Mr. Perfect O: A Single Dad Romance

by Amy Brent

  “Casey,” my manager said, walking back into the grill area. “Settle down. The customers up front can hear you.”

  I wanted to snap at him and tell him what the customers could go do with themselves. Instead I just said, “I need to go on my break.”

  Josh took the headset from me and let me clock out. I had one of the cooks make me a quarter pounder without ringing it in. I got food at less than half price with my employee discount, but even then, I was too poor to afford to feed myself. I had to pay my share of the rent, cover the portion of my tuition that wasn't covered by financial aid, pay for school books, and still have enough leftover at the end of the month to pay my cell phone bill. I mean, I could theoretically cancel the cell phone plan if it was a choice between that and starving, but I could squeeze by, as long as I got plenty of free food at work.

  When I went into the break room, I pulled out my phone and found that I had a text message from Maria: We need to talk. I want to make things right between us.

  I stared at the message and tried to think of how to respond. I wanted to tell her that the only way things would be right was if she broke up with her boyfriend. Part of me felt selfish for that. But I wanted her all to myself.

  I was still staring at my phone when Stefan, from the grill team, came back to start his break. “Casey,” he said. “You need a Snickers.”

  I looked up at him with a dumb look on my face. “Huh?”

  “You know, like in those commercials?” He gestured to my grumpy face. “You turn into a grump when you're hungry.”

  “It's not that.” I picked at my burger, though I wasn't very hungry.

  “Then what is it?”

  I sighed. “Relationship trouble.”

  “What, with that hot MILF that always comes in here?” He grinned, a distant look in his eyes, as if he were picturing her in his mind. “What's wrong? You two having problems?”

  I looked off to the side and stared at the corner. “It's complicated.”

  “All relationships are.” He sucked his soda through a straw until it made an annoying slurping sound. “Is it the age difference thing?”

  “No,” I said. “It's the 'she's also got a boyfriend on the side' thing.”

  “Oh.” His expression dropped and he stared at me, dumbstruck.

  “Well, technically, I'm the 'on the side' one. She's been with this guy for years.”

  “Ouch.” He scratched the back of his head. “So then why are you with her? I mean, she's hot and all, but that's messed up. Does he know about you?”

  I shook my head. “No. Though I think maybe he suspects. He's always calling her and texting, checking up on where she is and what she's doing.”

  “Well, yeah. I would be too, if my girl was messing around on me.”

  My shoulders slumped. I picked bits of bread off my bun and ate them. “Should I break up with her?”

  He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the break table. “I would. Unless she wants to dump this other guy. I mean, I know some people can handle being with two people at once and they're cool with it. But that's not for me.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  “Then you do what you've gotta do, girl.” He smiled at me and gave me an encouraging nod.

  I sighed and grabbed my phone, then texted Maria back: Yes, we do need to talk.

  * * *

  Maria came over to my place the next day, when I was off work and Brian was out for the night. I knew what I had to do. It was time to give her an ultimatum.

  Though I decided that before I said what I needed to say, I had to give Maria a reminder about all the reasons she should be with me.

  Maria knocked on the door. I opened it and her eyes shot wide open. “Oh my...”

  I grinned at her reaction. I didn't usually think of myself as a very sexy person. But apparently Maria liked the way I looked, standing there in nothing but a short plaid skirt, knee-high white socks, and one of Brian's red neckties, which hung down between my bare breasts.

  “Hi, teacher,” I said, smiling coyly. I touched a finger to my lower lip. “Are you here to punish me for not doing my homework?”

  “My goodness,” Maria said, her eyes moving from my breasts to my legs, then back up again. “This is unexpected.”

  “You like?” I held my arms up and twirled around. When I spun, my skirt flipped up, showing I was wearing nothing underneath.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” Maria stepped forward and slipped her arms around my waist.

  “Why, teacher,” I said, pretending to try to pull away. “You're not supposed to touch your student that way.”

  Maria's grip on me tightened and her eyes took on an aggressive spark. Technically she wasn't my teacher anymore, but when I'd been in her class there had been more than one occasion where the risk of getting caught had given us both a rush. I hoped that maybe some of that spark was still there.

  “Promise not to tell?” she asked, peering at me over the rim of her glasses.

  “If I don't, do I get an A?” I giggled and turned away, lifting the back of my skirt to flash her.

  “You little minx.” She chased me, and I ran off, squealing. Though there wasn't far to run. I let her catch me in the living room and we started kissing. She reached down and cupped my ass with both hands, squeezing possessively. I moaned and pressed myself against her. This is what I wanted. I wanted her to need me. To desire me. To be possessive. Then, I thought, maybe she would fight to keep me.

  She pulled me down onto the futon and our bodies intertwined. I clung to her desperately, kissing her and touching her. I spread my legs to invite her fingers to explore my most precious place. When she touched me a jolt shot through my body. I wrapped my arms around her neck and whispered into her ear, “Do you want me?”

  “Yes.” She kissed my neck and nibbled on my skin while her fingers rubbed me in deliciously delicate motions.

  I clung tighter to her. “Am I your girl?” I asked. I desperately needed to be hers.

  “You're my girl, Casey.” She knelt between my legs and lowered herself on top of me, thrusting with her fingers and putting her whole body into it. I wrapped my legs around her, moaning. I needed her, needed this. I pulled my necktie into my mouth and bit down on it like a gag, moaning against the silken fabric. I let Maria violate me in just the right way, trailing my fingers across her skin to spur her on and excite her so she'd do it harder and make it hurt.

  When I felt the moment approaching, I grabbed her face and looked into her eyes. I needed her to see it, to know what she'd given me. “I,” I gasped. “Maria, I...”

  “Yes, baby. I know. Do it for me.”

  The rest of my words were drowned in the sounds of pleasure. I held Maria close, needing her touch, needing to feel her body pressed against mine.

  We made love for more than an hour before we were both spent and delightfully satisfied. When we were done, I laid there panting, while Maria propped herself up on one elbow and leaned her head against her hand. “Does this mean we've made up?” she asked.

  I looked up at her, unable to form words. I started to tremble. A tear welled in my eye.

  “Casey?” She reached down and stroked my face. “Baby, what's wrong?”

  I got up off the futon and walked to the other side of the living room. I fiddled with the necktie, running my fingers over the smooth silk. “We still need to talk.”

  She sat up and pulled the sheet up over herself. “Okay.”

  I started to pace. I could think better when I paced. “I know when we first got together I said I didn't have a problem with you having a boyfriend.” I didn't look at her as I paced back and forth. It was only five steps from one end of the room to the other, but I took those five steps, pivoted on my foot, and took five steps in the other direction, back and forth. “But I guess it's different now.”

  She lowered her head and clasped her hands in her lap. “I guess this was inevit
able.”

  I stopped pacing for a moment and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  She sighed and met my eyes. “You're breaking up with me.”

  I shook my head and held my hands out. “No, no! I mean, I don't want to.”

  “But?”

  “But...” I wrung my hands together and started pacing again. “But I can't share you anymore.”

  “Ahh,” she said. “So, you're telling me I have to break up with him.”

  “You have to break up with one of us.” I stopped at the edge of the kitchen and fiddled with the clasps on the little sugar and flour containers on the counter. I kept my back to Maria, unable to look at her right now. “You can't keep having both. It...it's not working.”

  “I thought it was.” She sighed. “Or...well, I guess I always knew it wasn't. But haven't we been having a good time?”

  I nodded, still fiddling with the clasps. “We have. And I guess I thought that was enough. But it's not.”

  “Then I guess I have a decision to make.”

  I whirled on her, my face feeling hot. “Is it that hard of a decision? I mean, he's terrible to you!”

  “It's not that simple.”

  “Isn't it?”

  She got up and started getting dressed. “No, it isn't. There's a lot more to our relationship than you think. All you see is the phone calls. The part where he checks up on me. But he only does that because he loves me.”

  “So do I.”

  She looked at me with tears in her eyes. She kept pulling her clothes on in rapid motions. “There's things he can give me that you can't.”

  I frowned. “What, this is because I don't have a penis?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No. God, no. If it were that, I'd be content with a strap-on. No, I mean a life together.” She looked me dead in the eye. “Marriage. Kids. A family. He and I, we've been talking about that lately. About where our future is going. And there are a lot of things I want, Casey. Things that...that I can't have with an eighteen-year-old-girl who's still in college.”

  “So that's it then.” I lowered my eyes and turned away. “I'm just a kid who can't give you a family.”

  I wanted to yell at her. To call her a hypocrite. To tell her that we could get married, one day. That we could adopt kids. That there was no reason we couldn't have all those things she wanted.

  Though at the same time, I was scared. Not just scared of losing her, but scared of promising things I couldn't deliver. She was right. I was just a kid. I could barely pay my share of the rent. I didn't know where my life was going.

  I didn't want to get married. Not for years. I didn't want to think about kids, or a family, or anything other than getting through college and getting my life in order.

  I just couldn't do that while dating someone who was balancing two relationships at the same time.

  I turned my back to her again. “You just let me know what you decide,” I said.

  “Casey...”

  She stepped towards me, but I refused to turn around and look at her. I didn't want her to see my tears.

  She finished getting dressed and left. I didn't turn to watch her go. I just stood there, digging the metal clasp into my fingers, letting it bite down into my skin until the physical pain helped me ward off the deeper pain in my heart.

  * * *

  I spent the next few days in a depressed daze. I was barely paying any attention in class, and I flunked a math test big time. My teacher noticed I wasn't myself, and he suggested I go to talk to one of the campus counselors. I thought about it, and it actually seemed like a pretty good idea. I certainly had enough issues going on. It might help to talk to someone who could put it all into perspective.

  I walked into the school's Counseling and Wellness Center without an appointment. I had to fill out a questionnaire with a bunch of awkward questions, like whether I was suicidal, if I was on drugs, and if I ever considered self-harm. I checked “no” to all of the questions, even though I'd thought about cutting myself more than once recently. I didn't want anyone knowing about that, even if the counselors were supposed to be sworn to confidentiality.

  I sat in the waiting room for awhile before I was finally called in to see someone. The counselor immediately made me uncomfortable. He was a man in his forties, with a pressed white shirt and a goatee that had speckles of gray throughout it. He seemed too much like an authority figure, and not someone I could really open up to.

  “So, Casey,” he said. “Why don't you tell me what brings you here today?”

  “Well,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my seat, “I'm having some, sort of, relationship issues.”

  “There's some trouble with your boyfriend?”

  “Girlfriend,” I said.

  “Ahh.” He nodded and jotted down some notes on a tablet. I wondered what he'd written, and why. Did he write down notes about heterosexual girls, or was he someone who thought being bisexual made me “different” somehow?

  “So, what's going on with your girlfriend,” he asked.

  I chewed on my lower lip, trying to decide how much to tell him. I decided right away that I wouldn't tell him that Maria was older, because he'd probably judge me for that. I also knew I couldn't tell him that she had a separate boyfriend, because he'd tell me that I was foolish to pin my hopes on someone who couldn't commit to just me. That left me not at all sure what to even say.

  “It's just,” I said, hesitating, “I'm worried about how to make a relationship work while I'm still in college. We're starting to get pretty serious, or, we want to, at least. But I've got so much going on right now, with school and work. I don't know if I can commit to her the way she'd need me to.”

  “Is she trying to pressure you into a commitment?”

  “No.” I shifted in my seat, wishing I had something to hold in my hands. Something with texture. There was a little ceramic dish sitting on the end table next to me, holding the counselor's business cards. I picked it up and started running my hands over the star-shaped ridges that circled the dish. “I guess, I'm the one who wants her to commit. But I don't know if I should.”

  “Why are you focused on commitment?” he asked. “Is there a reason you want something more right now?”

  I thought about that. I realized the answer was a bit foolish. “I guess it's because I think if I don't give her a commitment, she'll leave me.”

  “Ahh.” He made some more notes on his tablet. “Casey, you're a young woman. You shouldn't let yourself feel pressured into something that you're not ready for. If your partner is saying or doing anything to make you think she'll leave you, to make you think she needs a commitment, then you shouldn't let that happen. You need to put yourself first. Make healthy decisions. Even if sometimes those decisions mean letting someone go.”

  “But I love her.”

  He sighed and a wry smile touched his lips. “I think the bigger question is whether you love yourself. You need to put your own needs first. If your girlfriend really cares about you, she'll respect that, and she won't put any pressures on you. To do otherwise would be selfish.”

  “And what if I'm putting pressures on her?”

  “Then, I suppose, you'd be the selfish one,” he said. “But you don't seem like a selfish person to me. At least, not based on these past few minutes.”

  I thought about that, and tried to figure out what I really wanted. What I needed from this relationship. And whether I was asking too much of Maria.

  I talked to the counselor for almost an hour before our time was up. He gave me one of his cards before I left, and I promised to make another appointment in the near future. It seemed to have helped to have someone to talk to. He'd helped me put things into perspective. I think I'd needed that.

  * * *

  A few more days passed without me hearing from Maria. The more time that passed, the more I was convinced that she was going to choose her boyfriend over me. He could simply offer her
things that I couldn't. A family. A future. All the things I knew she wanted out of life.

  I was at work Saturday afternoon, dealing with customers at the front counter. I'd already had one woman yell at me that her milkshake was too watery, and a man demand a refund because we didn't sell onion rings even though he swore he'd gotten them last time he came in. When I'd told him he was probably thinking of Burger King, he'd called me a dumb bitch and thrown his food at me.

  I was about five seconds from walking out the door and saying to hell with this job when Maria walked in.

  “Oh God.” I pulled my uniform hat down over my eyes, trying to pretend she wasn't there. I didn't want her to see me in my McDonald's uniform with my stupid name tag with the label peeling off. I felt like a complete dork.

  “Hi,” she said. With my hat pulled down over my eyes, all I could see was her stomach and her lower arms.

  “Hello, welcome to McDonald's,” I said, quoting the lines by rote. “Will this be for here or to go?”

  “Casey...” She sighed and leaned down to peek up under the brim of my hat. “I was hoping we could talk. When do you get done?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at my manager, then turned back to Maria with a sigh. “I've got a break in about twenty minutes.”

  “Is it okay if I wait here?”

  I lifted the brim of my hat. Maria's eyes looked red. I wondered if she'd been crying.

  “I don't know if my manager will like you sitting here without ordering something.”

  “Oh, well, that's fine.” She looked at the menu, then ordered a salad. I rang it up and took her money. Our fingers touched when I handed her back her change. The simple contact made me smile.

  I kept working until it was time for my break. The entire time, I kept glancing over at Maria. She was watching me. At one point while I was wiping down plastic trays, she flashed me a flirtatious smile. I let out a frustrated sound and held one of the trays up to cover my face. She probably thought I looked cute in my little work uniform. I just felt like a complete loser.