Single Dad Fake Fiancé

by Brooks, Summer

  I slapped my hand against my cheek and sat up straight to go back to it. I didn’t remember ever signing up for “Single folks in New York” and my jaw clenched when I started to put two and two together. It must have been Mom.

  My parents had access to my phone while I was living with them and I wasn’t the best person when it came to keeping my lock code a secret. My entire family also knew the password to my laptop. The bottom line was that I trusted them to not pry into my private things, and now I needed to let them know immediately that I was disappointed.

  Mom answered at the second ring, sounding a little worried from what I could judge by her tone.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  I marched around in my bedroom with my fists clenching. “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “So, what’s the matter? You never want to talk to us twice a day.”

  My nostrils flared and I held in a breath to keep myself from yelling at her.

  “Did you sign me up on Meetme?”

  She replied a few seconds later and no longer sounded worried, but excited instead.

  “Joseph!” she yelled to get Dad’s attention. “It’s Jess. Come and speak to her.”

  I could never figure out why she always had to do that — have Dad sit right next to her while she was on the call with me.

  “What is it, Lynette? I was out in the garage.” I heard him say, then Mom repeated. “It’s Jess. It worked.”

  “What worked?” I narrowed my eyes. “Were you both in on it?”

  “Oh honey, we signed you up months ago while you were still living here. We’d lost hope, thinking you’d never find a match on the website. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it till you just reminded me.”

  Then came questions about the notification that I’d received. They wanted to know the man’s name, his age, his profession, everything. The conversation was no longer about me being annoyed at them and they clearly weren’t apologetic for anything that they’d done.

  “Okay, I’m going to bed now,” I said, then quickly hung up and threw my phone over the mattress. I heard Mom say “But, but… ” right before I ended the call.

  I looked up at the ceiling and groaned, then fell on the bed myself, wondering why my parents had gotten so desperate to find me a man. Their efforts only made me feel more pathetic about my life than I needed to. If they hadn’t infiltrated my brain with all the nonsense about having to die alone, I might even be satisfied in the present moment without feeling the need to have someone on the other side of my bed. The side that was always empty. In a way, though, I needed a partner right now who would understand my rage at them, who would accompany me to dinner and hear me talk all about how crazy my parents were.

  They’d told me they had lost hope that anyone would contact me through the website, and that only made me wonder why. I almost didn’t want to open my email and hunt down my profile on Meetme. I didn’t want to read my bio, knowing that they’d probably embarrassed me to no extent. But of course, my arms extended toward my phone and I stared at the unopened email. It was a message from a certain “AB.”

  Nice name, I thought with sarcasm.

  I ignored his boring message and went straight to my page. The page that had one of my worst pictures proudly displayed at the top. I stood on my feet instantly, groaning and stomping again.

  How could they have done this to me?

  “A single mom from Brooklyn, New York.”

  Well, duh-uh. Obviously, no man in his right mind would message me if that’s all I had to say about myself. I let out a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed when I saw that my phone number was displayed at the bottom of my profile for the world to see. I rubbed my temples, feeling the headache setting in. I saw the option to deactivate my profile when I searched for a way to remove my phone number. I was all for getting rid of my account, but first I had to see the profile of this idiot who’d messaged me instead of running in the other direction upon seeing that horrendous photo of mine. I needed to know who this “AB” was. The mysterious man who apparently didn’t care that I was a single mom. Maybe he had a thing for single moms. Who knew? There were all kinds of people on the internet.

  I replied back with the same message that he’d sent me.

  - Hey. -

  Then, I went on to explore his page. AB was obviously short for an actual name, and I didn’t have much to go on from his photo either. It didn’t show his face, but I smiled when I noticed his beautiful eyes. I could see the top of his head, from his eyes up. He wasn't bald, at least. And he had dark hair, which was appealing. I definitely had a thing for men with darker hair.

  How I wish he’d had another picture somewhere in his profile, but I couldn’t find any. I grinned when I read his bio, which stated that he was “A proud father” among other things, like his obsession with working out.

  Maybe that’s what it was. The only thing that explained his interest in me was the fact that he was a single parent himself. Perhaps he was gay, had divorced the mother of the child when he realized he was into men, and wanted to exchange single-parenting ideas with me. I hoped he wasn’t, because that would mean that not a single man had shown an interest in me over the last few months since my profile had been live.

  It’s not me. It’s the garbage picture my parents chose.

  I waited for an hour but he didn’t respond back. I was unable to get back into my murder mystery because I felt the need to constantly refresh the browser on my phone to see if he’d replied yet.

  Nothing.

  I was fidgety, and I felt utterly stupid waiting for someone’s message when I could be catching up on some much-needed sleep. This was usually the time when I left the office each evening, then it would take me an hour to get back home and another hour to eat dinner. After that, I would get some more work done before finally allowing myself to sleep.

  So, instead of jumping at the opportunity to fall asleep while reading, and then dream about the ways in which I wanted to kill Henry Bridge for denying me the promotion I deserved, I was out in my kitchen trying to find a snack.

  I heard the sound of my email notification in the bedroom and I sprinted from the kitchen to get to my phone.

  It wasn’t the mystery man. It was spam.

  “Ugh,” I said, snuggling under the blanket and scrolling through the long list of my unopened emails. Then I saw it, all the way at the top.

  It was a new message from Meetme, and it was him.

  - How are you? -

  I blushed like a little girl. I closed the message to go see his image again, only to realize he had now changed it since I last looked at it a half hour ago. Now, it was a full photo of him, with his face turned away from the camera. He was wearing a suit that that covered him completely, but he filled it in a way that I could see he had some ripped muscles underneath. My vagina liked what I saw, and I felt a tingling sensation in my back when I thought about what I wanted to say in response. Anything super witty to such a simple question would sound like I was trying too hard.

  So, I drew in a long breath and pressed send.

  - I’m good. How are you? -

  It was too bad that I couldn’t see the bubbles underneath the messages like I would on my phone. It would have been fun seeing when he was typing a message. This time, his response was almost immediate.

  - I’m good too, thank you. Nice bio you got there. -

  I strutted from my bedroom to the kitchen, then all the way back. I could lose weight if I did that each evening, so perhaps having man in my life wouldn’t be such a bad thing, after all. I sensed the sarcasm in his message. My bio was absolutely shit, and if he thought that it was nice then I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

  - Really? You like it? -

  - Not really. I think you need to add something more. -

  - Well, what do you suggest I add? -

  He took his time to respond to that one, and I realized that my question was a little awkward. AB wasn’t my wingman. He w
as a potential suitor, so he had no business advising me on how I should present myself to other men.

  A potential suitor. The man with the big biceps.

  I felt giddy and pathetic all at once. I hadn’t realized until then how horny I really was. How long it’d been since I’d let a man touch me. Or even talk to me.

  The last man I’d slept with was Victor Edmonds. He was a rebound after I’d finally found the courage to let Tyler go. I still shuddered to think of that time in my life, feeling so frail and weak at the prospect of being alone. Even after I’d found out that he’d been cheating on me, I continued to live in delusion. I couldn’t bring it up, to let him know that I knew, because I was aware that it would all be over once I did. So there I was, allowing myself to sit at home, pregnant and in my third trimester, while waiting on my cheating husband to come home from work every evening. I often wondered if he sensed that I knew all along. If he did, then that was another slap in my face, because that didn’t make him stop sleeping with the other woman.

  Every time he would walk through that door, I would search for a sign and scan his face in an attempt to retrieve answers. He continued to be affectionate with me, knowing that I had his baby growing inside of me, and I let him be sweet.

  I was vulnerable, without a job, and overwhelmed.

  Becoming pregnant with my daughter was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I wouldn’t trade the experience with anything else in the world. But, it wasn’t until she was born and I held her in my arms that my chest filled with courage.

  I was going to do everything in my power to make sure she was raised right. I knew when I saw her hazel eyes that I needed to get away from the toxicity that I’d been indulging in.

  Lily had given me the courage to tell Tyler that I knew of his infidelity, to walk away, and to acknowledge that our marriage was over.

  I jerked my head when my phone vibrated in my palm and my eyes went wide as I tried to keep them open. Then my sleep went out the window when I read AB’s message.

  - Maybe you could just tell me more about yourself here. -

  And so, I did. I told him all the things about me that I thought would appeal to him. I didn't tell him that I was a workaholic, not by choice but by necessity. I was hell bent on never feeling vulnerable like I once did. That required a successful career, a stable career, and a promotion that my horrible boss was refusing to reward me, no matter how hard I tried to impress him.

  No, I skipped over those details and went straight to the part where I explained to him what I did for a living and how crazy my hours were. Then, he told me that he used to work as a real estate agent. He told me that his former job there was actually very similar to the one I had.

  I didn’t see his point at the beginning, but I agreed when he explained that both of our jobs required being skilled at selling with our words. The only difference was that I used written words instead.

  - So, what do you do now? -

  His response to that was vague, and I couldn’t tell if he’d already started a new job or if he was still hunting for one. From what I gathered, though, it was all up in the air for him. He used the word “complicated” multiple times, so I shifted the conversation to something else. I wanted to know more about his daughter that he’d mentioned was eight months old.

  We seemed to click instantly, and it was clear that I had more in common with him than I thought I would. As much as I was enjoying our casual conversation, the last thing I wanted was for him to start thinking of me as a “friend” or as someone incapable of being sexy or flirtatious.

  Maybe I didn’t know how to be those things anymore, but if I wanted something more with the bicep man, then I needed to figure it out.

  4

  Arthur

  It’d been five full days since Jessica and I starting blowing up each other’s phones. I gave her my phone number two days after we started talking when we got tired of using Meetme’s messaging system. It wasn’t working anymore for either of us, not with its lack of notifications directly sent to our phones instead of to our emails. We texted each other day in and day out. It was all consuming, and in many ways, weird. Five days ago, when we exchanged our first few texts, I remembered being wary of my responses and thinking twice before pressing send. But now, it felt way more comfortable, almost as if I’d known her for years. But we didn’t know each other at all, not really.

  When she didn’t ask for my full name on the second day before we’d exchange phone numbers, I couldn’t help but question her why that was. She told me she liked the “mystery aspect of the whole thing.” I was okay with playing along and not questioning her further. Truthfully, I liked that she was into being mysterious, though, she’d told me way more about herself than I’d expected her to.

  I knew her daughter’s name and the fact that she was in boarding school at only five years of age. My stomach clenched upon hearing that and I sensed her sadness somehow. That’s exactly how I would feel after leaving the country. I would be away from my daughter, who was a piece of my heart. No, she was my whole heart.

  Jessica had apologized a few times for “boring” me, but I’d encouraged her to continue. I wanted to know more about her and her daughter. I felt as if something bigger than each of us was connecting us together. We had an awful lot of things in common. Both divorced, single parents, and kind of at a similar situation with our kids. Though, I considered my situation to be way more distressful. At least, Jessica would continue to see Lily every other weekend or for longer periods of time even if she remained in boarding school for years. But I wouldn’t be doing that all the way from another country. It was a hard but true fact that Megan would need her mother more, and I wouldn’t dare to separate her from Sophie. I just wished there was a way to figure out how to divide our daughter’s time equally once she became a little older. In reality, though, I knew it wasn't feasible for a child to live two lives in two different countries, travelling all the time just so she could have two parents like normal families did.

  Placing two slices of pizza in the microwave, I turned it on and leaned against the counter while waiting for Jessica’s next message. A part of me felt like I was being a bit obsessive, so giddy to talk to her all day every day. It was as though her virtual presence would relieve some of my tensions, partly because I found myself focusing on her problems more than my own.

  - I really think I’m going to end up quitting my job soon. -

  I chuckled when I read that, not because it was funny but because it was another thing that Jessica and I seemed to have in common. We were both in a funky place with our jobs. She was having trouble getting promoted and I was having trouble making up my mind about taking over my cousin’s firm so he could retire in peace.

  Sometimes, I wondered if one of my friends was playing a prank on me, pretending to be a woman on the other end. It was freaky that I could have so many things in common with a complete stranger that I met on the internet, one who I had no idea even existed before five days ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if my buddies Brad and Neil were behind it. I hoped not. They were both happily married and Brad now had a newborn baby girl named Amber. I knew all about not having any free time to do stupid things like these once I had a baby, so I was almost certain that this Jessica woman was real. Somehow, we’d landed on the same website and I was the only one who thought to ignore the strange way that her profile was set up, and message her, anyway.

  The only thing she hadn’t touched upon was the story with Lily’s father. I wanted to know more about him, and why she was in the situation that she was in. But I didn’t bring it up, not when I was getting more and more information about her without even having to ask. I could tell that she liked talking to a stranger, which in this case was lucky me. Telling me her deepest secrets would mean no consequences in the real world. She could absolutely decide that she didn’t want to talk to me tomorrow and that would be the end of it. Her secrets and everything that she told me would be buried along
with her decision. Jessica craved a connection, one that had no strings attached. One that she could walk out of just as easily as she decided to walk into. I knew she’d get around to telling me about Lily’s father if I waited long enough. I wanted to avoid questioning her about it myself, because that might result in her putting her guard up, and I didn't want that.

  I wondered if I had the kind of patience it required to play along and see how it panned out. In the last five days, it’d been tempting for me to press the call button and listen to her voice. There was no reason for us to only keep texting anymore. I already felt like I knew the woman, even though, she pretty much didn’t know anything about me. Not even my first name. She would still call me AB. Maybe she didn’t care about investigating further, and it wasn’t about maintaining that element of mystery after all. My guess was that her purpose was being served and she was getting what she wanted out of this connection and didn’t care about establishing anything real.

  A real friendship, or whatever weird thing it was that we could form.

  So, when I woke up the next morning and saw her unread message, I contemplated asking her if she wanted to take this to another level. If she wanted to meet me.

  It was now day six of our insane obsession with shooting each other texts at all hours of the day, and when I yanked the comforter off my leg that morning, I told myself that that would be the moment of truth. I didn’t want to do this anymore, to act like a teenager who was obsessively chatting with a woman that he had a crush on, but too afraid to make a bolder move. Though, I wasn’t sure if I would even call it a crush because I’d never even spoken to her in the real sense of the word. I couldn’t have a crush on the way she typed now, could I?