it, except a few memories I would rather not revisit, ever. Like the time a guy told me he was into “golden showers” on our first date. I thought he was speaking literally, like shower faucets made out of gold. When I looked it up on my phone in the bathroom, I ended up having to escape through the window to avoid going back out there with Mr. Waterworks.

  The unifying flaw in all of my relationships is my parents’ money. When guys inevitably find out about my parents’ fortune, they start pushing me to take advantage of it. Whether they want me to beg them for a vacation, a gift, or for just plain old money. That, or they feel threatened by it and distance themselves.

  I blow out a long sigh. I can’t even complain to anyone about it. Who’s going to feel sympathy for me? Poor Sandra and her access to ridiculous amounts of money! How hard her life must be! Yeah, it’s not exactly going to bring people to tears, so I just bottle it up, keep my head down, and keep working hard enough to forget.

  I decide all my fussing at the movers isn’t actually saving my furniture anyway, so I head outside and get in my car. I’ll run down to the bakery and get a batch of dough proofing for our signature cheese crusted pretzel twists. I was going to do it in the morning, but if I do it now, I’ll have more time to decorate the pastries afterwards.

  I start my beat up Camry, wincing. It has been making a sound like a chain smoker’s cough when I turn the key lately. Now every time I go to start it up I cross my fingers that it won’t be the time the old girl finally gives out on me.The engine huffs, wheezes, and grinds.The car starts to shake slightly and then there’s a loud bang.

  Smoke hisses out from under the hood.

  “Shit!” I yell, slamming my hands down on the steering wheel. I knew I should have brought it in sooner, but Reid is the only mechanic in our small town, and ever since he and Tara divorced, he treats me like the enemy. Even before his neighborly threat, I was dreading having to deal with him.

  I glance over toward his shop. I see him standing there, shirtless, rubbing some car part with a greasy red rag. He’s watching the smoke billow from my car. It’s too far to be sure, but I think he’s smirking.

  “Cocky bastard,” I mutter. I get out of the car and walk inside, vowing not to ask him to fix it. He thinks I need him. Well he can learn the same lesson my parents did. I don’t need anybody. Besides, I have a few hours to figure out how to fix this thing. I’ll just spend some time on YouTube looking up the problem.

  Four hours, two cups of coffee, and twenty incomprehensible videos later, I step outside. It’s past ten. The lights are off in Reid’s shop, but I can see a single light on in his house. I just have to hope it’s dark enough that he can’t see me out here. Worst case scenario, I’ll call for a tow truck and have it taken to the city to someone else.

  I bring the little toolkit outside with me that I got when I moved out on my own. I honestly don’t know a whole hell of a lot about tools beyond which one is the hammer and which one is the screwdriver, but how hard can it be?

  My hours of research taught me that it’s either a problem I have no chance of fixing, or it’s just a few loose screws. As soon as I actually open the hood and take a look, I realize I’m in over my head. My engine doesn’t look quite like the ones I saw in the videos, and there’s a plastic cover over half of it. I sigh, blowing a hair out of my face and using my phone as a flashlight.

  After about five minutes of poking around, I realize I have no chance in hell of doing this myself. I can’t even unscrew the bolts holding the plastic cover in place because none of my tools fit them. I slam the hood down in frustration and then jump away from the dark figure standing beside my car. I do a very embarrassing impression of a t-rex as I scream at the top of my lungs and my arms pull up by my sides.

  It’s Reid.

  “What the hell?” I yell.

  He steps forward so I can see his obnoxiously handsome face. “I was just wondering how long it would take you to figure out you can’t fix that on your own. I heard it from my garage.” He moves to my hood and opens it without asking for permission.

  “Get your filthy hands off my hood.”

  He grins up at me, the look on his face making me feel like I just said the dirtiest thing in the world.

  My cheeks burn and I frown, folding my arms I watch as his muscles cord and flex while he pokes and prods at my engine with his strong hands. He flips something that pops and yanks the plastic cover out effortlessly. I catch myself imagining what hands like that would feel like on my body. I stop that line of thinking fast. Reid is a total asshole. I don’t care how good he looks or what those hands would feel like on me, because I’m never going to find out. He’s not my type and he’s the last thing I need complicating my life right now. Besides, if Tara ever found out, she would never forgive me.

  “Yeah. It’s fucked,” he says. “I’ll have the boys pull it over to the garage in the morning. Will be about a week before she’s running again.”

  “Reid, I don’t need or want your help.”

  “Tough shit,” he says. “You’re my neighbor now. If your car runs like shit it makes me look bad. I’m fixing it whether you like it or not.”

  “Like hell you are,” I say.

  He takes a step closer until I can smell the piney scent of him, like a forest in December. I involuntarily breathe it in more deeply. My heart pounds.

  “Yeah? How do you plan on stopping me?”

  I swallow, words failing. All I can see are the strong lines of him. His jaw, the hint of a perfectly muscular crease between his pecs showing above the low collar of his shirt. He’s so broad and strong he could pick me up like I was a child. He could do anything he wanted to me. He could…

  I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing that line of thought to stop.

  “I don’t need your handouts,” I say finally.

  He eyes me hard. “Right. The spoiled rich girl who doesn’t think she needs handouts.”

  My hand flashes out, catching him across the cheek. He barely flinches, but the sound echoes through the night. My palm stings and our eyes are locked. I almost apologize. Almost. But the anger of his assumption swallows up my sympathy. “You don’t know anything about me, Reid Riggins.” I turn to walk inside and pause, speaking over my shoulder. “And you had better not dare touch my car.”

  I hear a humorless laugh from behind me and the crunch of his feet as he walks back to his house.

  Asshole.

  3

  Reid

  I pull up to Sandra’s old place, which is apparently being rented by Tara now. What a joke. Leave it to Tara to keep finding new ways to fuck with my life. Now her spoiled rich best friend is living next door to me and already making me lose sleep. When I saw her engine fuck up, I knew she was going to be too proud to ask me. I just knew it.

  Sure enough, I saw her sneaking out to try to fix it herself at night. It galled me for some reason. Of course the daddy’s girl who has everything handed to her would think fixing a car would be easy. She probably went online and read some how-to guide and thought she could figure it out. She probably thinks she can do what I do for a living if she feels like it. As I expected, she’s clueless.

  Well, I still jimmied the lock on her car this morning, put it in neutral, and pushed it to my shop. She can bitch and moan all she likes, but it’s like I said. Her car trouble makes me look bad. It’s a small town and people talk. I don’t need my reputation getting shot because of her stubbornness. Fuck that. I’ll just have to swipe the keys at some point, but I doubt a rich girl like her will see it coming. Shouldn’t be a problem.

  Roman hums from his carseat in the back of my truck, kicking his feet.
I smirk up at him through the rear-view. He looks like me in every way. He has my dark hair, my eyes. I’m glad I don’t have to see any reminders of Tara when I look at him.

  “Can mommy take me to the shop today?” says Roman.

  I feel a swell of pride, but I swore a long time ago I wouldn’t ever try to pit him against his mom. No matter how much I may despise her for what she did to us, every child needs a mom. I had to grow up without one, and I don’t want my son to have to go through that too. “Hey,” I say, turning to look at him as I pull up to a stop sign. “Mommy doesn’t like the shop, remember? It makes her so happy to see you. Talking about the shop will just make her sad.”

  Roman looks down, fiddling with his little fingers. “But I’ll be bored. She makes me watch cartoons all day.”

  I turn back to the road so he doesn’t see my scowl. Seems like I’m going to have to talk to her about that. Again. You wouldn’t think it would be too much to ask of a mother who only sees her son on the weekends to want to plan something fun to do with her child. “Just be nice to her. Your mom loves you,” is all I can manage.

  I pull up to Sandra’s place, which I guess is now Tara’s. Once I’ve pulled Roman from his car seat and grabbed all his essentials from the truck, I knock impatiently on the door. I have to knock twice more before Tara finally swings the door open. As usual, she looks like she spent half the day getting ready. Her hair is bleached and dry, but straightened and combed until every strand is in place. Her tan face is coated in enough makeup to mostly hide the fine lines years of reckless tanning have brought to the surface.

  I know I thought she was beautiful once. Now, I just see a shell of a woman. She spends so long making sure she looks good because no one would stick around if they knew what she was really like. Vapid. Controlling. Manipulative. And unfaithful. The last makes me clench my fists until my nails dig into my palms. Not because of what she did to me, but because she was willing to do that to Roman. She was willing to destroy our family.

  “Go on, Bud,” I say to Roman, giving him a gentle push toward the house. My eyes flick past Tara to the man’s boots sitting neatly in the foyer. The sight of them gives me a pang of familiarity that I can’t immediately place. They must belong to whoever this new boyfriend is, but why do they look so familiar?

  Once Roman is inside, I plant a hand on the doorframe, leaning in and lowering my voice. “Cartoons again? We talked about this shit.”

  “No. You talked about it,” she says. “I’ve got shit to do, Reid. I can’t just--”

  “Lower your voice,” I growl. The last thing Roman needs is to overhear how little his mom really cares about him. I’m still holding out hope that she’ll get her act together soon, for Roman’s sake.

  She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “I can’t just hold his hand all day. So I sit him in front of the TV for a few hours. What’s the big deal?”

  “You have him two days a week. Weekends only. Make some fucking time for your son.”

  She shakes her head and smirks nastily. “You don’t like the way I’m treating him? Talk to a judge about it. I hear they really love to give full-custody rights to mothers.”

  I shove his bag of toys and snacks at her. “Don’t let him talk you into giving him the Goldfish until he’s had his veggies.” She never has anything healthy in her fridge or pantry for him, so I have to make sure it comes with him. “See you on Sunday,” I say, turning to leave.

  “Fuck you too,” she shouts after me.

  I sit in the truck and turn the key, letting the sound of the engine calm me. Cars and machinery have always helped me cool down. Something about the way a well-oiled machine just works has always brought peace to me. I think about the pistons moving in unison, the controlled explosions moving through air-tight chambers keeping everything in motion. I know every part of this truck like I built it myself. Hell, I did build half of it myself. I’ve owned her since I was fourteen. She was a ruster, but I spent every day after school trolling the salvage yards and going door to door to raid old abandoned cars in wheat fields for parts. Working on the car was my escape.

  I shake my head at the memory. Those were the good years. Back when my little brother Mark wasn’t a jackass. Back when grandpa was still around. When dad was still healthy.

  I look toward Tara’s place, fighting the urge to go and yank Roman out of there. I hate leaving him with her, but I know it’s best for him. Even if she’s a shitty mom. Even if she doesn’t appreciate him like she should. She’s his mom. That’s fucking important.

  I rev the engine and peel out of her driveway, heading back home. When I pull up, I see Sandra outside her new place with a ladder that barely reaches halfway up her house. She’s on her tip toes on the highest step trying to knock debris out of her gutters. I sigh, making a good effort of not noticing how good her ass looks in the daisy dukes she’s wearing, or how long and smooth her legs are. It’s a good effort, but ultimately a failure.

  My grandpa taught me to always use the right tool for the job. Seeing anything else rubs me the wrong way. So as much as I wish she would just pack her shit up and leave, I grudgingly grab a full length ladder from the garage and walk it over to her.

  “Here,” I say, taking in an eyeful of her ass as she stands above me on the ladder, straining to reach.

  She flinches at the sound of my voice and loses her balance, teetering on the edge of falling.

  I step forward quickly and steady her by grabbing the only thing I can reach. Her ass.

  A long, drawn-out second passes while I have her perfectly round ass in both of my large hands. Then she slaps my hands away and gets down the ladder, face a mask of rage.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I bite down the words that threaten to come out. Just getting started. No. I’m not just getting started. “Giving you the right tool for the job,” I growl, tapping the ladder I dropped in the grass with my toe.

  She looks at the ladder for a long moment. I can see the temptation to accept my offer in her features. Then her mouth hardens into a thin line and she crosses her arms. “I don’t need your big, stupid ladder. This one is big enough.”

  I can’t help grinning. “Trust me. Once you use my big ladder you’ll never be satisfied with a small one again.”

  She frowns as the double-meaning sinks in. Her cheeks flush red and she covers her mouth, clearing her throat and pretending not to catch my implication.

  I smirk. Fuck. Why is my cock stiffening? Yeah, she’s hot enough. Fuckable, even. But she’s not my type. I have no time for some rich daddy’s girl. No patience. Despite all that I find myself wanting to tease her, to draw this out.

  Sandra motions towards her driveway. “I thought I told you not to touch my car.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “Then why is my car in your stupid garage right now? Did it just magically teleport over there?”

  I take a step closer, lowering my voice. “Because I’m not going to let you drive that thing around town. You’re my neighbor now, like it or not. I need to know you’re safe.” I frown a little, surprised by my own choice of words. “That the car is safe,” I add quickly. “If it dies somewhere people can see, it’ll make me look bad.”

  Sandra gives me an odd, searching look. “Right. You want to make sure my car is safe.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “Exactly what I fucking said. Now use the ladder. Just start slow. It may seem too big at first, but I know you can handle it.” I don’t wait for her to respond before I turn and walk away without looking back.

  I head back inside and let Tyler and Garry work on Sandra’s Camry while I snag a beer from the fridge. I spend a little too long looking out the window, watching as Sandra struggles to unfold the full-sized ladder I brought and prop it against the house. She looks toward my place several times, but from this distance I can’t tell if she’s glaring or grinning.

  A vague, hazy idea starts to form in my mind as I watch her long legs climb up the ladder.
A dangerous idea. A stupid idea. But I’ve never let stupid stop me before.

  Fuck. Am I really considering this?

  My grandfather’s will never said anything about love. All I need is the paper saying I’m married. Then there’s the part about kids. Plural. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to find anyone to agree to that deal. I wouldn’t mind having another kid, but I would mind having another woman in my life. As far as I’m concerned, committing to a woman is a mistake I made once and never plan to make again. Things are easier without the strings. I’ve got Roman and my shop. For now.

  Still. I can’t help wondering if I could pull it off. Get a woman who hates my guts to marry me and have my baby. And I only have a few months before I’d be out of time. It’s not my proudest moment, but if it comes down to it, I’d do anything to protect the life I’ve built for Roman. And I don’t even know what I’d do with myself if I lost the shop. I could come clean once I had everything in my name and squared away. I’d take the kid, let her go her own way.

  I sigh, running a hand through my hair, eyeing her again. I imagine what those long legs would feel like wrapped around me and groan. I’m just making this worse. I drain the last of my beer and head out to the shop. Maybe I can hit some shit with a wrench to get my mind right, because there’s no way I’m seriously considering doing something so fucked up.

  4

  Sandra

  I stand outside my bakery, staring at the letter that I found taped to the front door. The sun hasn’t even risen yet, and the birds chirping peacefully seem at odds with the disaster I’m holding in my hands.

  Town Ordinance

  Dear Small Business Owner,

  Your building was constructed on a provisionally reserved city block (See attached form 231B). This location is scheduled to be converted into parking lot. Construction will begin in two month’s time. Appraisals value the property at $112,337. A check for this amount will be paid to you. This amount is subject to federal taxes.