by Smith, Maren
Because of course there was. This was Ommin’s life.
Chapter 3
“I’m so terribly sorry,” the sweaty man said for the third time, as he pulled his pants up over his bony hips and buckled them tightly into place. “I just get so excited sometimes.”
“Who are you?” Ommin asked. And he wished he didn’t sound so irritated when he said it, but he could still hear the reporters talking in the hall and, frankly, this was one of the strangest things that had ever happened to him. And he could morph into a fish, for crying out loud.
“Oh, sorry.” Pausing with his button-up shirt half on, the other man stuck out a sweaty palm. “I’m Jim, or, uh… as you can call me, Liquidman!”
“Liquidman.” Ommin’s tone must have said everything he was thinking, because Jim’s smile faded.
“Yes, well… It’s one of those self-explanatory nicknames.” He brightened again. “Like Sharkman. Admittedly, your skills are much more awesome and… well, let’s face it, useful, than mine. But, hey! I can’t tell you how happy I was to see you on the news.”
Laughing and shaking his head, Jim buttoned up his shirt, and all Ommin could do was stand there wondering if this was going to be his new normal. Just, every few days someone new would fall into his path and it would either be someone like Britney, whom he couldn’t wait to get to know better, or it be someone who exploded into a watery mess the first time he touched them.
Baffled, Ommin finally just asked, “Why?”
Half in and half out of his brown jacket, Jim paused all over again. He looked surprised. “Because I thought I was the only one. I mean, I’ve gone my entire life afraid to be with people because at any given minute—”
He cupped an invisible bomb in the air, made a water exploding/splashing sound, and looked at Ommin again, fingers still raining invisible water and flicking off the occasional droplet that immediately trickled its way back to him the second it hit the floor.
“I’m not very good at controlling it. I wish I was.” He brightened. “Still, I’m better than I used to be. And, again, for the longest time I thought I was the only weirdo in the world. I’m so glad to finally meet someone else who can do, you know… things!”
Ommin’s laptop chirped a familiar notification.
Jim brightened even more. “Somebody loves you,” he said, shrugging into his jacket and adjusting his suit. When Ommin only stared at him, he gestured to the laptop and tried again. “You’ve got mail,” he parroted, in a near perfect imitation of the battle cry that launched AOL.
His life could not get any weirder.
The last thing he wanted to do was check his email with ‘Liquidman’ in his living room, especially if that email had a chance of being from Britney. That was an awfully quick response time though, wasn’t it? It honestly could be from Britney.
Holy shit. What if it was from Britney? What if she was saying no?
What if she was saying yes?
The draw to find out was stronger than the call of the sea, and before he knew it, Ommin was—not running, exactly, but a dude could definitely speed walk to check who that message was from.
Holy. Shit.
Britney had answered him. It was right there, number one on his email screen, a reply to his message sent through FetLife.
God help him.
He sat down. Fortunately, his chair was right there, otherwise he might have dropped all the way to the floor.
“Mind if I get a drink of water?” Jim called hopefully.
“Help yourself,” Ommin heard himself say. Because, why not? It would give him time and some much-needed space while he read what would in all likelihood be a rejection letter.
“Ooo!” Jim said from the kitchen. “Sandwich fixings.”
“Help yourself,” Ommin called again, rubbing his hands on his jean-clad thighs. One deep breath became two. As braced as he was going to get, he clicked on the email. He had to log back into FetLife in order to read it.
And then he read it again.
It was very short, very direct. Very to the point.
And she did not say no.
I had no idea when I said that at the studio, I swear. Yes, I’d love to meet for coffee!! I’m off now, actually. Or is that too soon?
She’d love to, with not one but two exclamation points.
Holy shit, she’d love to right now.
Ommin fell back in his chair, every fiber of his body vibrating with carefully muted excitement. First things first, he quickly looked up coffee shops near her radio station, then sent another message back. He included his cell phone number, his personal email address separate from FetLife, the name and address of a coffee shop near her station, his estimated time of arrival, and then, fingers poised over the laptop keys, he agonized over something Daddy-Dom-ish to say that wouldn’t also come across as creepy considering it was their first coffee date.
See you soon, he wrote. Then quickly added, Be good and hit send before he could overthink it.
He was going on a date with Britney. He collapsed back in his seat again, staring at her email confirmation. One click took him back over to her profile page. He stared at that next, because he wasn’t just going on a date with Britney, he was going on a date with Little Britney when supposedly he was a Daddy.
Was he being dishonest? Was he making a huge mistake?
“Ooo,” Jim said around a mouthful of sandwich, this time from directly behind Ommin’s chair. “Kinky.”
In a flash, Ommin slapped his laptop closed and swiveled far enough to give Liquidman an unobstructed view of his quiet irritation.
Water bottle in one hand, taking another bite of his sandwich in the other, Jim was oblivious. “Bro, you’ve got a girlfriend? That’s awesome. Gives me hope.”
“I’ve also got a date,” Ommin said pointedly. “Right now, in fact.”
Jim held up both food and drink. “Say no more, my friend. Say no more. I’ve got places to go anyway. I appreciate your hospitality.”
Ommin had never felt more relieved than he did finally walking Liquidman to the door. Had he known Jim was going to hug him, he would have waited until that was over before escorting him out into the hall, because not only did that squishy hug come at him from out of nowhere, but it was accompanied by an immediate volley of camera flashes from the half dozen reporters lined up patiently along the wall directly opposite of him.
“Stay you,” Jim said, complete with a sniffle into Ommin’s chest. Then he was gone, walking off down the hallway to the accompanying hail from a few hopeful reporters. “Bro code, dudes,” Ommin heard Jim tell them. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
“What’s it like being a fish?” asked the guy across the hall from him as he arched onto tiptoes, all the better to snap pictures of the inside of Ommin’s apartment.
Ommin shut the door. He didn’t have anything to say either. He’d also had enough. Taking off his shirt, which now had a massive wet spot in the form of Jim and his embracing arms, he called the local police and asked what he had to do to get rid of the people in his hallway.
Come to find out, all he had to do was make a phone call. Less than fifteen minutes later, eight police cars with lights flashing and a wagon were parked outside his apartment, and every photographer and reporter inside his building was arrested for trespassing.
“It won’t hold them for long,” one officer knocked at his door to tell him. “They’ll be out probably as fast as we get them booked in, but that should give you an hour or so of peace. Plus, they’ll probably stay out of your building now that they know you’ll call.”
“I appreciate it,” Ommin said, shaking his hand. But when the officer continued to stand there, hesitating, after a couple blinks, Ommin asked, “Got a pen?”
The cop grinned and Ommin autographed a blank page of his notepad.
“Do you want me to make it out to anyone in particular?”
“Officer Marcus Bradley. Hey, would you mind saying ‘best buds’ on there?”
/> “Best… buds…” Ommin repeated, obligingly writing it down. After that, he got a pen and carried it in his back pocket.
As he was waving the officers off, his cell phone vibrated.
I’m at the shop, Britney’s text read.
I’m running late, he immediately replied. Got waylaid by reporters, but on the way now.
No problem.
Normally, Ommin either walked or took the bus, but this was important. Tonight, he caught a cab. Although faster than the bus, he was almost twenty minutes late when he finally got there.
The coffee shop was neither empty nor crowded. Four of its many tables held guests—three hosted individual people working from laptops; the fourth had four old men playing cards for toothpicks. And then there was Britney, in the very back of the long, narrow shop, where a fake fireplace was lit up with lights that simulated cozy flames, and few comfortable couches lent the shop a homey vibe.
Sitting on a couch, she hugged a large paper cup in both hands, still dressed as she’d been earlier. Which meant, she hadn’t gone home yet, so he’d probably caught her just as she was leaving for the day.
She saw him right as he entered and stood up to make herself visible. As if his eyes hadn’t gravitated toward her before he even walked in the shop. He waved. She waved back with her coffee.
Right. First things first.
He could not have cared less about coffee, but he got in line behind a guy buying a latte and muffin because that would give him time to think how best to attack this. He’d been seventeen and barely acne-free the last time he’d asked a girl out. Her boyfriend at the time had walked up in time to tell him no, and the girl had giggled when he walked away. A few weeks later, he turned into an actual shark for the first time. After that, well, girls hadn’t been high on his list of priorities.
Except for one other woman, one other time: Maggie Henson. The love of his life from age twenty-two to twenty-five.
For three glorious years, he’d had what hindsight was pretty well convinced had been a one-sided love affair with a sixty-year-old woman he only ever saw and talked to on the bus. He’d be heading home from work. She’d be heading to. It started with a comment she’d made on a t-shirt he was wearing, which was really kind of pathetic on his part that he’d turn that into a romance. But that was pretty much the silent, stoic, sad story of his life. He wasn’t any good at all with people, because he didn’t fit anywhere. He barely qualified as human.
God, he was a taller, burlier version of Jim the ‘Liquidman’ and if that didn’t make a fellow just want to quietly slink back out of this place, he didn’t know what would.
Still, Maggie had been the first real person in his life to just talk to him. Well, apart from school teachers, but they didn’t count because they were paid to do that. Maggie wasn’t. To this day he had no idea why she suddenly switched seats to sit closer to him, and then just started talking. Maybe she thought he looked lonely.
Maybe she was lonely too.
Whatever her reasons, for three years they talked about everything from the weather, to billboard ads, to the architecture and history of the buildings they’d pass, and the books she’d bring with her to read. She was amazing. He’d really liked her. She’d been like a grandmother, a mother and a best friend all rolled into one, and he hadn’t known what any of that had felt like before he met her.
And then, of course, she retired and stopped riding the bus. She’d also been married, but that was beside the point.
It had also been a long time ago and, although he could kind of see why those memories would surface now, they didn’t have anything to do with the present.
Muffin man moved on. Britney was once more sitting down, perched now on the edge of the couch, surreptitiously fussing with her clothes to make sure the coffee stain she’d finally noticed was hidden. She was nervous about this, and she was perfect. That ought to make him feel better, but it didn’t.
“What can I get for you?” the kid behind the counter asked as Ommin stared uncomprehendingly at his list of options. Coffee was like a language of its own, and he’d been so focused on Britney that he’d failed to study for this particular test. The only thing he did notice was there wasn’t a single option that came with a shot of liquid courage.
“Coffee,” he said, finally settling on his choice. “Black, no sugar.”
It took several minutes to make a latte. It took less than twenty seconds to pour straight coffee into a cup, cap it and pass it across the counter. Caffeine was nobody’s liquid courage, but it would have to do. Armed as best as he could be, he headed toward the arranged sofas where Britney was waiting.
“Hello again,” Britney greeted, her smile every bit as beautiful as he remembered.
Because he was an idiot, and quite possibly besotted.
“How was work?” he countered. Because he didn’t want to be an over-presumptuous creeper, he chose the couch directly across from her and sat.
There were three couches total, arranged in a ‘U’ shape around the fake fireplace, with a glass coffee table positioned in between and all of them drawn in so close together that the only distance between sofa arms was what little space was required for someone to pass between them. It was very cozy. One had to be careful not to kick the coffee table as one was trying to sit down. And heaven help him, but big as he was, if there had been anyone else sitting back here, he’d have probably stepped on them.
But once he was seated, this meager distance became a veritable Grand Canyon, yawning out between them. He immediately regretted not sitting closer.
“It was good.” She smiled. She also got up from where she was, walked around the coffee table, and promptly sat down sideways on the couch to face him, one leg drawn up underneath her and coffee held in her lap. She was so close now, her drawn-up foot almost touched his knee. His skin there tingled as if she actually had. He wondered if she felt something similar, because that touch of pink rose back into her cheeks as she bit her bottom lip, and suddenly focused on picking at her coffee cup lid, she added, “It was really good, actually. The part there at the end, especially.”
He tried to remember what he might have said at the tail end of the interview, but then realized she must have meant when she’d touched his scaly hand after letting those little girls touch his cheek. His belly tightened. Getting an erection here was the last thing he wanted, but sitting this close beside her all but guaranteed it happened.
She’d changed her seat, pretty well removing the creeper aspect, so he shifted in his, turning sideways on the couch so he could face her as well.
“That part was good for me too,” he told her.
Her laugh was soft and breathy, full of both excitement and disbelief. “I never in a million years would have thought you were on FetLife.”
Oh. That part.
Ommin quickly readjusted himself into the correct conversation. “Right. Well…”
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched the local area, looking for someone who wasn’t weird.”
That she hadn’t put him in with the weird ones was something he would love her for forever.
She shook her head. “How did I not see you? Not once in all those searches?”
“My account’s new,” Ommin told her. “In fact…” he cleared this throat, knowing he was probably going to ruin everything right here, but he was not a dishonest person by nature. The last thing he wanted was to base the future of this entirely hypothetical relationship with Britney on a whale of a lie. “I only just made it today.”
“And you pulled me up right away,” she guessed. “Probably because our preferences matched so closely.”
A minnow of a lie, on the other hand…
“Yes, they do,” he agreed. “Kind of amazing, really.”
She huffed, another breathy laugh of disbelief, then pulled herself together. “Okay, so,”—making herself comfortable, she pulled a square of folded notebook paper out of her pocket and quickly spread it out f
lat against her leg. She’d made another list—“tell me about yourself. You know…”
When she hesitated, her blush deepening, he finished her sentence for her, “The Daddy parts?”
“I found out a lot about the Ommin parts today,” she shyly answered. “I already know I like those parts. Although, to be honest, I’ve read your profile… um, probably four or five times already. I kind of like those parts too.”
“I did the same with yours,” he admitted. He had to reach, but only a little, to put his coffee on the table. Then slowly, deliberately, he took her folded sheet of paper away from her. He read the list of questions quietly. “I like your penmanship. Mine scrawls worse than any doctor you’ve ever been to.”
He checked; yup, still blushing.
“What kind of Daddy do I consider myself?” he read, starting with the first question. His mind went immediately to the books he’d found on Google, but if he had any hope at all of building any kind of relationship with Britney, he couldn’t do it while following storybook plot lines. At some point, he had to be himself.
So. What kind of Daddy was Ommin ‘the Sharkman’ Jones?
“I’m the kind who jumps into the ocean to rescue people I don’t know,” he finally said. “I imagine that would make me the kind who wants to nurture and take care of my little girl.”
She cuddled into the couch to listen, the set of her shoulders relaxing.
“I noticed the stain on your shirt.”
She immediately touched her chest, giving her suit jacket a self-conscious tug. “What would you do about it?” Her eyebrows twitched together, the bridge of her nose crinkling just a bit. It was almost a cringe, as if she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
Possibly making this a make or break question, which in turn made Ommin wonder if this was something one of those storybook Daddies might punish for. He honestly couldn’t see himself doing that.
“I’d put your shirt in the laundry, find you a clean one to wear, and ask you how your day was,” Ommin said honestly, and it was so hard to say that without imagining her sitting on her bed in nothing but a cute pair of panties, and hugging a stuffie as he dug into her closet. “A spill is an accident. Unless there’s a reason for you not to drink coffee, I wouldn’t spank for that. I guess I’m the kind of Daddy who saves my spankings for those times that really deserve it.”