Hot Daddy_A Romantic Comedy

by Lila Monroe

  “Whatcha doing?” I ask, taking a seat at the other end of the couch.

  “Looking at porn,” she deadpans. Then she grins. “Just messing around with my CV.” She lowers the screen with a sigh and places the computer on the floor. “I don’t know why I feel like maybe if I get the exact combination of words in there, some magical door will suddenly unlock, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

  “Makes sense to me,” I tell her, watching her chest rise and fall as she takes a long sip of her beer. Even in that ridiculous hoodie, she looks far too hot.

  Roomie.

  “I saw the pictures you put on the bookshelf,” she says, nodding at the built-ins beside the fireplace. “Of the kids and everybody. That was a good idea.”

  I smirk, I can’t help it. “I have good ideas, occasionally.”

  “Occasionally,” she teases, and for a second I know both of us are thinking about that kiss this afternoon. At the very least, I’m sure as fuck thinking about it: her eager mouth and that warm, soft body, the trumpet flare of her hips under my hands. Finally Jules clears her throat. “The one of you and the kids’ parents on the beach,” she says, looking back at the photos. “Where is that?”

  “Morocco,” I say.

  “What were they like?”

  “Rob and Mel? They were the best,” I sigh. “Rob was a great guy. They used to plop us on the same blanket when we were babies. No business sense at all, you understand, but the guy literally would have given you the shirt off his back—I actually saw him do it, once, with a homeless dude in Downtown Crossing. Just whipped his hoodie off and walked around the rest of the day in a Red Sox tee.”

  Jules smiles. “He sounds lovely.”

  “Yeah, he was. We met Mel in college,” I continue. “She was barely five feet tall, she had the cutest face you ever saw—a bunch of freckles, just like Lottie—and the dirtiest fucking sense of humor on the planet Earth.” I shrug. “Once they got together it would have made sense for me to wind up third-wheeling it, but it never felt that way. We all just kind of . . . clicked.”

  “The three best friends that anyone could have?”

  “Yup.” I take a sip of my beer. “I know it might not make sense to you why they’d want Ez and Lottie to be here. But it makes sense to me.”

  “I get it,” Jules says, and suddenly she looks very serious. She takes a deep breath. “Look, I know I’ve given you kind of a hard time about whether you know what you’re doing, and maybe I’ve been a little bit unfair.” She shrugs. “But it’s obvious to me that you love those kids, and that you have what it takes to be a good parent to them. So I just . . .” She trails off.

  “Want me to live up to my potential?” I supply.

  “Exactly.” Jules tucks her toes under my thigh. I take a chance and drop my free hand onto her ankle, my palm skating over the smooth, bare skin between her sock and the hem of her jeans. She looks up at me for a minute, biting her lip like she’s debating something. But she doesn’t move her foot.

  “You must miss them a lot,” she says after a moment, leaning back and settling into the pillows, resting her beer bottle on her stomach and tucking one arm behind her head. “Rob and Mel, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” I tilt my head up and stare up at the ceiling for a minute, thumb rubbing absentmindedly over her skin. “The truth is, it’s hard to think about them at all without getting either ragingly angry or hideously depressed, so I try not to, mostly. But if these kids are going to live with me long term”—not if, I remind myself, when—“I want to be able to talk about them. I want Lottie and Ez to know where they came from, that they had the coolest fucking parents on the planet. They deserve that much. One thing I’ll say about those guys is they had it figured out, you know?” I add. “The love, marriage, babies thing. I don’t what the secret was, but they nailed it.”

  Jules laughs. “Well, I’m the wrong person to ask about that,” she tells me. “I mean, did you miss the part where I was available at a moment’s notice to pretend to be your fiancée?”

  “Did you miss the part where I needed someone to pretend?” I lift my head again, grin at her. “I’m glad it’s you, though,” I confess after a moment, my hand tightening around her ankle. It feels weirdly important that she knows that. “After I got over the whole blast from the past thing, and the fact that you think I’m a total fucking loser, I mean. I’m really glad it’s you.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, men and their egos. I don’t think you’re a loser.”

  “Can you take the compliment?” I tease. “Also, don’t lie. You think I’m something.”

  “Well, that’s a fact,” Jules shoots back. She looks at me for a long time then, green eyes watchful. “I’m glad it’s you, too.”

  The air between us crackles, and damn it, if I don’t see desire flickering in her eyes. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but fuck, my body stiffens and my blood gets hot.

  I take her beer bottle out of her hand and set it on the table, deliberate. I surprised her this afternoon at the office. Right now I want to give her time to react.

  Jules braces both hands on the sofa, sitting up slowly and leaning forward. “This is a bad idea,” she murmurs quietly.

  “I’m sorry?” I tease, like I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What is, exactly?”

  “Shut up,” she says, still leaning. She’s close enough that I can smell her, gardenias and cotton and skin. “Don’t act like you weren’t going to—” She waves her hand vaguely.

  “Wasn’t going to . . . ?” I trail off, half-hiding a grin.

  “You know,” Jules says. “Do something we shouldn’t.”

  “Like this?”

  I pull her into a kiss, suddenly wanting her so much I can’t stop.

  She makes that same quiet, maddening sound from earlier before opening her mouth under mine, her tongue warm and with the faint limey tang of the beer. “Yes, that,” she whispers, sinking her teeth into my bottom lip. “Which is a very bad idea.”

  “The worst,” I agree happily, sliding my hands over her hips. “Just terrible.”

  “Shut up,” she says, kissing me harder. “Before you remind me we really shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I follow orders, unzipping the hoodie and burying my face against her chest. I nip through the fabric, then push it up, licking and suckling at her hot skin.

  Jules moans against me, and I tip her back into the cushions, loving how she feels against me—even if we are both wearing way too many clothes. Her legs come up around me, and she arches up, pressing those amazing curves against my body.

  “Fuck, Jules,” I groan. There’s a part of me that thought I imagined what happened between us in Vegas—not the sex itself but the intense, surprising connection, like we’d known each other a whole lot longer than just one night. But I felt it again this afternoon and I can’t help but notice it now—an easy, bone-deep compatibility, like her body and my body are real old friends.

  “Don’t stop.” Jules wraps a leg around mine to keep me where I am, the two of us finding a slow, heavy rhythm; we lie there making out like a couple of teenagers, my mouth on her collarbone and her hands gripping my ass. I haven’t come in my pants since I was sixteen years old, but it’s starting to feel dangerously like we’re headed in that direction; I’m reaching down for the button on her jeans when I hear the telltale thud of little feet on the stairs.

  My whole body seizes up as sure as if somebody had dumped a bucket of ice water down my shirt.

  “Did you hear that?” she asks, not waiting for an answer before shoving me so hard I slip right off the couch. She yanks her shirt back down just as Ezra wanders into the living room, trailing Howard by his tail.

  “I can’t sleep,” he announces, then looks at me and narrows his eyes, suspicious. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

  “Good for my back,” I fumble. “What’s the story, huh? Bad dreams?”

  “Yeah,” he says with a s
igh that’s awfully weary for a seven-year-old, shuffling over and plunking himself down into my lap. “I miss Mom and Dad.”

  My heart freezes, then sinks like a stone. “I know, buddy,” I tell him finally, pushing his sticking-up hair back off his forehead. “I miss them, too.” I think for a minute. “You wanna look at pictures, maybe?”

  Ezra nods. Jules hops up off the couch and pulls a few of them off the bookcases, handing them to Ezra to hold. I take a deep breath and start telling him every story I can think of: about the trip we took to the Galapagos to swim with the tortoises, about the three-legged dog Rob had as a little kid. About the nights he and Lottie were born. Finally I feel him start to relax against me, his heavy head knocking softly against my shoulder; a moment later his breathing goes deep and even, his sturdy little body dead weight in my arms. I get to my feet as steadily as possible, not wanting to jostle him awake.

  “I gotcha, buddy,” I murmur as we head for the staircase; Jules catches Howard just as he falls from Ezra’s hand. “We’re okay.”

  10

  Jules

  The next day is Monday, and by some miracle we’re all dressed and ready with enough time leftover to stop for donuts on the way to school. I reach back and swipe powdered sugar off Ezra’s cheeks—and Howard’s—before we pull up in front of the imposing brick building, which looks more like an Ivy League college than any elementary school I’ve ever seen.

  “Will you walk me into the courtyard and meet my teacher?” he asks Cal.

  “Sure thing, dude,” Cal promises. “I’d love that.” He glances at Lottie in the rearview. “What about you, Lot?” he asks. “Want us to walk you in?”

  “Um, that’s okay,” she says, in a voice like it would only be slightly more embarrassing if both of us were wearing clown suits.

  “You sure?” Cal teases as we pull into the parking lot. “ ’Cause I’d be happy to stroll on in there, press a few palms, tell all your friends what a great gal we think you are here at home—”

  “Oh my God, stop it,” she says, burying her face in her book. She sounds like a full-on teenager, but when she pulls the book away she’s smiling—a real smile, the kind I haven’t seen her use on anyone but Cal.

  “Have a good day,” I tell her before she heads through the door, chancing a hand between her shoulder blades. To my surprise, Lottie doesn’t pull away.

  Ezra’s class is gathered for attendance on the playground outside the kindergarten classroom, the kids climbing all over the fanciest jungle gym I’ve ever seen while the parents mill around double fisting iPhones and venti Starbucks cups. One woman in particular perks up when she sees us.

  “You’re Cal!” she coos, popping up on the tiptoes of her buttery leather boots and hugging him hello. “We’ve heard all about you. I’m Tobin’s mom—the redhead over there on the slide, you see him? Welcome to the Henderson School.”

  “Thanks,” Cal says, grinning his most charming grin. “We’re glad to be here.”

  We meet Ezra’s teacher and the Henderson principal, then watch as Ezra trots off to play with his friends, Howard in tow. “Quite the welcome wagon,” I note as we’re heading back to the car.

  Cal just grins at me, slinging an arm around my shoulders and squeezing. “What are you, jealous?”

  “No!” I blurt, wriggling out of his grip. I take a deep breath, pushing back my hair. “Look, about what happened last night. This needs to be a professional gig, okay? Otherwise it’s just . . .” I trail off, flushing.

  Sexy.

  Wanton.

  Deliciously hot.

  “Weird,” is all I manage. “I mean, you’re paying me, there’s a whole arrangement . . . Technically, it could be considered prostitution if I . . . If we . . .”

  “Do it?” Cal gives me a wink. He’s still smiling, the smile of a person who had his mouth on my tits not twelve hours ago.

  I feel myself blush. “It’s not funny.”

  “I know,” he says, with a sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We’ll keep it professional from now on.”

  “Thank you,” I say primly, telling myself I’m not the tiniest bit disappointed that he didn’t argue harder. I can still feel his tongue on my collarbone, a hot unsatisfied ache between my legs; I got myself off twice lying in bed last night, wondering if he was doing the same thing in his bedroom down the hallway, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I want his hands on my body. I want his cock in my—

  I clear my throat. “So what’s on the agenda for today?” I ask brightly, climbing into the passenger seat. “Schmoozing a Saudi prince? Beta-testing a new car that just so happens to fly to the moon?”

  Cal makes a face. “I took the day off, actually,” he tells me. “I figured we ought to run some errands maybe, get settled into the new place.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised and not altogether mad about it. “Okay.” I whip my phone out and put a list together, when my phone rings.

  Turns out it’s an old client from Harper Wells, the owner of a successful chain of dry cleaners whose lawyer dropped dead last year, right in the middle of a partnership dispute. He wound up getting stuck with me, which he wasn’t too pleased about, but in the end I found—and sidestepped—a loophole in the contract which meant he came out ahead. After that, he was basically my best friend.

  “I’m getting divorced,” he announces now, then launches into a ten-minute spiel about his cheating husband without waiting for me to answer. I try to break in at least half a dozen times to no avail, sputtering awkwardly as Cal laughs quietly in the driver’s seat.

  “I’m so sorry about the divorce, Mr. Rioja, but I’m not actually with the firm anymore,” I manage finally. “But if you call the reception desk and explain what’s going on I’m sure they’d be delighted to put somebody on it.”

  “I don’t want somebody else from the firm,” Mr. Rioja says irritably. “They’re morons. I want you.”

  I muffle a laugh of my own. “I know,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”

  When I hang up Cal’s looking at me curiously. “That guy was begging you to be his lawyer again. Why didn’t you go ahead and poach him?”

  “Well, because I signed a non-compete agreement, to start with,” I point out.

  Cal shrugs like, who cares? “Do you miss it?” he asks as we pull into the Target parking lot. “Practicing, I mean.”

  “I miss some parts of it,” I say carefully. I don’t miss the brutal hours and low-level grunt work so much as I miss having a sense of purpose—a place to get dressed and go to every day, the sense that I was building a career for myself.

  “Do you think you’ll go back?”

  I sigh. “If I ever find a job, maybe.”

  “You could always come work for me,” he says.

  I laugh, yanking a bright red cart from the nested row of them in front of the store. “I thought that’s what I was doing now.”

  Cal makes a face. “I mean in a legal capacity, counselor. We’ve got a pretty good team, but we’re always looking for new blood.”

  “Sure. From fake fiancée to fake attorney. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “You’re using your skeptical voice, but I’m serious.” The automatic doors whoosh open and I push the cart toward the dollar section. Cal looks around, blinking. “Meanwhile, this place is fucking huge.”

  It’s a pretty standard Target, actually, the smell of buttered popcorn and plastic redolent in the air. “Okay, in all seriousness,” I tease. “When was the last time you were in a Target?”

  “Um.” Cal shrugs, not meeting my eyes. I think he might actually be blushing. “It’s been a while.”

  “It’s never, isn’t it.” I laugh out loud. “You have literally never been in a Target before.”

  “Fuck you,” Cal says, but he’s laughing.

  “Come on,” I say, steering him toward the Starbucks kiosk. “I’ll buy you a coffee to ease the shock.”

  We get a nightlight, and a first aid kit, which I was horrified to realize h
e didn’t own before, plus some shampoo for the kids and a giant bag of trail mix for me. “You can buy literally anything here,” Cal says with wonder, craning his neck as I steer him briskly through housewares.

  “That is the purpose of a store like this, yes.”

  I definitely wouldn’t have guessed a Target of all fucking places would knock Cal’s socks off, but the novelty of it seems to genuinely delight him: he gets so distracted he reminds me of Ezra, bouncing an inflatable ball down the aisles and impulse-buying a pair of cheap pajama pants with race cars on them, holding a giant decorative papier-mache bear’s head up to his face. “Do I look scary?” he asks. “I think I probably look very scary.”

  “Terrifying,” I assure him, hiding a smile. “Come on, Big Grizzly, we don’t have all day.”

  “I’m going to make you call me that all the time,” Cal teases, earning a choice hand gesture for his trouble. “Big Grizzly. And we do, actually. We literally have all day.”

  It’s true, I realize with a little bit of a start. I’ve got nothing to do today but stroll the aisles of this Target, to pick out dumb seasonal dishtowels and decide on dinner and be an—admittedly pretend—part of this family. It doesn’t actually fill me with the anxiety I might have thought. “In that case, you want to head over and pick out some stuff to bribe the kids with?”

  “Amazing idea.”

  He deliberates for a long time in the toy aisle, gnawing his thumbnail in consternation before finally selecting a superhero-themed dress up box for Ezra and a young inventor’s kit for Lottie. By the time we make it up to the cashier, the cart is piled high with a truly ridiculous quantity of shit. Cal throws a giant bar of Toblerone on top at the last minute.

  “Success!” he crows, holding his hand up for a high five out in the parking lot. I laugh, and high-five him back.

  “If you think that was crazy, just wait until I take you to Costco.”

  11

  Jules