Fake Married to My Best Friend’s Daddy by Sofia T Summers
Adrian
“How do these look?” I asked from across the room.
Standing up on a high ladder, I twisted golden and white streamers from the far corner of the dining room towards the brass chandelier. The six electric candles shone in my eyes, while I waited for my daughter to offer her approval.
“They look great!” Nicole exclaimed as she stepped into the room. “Thanks again for helping.”
“Anytime, honey,” I assured her while coming down the ladder.
Nicole continued to appraise the gold decorations hung around her house. With a piping bag of lemon-yellow buttercream in hand, she checked over the balloons, the confetti decorating the table, and the white tulips in her centerpiece bouquet.
She had been working so hard to make this party perfect for her best friend. I worried she had been working too hard. Her green eyes looked a little wearier than usual, but her grin was bright and earnest. Tucking a blonde tendril of hair behind her ear, Nicole looked back at me.
“Do you think Jess will like it?”
I chuckled, “Jessica would be a fool not to love every second of this party, and I hope you do too. You deserve to relax, Nicole.”
“Baking the five-dozen cupcakes for this party was very relaxing,” she swore. “I felt like myself again.”
“That doesn’t sound very restful though,” I pointed out.
Nicole was twenty-six years old, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. It didn’t matter if she was happily married with two children. If anything, it only made my concerns grow. I remembered how much a handful a child could be, and Nicole had just given birth to her son the month before. She needed to be resting and bonding with her children, not planning parties.
“I’m fine, Dad,” she persisted. “Jason made sure I got a little extra sleep this morning, and the party planning, it makes me feel… I don’t know, like a real person? I don’t want to just exist for the sake of my children. I want to be… me.”
“And planning a birthday party for your best friend does that for you?”
Nicole nodded, adjusting the straps of her red-striped apron. “Yes, it does.”
“Alright,” I conceded. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
I looked around the oversized house bathed in shades of blue. The main floor with its two separate living rooms was polished and gleaming. The dark hardwood floors were all mopped with pine-scented polish, and the furniture had been adjusted to make space for party guests. I’d already put the children’s toys away and helped clean the ivory kitchen. From what I saw, there wasn’t much else that needed doing.
“Taking the kids for tonight will be more than enough,” she assured me. “As soon as Jason gets home with Lottie and Ben, you’ll be free to go.”
“Mama!” Lottie’s voice called from across the house.
“Speak of the angels,” Nicole laughed as we followed the sound.
Nicole set aside her buttercream as we walked through the clean kitchen that smelled of baked goods. Lottie was already tugging at her boots in the mudroom. Two years old and rather precocious, little Charlotte Miller had all the spirit her mother possessed. Her blonde curls bounced as she struggled with her yellow winter coat and tiny brown boots.
“Mama!” Lottie pleaded. “Help!”
“Where’s your daddy?” Nicole asked.
“Hi, Papa!” She greeted me with a snaggle-toothed grin.
“Hey, Lottie,” I answered before repeating Nicole’s question. “Where’s Dad?”
The little girl’s dark doe eyes shifted toward the open door. “With Ben.”
I glanced out into the garage to see Jason pulling his infant son from their red SUV while also wrangling another bundle of balloons. There was a giant two, an eight, and a whole host of gold-foil stars all tethered by gold string. Jason’s brown hair looked untidy like he’d run his hands through it about a hundred times.
“More balloons?” I questioned aloud.
“The regular latex balloons didn’t feel like enough,” Nicole insisted while undressing her daughter. “I wanted to get some more.”
Coming up the garage steps, Jason smiled. “Hey, Adrian.”
“Hey,” I greeted him back. “Do you need a hand?”
“Sure,” he agreed.
Taking Ben in his baby carrier, I looked down at the little boy snuggled up under layers and layers of blankets. His thick dark hair stuck out from under his knit cap as he slept soundly.
“Was the party store clerk surprised to see you again, Jason?” Nicole asked as she hung up Lottie’s coat.
“If she was, she hid it well,” Jason laughed. “I never knew twenty-eight was such an important birthday, did you, Adrian?”
I shrugged. “It’s news to me. I think I was shopping for a minivan on my twenty-eighth birthday. What about you, Jason?”
“Deployed,” he recalled easily. “I ate a cookie made from rations and then went on a last-ditch reconnaissance mission.”
“Sounds fun,” I joked. “Did anyone bring you a balloon?”
“There was a helicopter,” he answered with a sigh. “Does that count?”
I chuckled, “It floats in the air, but I don’t think it’s the same.”
“Hey, maybe Jessica would like a helicopter instead!”
Nicole wasn’t amused by our banter. Hoisting Lottie up on her hip, she frowned at us both.
“Every birthday is special,” she fussed at us. “It’s not silly or absurd to want to throw a party for my best friend, so quit acting like it. Jason, please go put those balloons in the foyer. Lottie and I are going to go inspect the cupcakes before she leaves for her sleepover. Come on, Lottie, would you like to taste something sweet?”
The two girls giggled together in the kitchen as Nicole’s temper quickly vanished. She should’ve been happier about Jason and me making jokes. Not even a year before, I’d resented him for loving Nicole.
He was a stoic Navy SEAL and my old friend from college. He wasn’t supposed to be the love of my daughter’s life. Sometimes, I could still see the lanky teenager who showed up on the first day of officer-training his freshman year, and I was still the senior who took him under my wing.
Joking with him there, it felt like we were those two young fools again. We shared cheap beer and a few good laughs at each other’s expense. It had been hard for me to accept that teenager was now, technically, my son-in-law. I refused to think about him in those terms, but I couldn’t deny how Nicole made him better. They balanced each other out, and their children were happy and well-loved.
“I’ll go get the kids’ bags together and put them in your truck,” Jason told me before patting my shoulder.
“Thanks, Jason.”
It was going to be my first time watching both kids for the night, and Nicole had been marketing the evening to Lottie as her “big sleepover with Papa”. Nicole tried to teach Lottie to call me her grandpa, but Papa was the only thing that ever came out. It’s who I was now. I was Papa Adrian, and I loved it. In my excitement, I’d even finished the children’s room in my house just for the occasion.
“Seep-over!” Lottie cheered when I finally got to buckle her up into the car seat of my truck.
“You have to sit still, Lottie,” I told her. “I need to buckle you up.”
“Sorry,” she sighed before calming herself.
Wiped out next to her, Ben happily slept through the whole ordeal. He didn’t notice the cold February evening or how his sister had changed into her favorite unicorn-clad pajamas. He hardly roused when Lottie cheered again.
“Jessie!”
I turned to see a green hatchback pulling around my truck in the long and wide driveway. Lottie knew the car well enough to identify its owner before ever seeing her.
“Happy Birthday, Jessica,” I called out while she stepped out of her car.
I wanted to say more, but the words got lost. As Jessica came into view, her long gray wool coat fell open to reveal the dress underneath. It wasn’t particularly revealing, but only a blind man would be able to look away. Between her clothes and her dark curled hair, something about her felt as if she didn’t belong in real life.
“Hi, Adrian,” she greeted me with a polite wave. “Fancy seeing you here!”
I opened my mouth to speak, but another silvery voice chimed behind me, “Jessie!”
“Hi, Lottie!” Jessica acknowledged her with a million-watt smile.
When I first met Jessica Cartier as a bubbly college junior, she wore a very similar smile with her jeans and sorority t-shirt. The dusty-rose satin she wore now was a far cry from that casual afternoon. It wrapped around her curves and showed off her full figure. With her dark and slightly upturned eyes, the sight of Jessica took me back thirty-eight years to my childhood living room.
My father was showing me my first John Wayne movie starring Italian icon Sophia Loren as the female lead. Following their treasure hunt in Timbuktu, Sophia became my first unattainable crush that night, and I couldn’t help but notice how Jessica had the same pouting lips and bone structure in her nose and cheeks. Even if Jessica’s family was Latin and not Italian, the two women even had similar olive-toned shades to their skin.
Jessica looked like a starlet and had the cat-like grin to match.
“I guess I should thank you for helping with this party,” Jessica remarked, snapping me out of my time warp. “Nicole is so excited to be throwing this party. I would’ve been fine with getting pedicures, but she insisted.”
I laughed, “Yeah, that’s Nicole, always killing you with kindness. You have to love her for it.”
“I do,” she agreed.
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were lost. Jessica tucked a loose curl behind her ear before shoving her manicured hands into her coat pockets. It seemed there was something on her painted lips as well, but Jessica remained silent.
“Well,” I sighed. “I better get these kids home before they revolt.”
Laughing lightly at my remark, I wanted to tell Jessica how beautiful she looked, but I couldn’t overstep. She was young and my daughter’s best friend. I didn’t want Jessica to be made uncomfortable or get the wrong idea.
“Of course,” she agreed with a nod. “It was nice as always running into you, Adrian. Take care.”
“You too,” I replied. “And, um, I hope you have a good birthday this week.”
“Thank you,” she offered with another sparkling smile.
Turning on her metallic heels, I pulled myself into my truck before watching Jessica as she strolled toward the front door. There was music in every step. She moved to a melody that only played for her, not me or anyone else.
“Seep-over time,” Lottie chimed from the backseat.
Her little voice snapped me back to reality, and I quickly turned the keys in the ignition. My truck rumbled to life, and hot air began to warm the cab. Still, my eyes couldn’t help but glance toward the front door.
Jessica Cartier had already stepped inside. There were no second looks to steal, yet something inside me said that first moment needed to be forgotten. For my sanity, it was probably best to forget how lovely that young woman was.
