To The Single Dad in the Store by J.S. Cooper
Chapter Sixteen
I waltzedinto the house after my date feeling like I was floating on air. The night had been amazing. Steele had ordered the pizza, and we’d eaten with the kids. It had felt warm and cozy, and all the little looks he’d given me throughout the evening had led me to believe that he was as interested in me as I was with him.
“Nellie, are you back?” Shelby came flying out of her room, her long blonde hair flowing as she almost jumped on me. “Tell me everything that happened.”
“Can I change my clothes first?” I looked around. I wanted to make sure my brother wasn’t in the vicinity, listening. He wasn’t as bad as my parents, but he still had no chill. He was overprotective in the worst ways sometimes.
“Sure. Let’s go to your room.” She nodded with a smile. “Hunter is in his room if that’s who you were looking for.”
“Yeah. Was I that obvious?” I laughed as we walked down the hallway.
“No, but I know you.” Shelby giggled. “I want all the dirty details. Also, I need your help with something.”
“Oh? What with?”
“Nellie, no need to give me that look. It’s nothing bad.”
“Why do I not believe you?”
“I don’t know.” She blinked innocently. “I honestly don’t.”
“Is it anything I’m going to regret?”
“Not at all!” she said quickly and then paused. “Well, probably not.”
“Probably doesn’t sound good.” She followed me into my room and sat on my bed. “What is it?”
“Tell me about your night first, and then we’ll get to me.”
“Shelby!”
“What?” She flicked her hair behind her back. She was naturally gorgeous, and sometimes I envied just how natural her beauty was. She was the sort of girl that caused car crashes when she walked down the street. “Well, Nellie, if you want to hear about what I want us to do, then you need to tell me about your date first.”
“Okay, is this something you want us to do or me to do? I’m confused.”
“I’ll tell you more later. Come on, tell me what happened? Was he as exciting and fun as you thought he was going to be?”
“I don’t remember saying I thought he was going to be exciting and fun. I said—”
“Nellie, enough! Tell me! Why don’t you want to tell me, what happened?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh my gosh. You didn’t sleep with him, did you?
“No, of course not. Come on now, Shelby.”
“What? I don’t judge. If you want to hook up on the first date, that’s fine. We’re young. It’s fun. It’s cool.”
“Shelby, really?”
“What? I’m just trying to make you feel better. Would you rather me say ‘You’re a ho!’”
I grabbed her and pressed my fingers to her lips. “What are you trying to do to me, Shelby? Are you trying to get Hunter to come in here and ask why you’re calling me a ho?
“Well, tell me, and I’ll be quiet.”
“Okay, fine.” I took a deep breath. “It was amazing. He’s amazing.”
“He’s amazing? Didn’t you say that he was an asshole and that he was going on a date with someone else?”
“I didn’t tell you that was a joke?”
“No, tell me more, tell me more!”
“We kissed.”
“You kissed him, oh my gosh, where?”
“What do you mean, where?”
“I mean, did you kiss him on the lips? Did you kiss him on the penis? Did you—”
“Shelby!” I slapped my forehead. “Are you for real?”
“What?” She started laughing. “A girl’s got to know.”
“Of course I didn’t kiss him on the penis! Who kisses someone on the penis?”
“Otherwise known as giving head, Nellie. I know you’re not that innocent.”
“No, I did not give him head on the first date … Although, I was definitely thinking about going past first base,” I admitted.
“So, you’re attracted to him.”
“You knew I was attracted to him. The first time I saw him in the grocery store he was hot. Yeah, he was an asshole and he didn’t treat his kids right, but—”
“So you’re really going to date a single dad?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you! He’s not actually their dad.”
Shelby narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me he’s their grandad.”
“Shelby, I know you’re blonde, but please don’t be so dumb.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re blonde as well, but I don’t come out with these stupid comments. He’s like twenty-something, how is he going to be a granddad?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he just looks really young, but he’s actually old, kind of like Benjamin Button.”
“You know that was fiction, right? Not someone in real life.”
“So they’re not his kids. Whose are they?”
“He’s their uncle.”
“Oh, that’s boring.” Shelby shrugged. “He’s just an uncle, like step-uncle or a gay uncle or—”
“Shelby, if he was their gay uncle, would he have been on a date with me? Would he have kissed me?”
“No, I guess not,” she laughed. “Okay. Maybe I am a blonde.”
“Yeah, you are. He’s their uncle, their parents are overseas. They’re missionaries or something, and he’s just taking care of them with the grandparents for a little bit.”
“Oh, so he’s a nice guy.”
“Yeah. He seems like a really nice guy. He’s a lawyer, which I think I told you before.”
“I think so. And he knows you’re in college or he thinks you’re a teacher or what’s that story?”
“I told him the truth. I didn’t want this relationship to be built on lies.”
“This relationship?” Shelby’s eyes widened. “Are you guys together?”
“Well, I mean, we’re not exactly in a relationship. We’ve been on one date, and I don’t even know if I technically called it a date, but …”
“But what?”
“He asked me on another date, a real date this time.”
“No way!” Shelby jumped up off the bed in excitement. “When’s the date?”
“Saturday night.”
“Saturday?” Her face fell. “Oh, no.”
“What’s wrong? Did I say I was going to do something with you on Saturday?” I racked my brain to think about something I would have said I was going to do with her. “If I did, I’m so sorry. I can’t remember.”
“No. Well, not yet, not technically.”
“What’d you mean, not yet, not technically?”
“Well, the favor I was going to ask, it was for Saturday.”
“When on Saturday?”
“In the evening.”
“But I have my date on Saturday evening.”
“Can’t you change it to Sunday or something?”
“Shelby, this is my first official real date with a guy I really like. I don’t want to tell him another day after I already agreed to Saturday.”
“Okay. That’s fine.”
Shelby looked so deflated that I paused for a second. “Okay, what’s going Shelby? Tell me.”
“Well, remember I told you about my dad’s hot best friend?”
“The one you think is sexy and you want to hook up with?”
“Well, I didn’t say all that, but the one I really like.”
“Yes, so what about him?”
“Well, I found out that he’s going to be at this like exclusive club for a work party, and I was hoping we could go.”
“How can we go, Shelby? We don’t even have an invitation.”
“It’s like a masquerade ball.”
“A masquerade ball? They still have those?”
“Of course they do. And I figured if we dressed up and he didn’t know who I was, I could flirt with him and then, you know, see if we got on. But without him realizing that it was me.”
“Shelby, this does not sound like a good idea.”
“I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in a long time,” Shelby insisted. “And I really wanted us to go, but I guess you just don’t have time for me to help me find love.”
“Shelby, really?
“What?”
“What exactly is it that you want me to do?”
“I just need you to attend the ball with me, I don’t want to go by myself. What sort of loser goes to a masquerade ball by themselves?”
“But I have plans on Saturday.”
“I know, and that’s why I said fine, go on your date, fall in love, get married, and I’ll just stay here and live in the spare bedroom in your brother’s house while he gets married, and has kids and maybe I will be the live-in babysitter. Maybe that will work.”
“Seriously, Shelby?”
“What? I’m just saying.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to have to postpone my date with Steele, I was really looking forward to it. But I did owe Shelby. She was my best friend, and she was always there for me, and I knew if the roles were reversed she would do it for me.
A lot of people didn’t understand her; her personality was brash and outlandish, but I knew she had a good heart and I knew that she just wanted to fall in love, just like I did. “Okay, I’ll ask Steele if we can change the day, okay?”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, really? You’d do that for me? Oh, I love you, Nellie.”
“I love you too, Shelby.” I sighed. “Oh my gosh. What are we going to wear? We don’t even have masks.”
“I figured we could go shopping for them.”
“I guess so.”
“It’ll be fun!”
I didn’t really think it was going to be fun, but I didn’t want to tell her that. “Um, and you know how we’re going to get into this ball without invitations?”
“Don’t you worry about it. I’ve got connections!” She grinned.
“I guess you do. So—”
“Oh, and one other thing, Nellie.”
“Yeah, Shelby?”
“Don’t tell Steele why you’re postponing the date, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, don’t tell him you’re postponing so that we can go to a masquerade ball so that I can try and meet my dad’s hot best friend and hook up.”
“You’re trying to hook up with him?”
“Well, I don’t know.” She sounded annoyed. “Don’t say I need to hook up. I just mean—”
“You just mean what, Shelby?”
“I just mean, I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to think I’m immature or—”
“Fine, I’m not going to tell him. I don’t think he’d understand anyway. I’ll just say that I have a prior commitment that I forgot about or something.”
“Oh, you’re the best. What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a study group or something.” I sighed. “It doesn’t really look good to say, ‘Hey I’m canceling our date so I can go to this party with someone else.’”
“It’s fine. Especially if you changed the date to earlier Saturday in the day.”
“I’m not going to change the date to earlier Saturday.” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe I’ll ask him if he’s free on Sunday, and I’ll do something like a picnic or something to make it up to him.”
“Ooh, that would be really nice.” Shelby nodded. “That sounds so romantic.”
“Mm, I don’t know about that. He was planning something as a surprise for me, and I really wanted to know what he was doing, but I guess I’ll just have to wait.”
“Oh, do you absolutely hate me?” Shelby looked sad. “I mean, if you really would rather go on this date, I totally understand. It is selfish of me to ask you to postpone it, I know that. It’s just, I really don’t feel like I’m going to have another opportunity like this, you know? And you’re my best friend, and the only one I would really trust to come with me.”
“It’s okay, girl. I understand. It’ll be fine. Let me go in the shower now though, okay? I just need to de-stress from my night and get a good night’s sleep.”
“Okay. I love you, Nellie.”
“I love you too, Shelby, see you in the morning, okay?”
“Okay, ’night.”
“Bye.”
I waited until she’d closed the door before sitting down on my bed and pulling out my phone. I quickly texted Steele. I didn’t really want to postpone the date, but I understood that she didn’t really trust anyone else to go with her. So I’d do what I had to do, and hopefully, Steele would understand. I mean, did a day really make much of a difference?