The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “Come for me, baby. Don’t let it stop.”

  He’s still riding in full force, and I’m grappling the sheets so tightly my nails might tear through the fabric. It’s like an endless loop of orgasms as he spills into me.

  Drops of sweat fall from Logan’s chest and dribble onto my breasts, acting like tiny triggering aftershocks that rock through my body.

  Never. It has never felt like that for me … more intense than I imagined.

  Logan collapses most of his weight to the side of me but lowers his chest to mine. His fingers comb through my hair, and he smiles as if he just won a twelve-inning game. “I thought you left. I thought I scared you away,” I tell him my thoughts from a half hour earlier.

  “Nah, I was playing with you. I was going to make you sweat it out a little longer, but it’s seriously shitty outside.”

  “Is playing hard to get your game?” I laugh softly, but he had to know he was stirring me up.

  “I just needed to set the mood after your incident.” Clever. I find it mildly humorous he thought to do that … because separation was obviously needed between the humiliation and hotness.

  “Do you actually have your things for the trip tomorrow?” I ask him.

  “Of course, I do.”

  “So, you just knew I was going to agree to let you sleep over tonight?” Am I that transparently desperate?

  “I had no idea if that would be the case or not, but I wanted to be prepared if you happened to agree.”

  “Are you homeless?” I’m not sure why the question spills out of my mouth, but I’ve just realized that I have no clue where he lives. Yet, he’s been here way more than any other man I have casually dated for just a week, and we haven’t even been on a real date. This is ridiculous. What am I doing?

  “I am not homeless. I live about twenty minutes from here.”

  “House, apartment, condo?” I question.

  “A condo in a high-rise on top of a mall.”

  “You live on top of the mall and haven’t invited me over?”

  “I was thinking, after we go out on a first date, I’d invite you back to my place.”

  Questions are pouring into my head. I think I’ve been simply infatuated with the idea of this former pro-athlete and his perfect package.

  “Why are you really working as a temp?”

  “I was bored.”

  “Why not take up a hobby?”

  Logan turns on his side to face me and props his head up with his fist. “Honestly?”

  “I’d prefer that,” I tell him.

  “A friend told me if I wanted to meet a woman, the best place to do it would be in a corporate office.”

  I feel a little shaken by his statement. His only intention for taking a temporary job was to meet someone. I guess someone should have warned him it was slim pickings at the office he was being placed at. “I guess you got the raw end of that deal.”

  “How so?” he asks. If he’s playing me, he’s playing me good right now.

  “Well, you had a choice between Brielle and me, and unless you’re a one in a million type of guy who isn’t into the Miss America look-alike, why set your eyes on me?”

  Logan looks taken aback by my comments, but I probably appear the same way because I’m confused and not so sure I like what I’ve just heard. “First, Brielle isn’t my type. She’s exactly like my ex-wife, and I’ve been avoiding the Brielles of the world since my divorce.”

  “So, you’re looking more for the washed-up, motherly brand?” That sounded kind of bitchy, but seriously, how am I supposed to believe that any guy would choose me over Brielle, and why is this just now crossing my mind? I need a good smack on the back of my head.

  “Is that how you see yourself?” he asks while sitting upright. “Can I just tell you something? Your sporadic comments here and there about your looks and how I shouldn’t look at you in the light, all that crap, I’ve heard everything you’ve said about yourself. Now, I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but I see this brilliant woman with a strong personality and gorgeous features.”

  “Logan, you don’t have to do this …”

  “Jesus, Hannah, quit being so obnoxious for a second.”

  I guess I’ve met my match. “Hey, I’m not being obnoxious. That’s rude.”

  “Then, quit it. Yes, you’re a mother, and I think that’s amazing because it’s something I wanted to watch in life—a woman I love, mother our child. On top of that, you’re a single mom with a douchey ex-husband, yet you wake up every morning and put one foot in front of the other like every other schmuck in that office, but you do it with grace and confidence. I’ve already told you how hot I think that is, so if you don’t believe me, I’m sorry, but I’m glad as hell I got placed in your office because otherwise, I may never have met you in person. You know, there was this little voice in my head when I laid eyes on you that said, ‘Dude, you did the right thing. She’s something’.”

  I’m at a loss for words, and I’m not sure I understand everything he just said. This type of thing doesn’t happen to me. I end up with crappy men because I’ve been the shallow one who goes for looks rather than a personality. Granted, I was in my twenties when I had that mindset and ended up in a ten-year marriage with Rick, but I blame myself for not being smarter back then. “I’m not fighting it, and what do you mean by, you may never have met me in … person?”

  “Stop what-if’ing it,” he says. “Live, Hannah. You deserve to do that for yourself.”

  “No one has ever said any of that to me,” I tell him, briefly forgetting my question about meeting me in person.

  “Even with all that Words With Friends you do?”

  “How did you know—”

  A smile perks at the corner of his lips. “I’ve been known to play a few games. Actually, it’s funny. I started talking to this one chick who was a total workaholic and too busy with her daughter to agree to one simple date. Three times I tried to meet her, and she just kept canceling.”

  I close my eyes, and my heart flutters into a fit of erratic thuds. “You.” Dickle15.

  “You are a tough one to nail down.”

  “You took a temp job—”

  “So I could do it the old-fashioned way … yeah.”

  Wow. Whoa, I am speechless. Should I be creeped out or flattered? “That’s kind of a creepy thing to do,” I tell him.

  “I thought you might say that.”

  “And you’re telling me after we slept together,” I remind him.

  Now, I’m back to the “why me” part of this. A hotshot who could have anyone tricks me into meeting him.

  “Online dating sucks, especially while playing the millennial version of Scrabble. I wasn’t sure I could go back and try things the old-fashioned way, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I’m sorry if it was wrong and deceitful. I should have been honest up front, but things spiraled quickly, and it kept getting harder to come clean.”

  I may have a panic attack. I slide out of bed, taking one of the sheets with me, and close myself into the bathroom, needing a minute to think.

  Chapter 26

  Dickle. What is a Dickle?

  Logan is Dickle15. Dickle15 is Logan. That’s why he stopped talking to me. I’ve been sending him messages throughout the week, getting no response, and he’s been here all along. I’m not sure I’m capable of digesting this.

  I’ve been sitting on the toilet seat cover for twenty-five minutes, staring at the speckles within the tiled floor. It’s creepy, right? I should be against this behavior. He joined a company to meet me. That’s borderline stalkerish—it’s something Brielle would do. I did tell him where I work, so that was my mistake. He never specified his career to me, and I never pushed the topic. I also did cancel our dates, but it was because I was scared of meeting any more creeps online, and now, here I am.

  What would I be teaching Cora if I went along with this type of behavior? Granted, she may never find out, but I’m trying to teach her to
avoid men like him.

  Cora. It’s almost time to get her.

  I step out of the bathroom and grab my clothes from the floor, finding Logan staring out the window from the bed. He hasn’t moved an inch since I went into the bathroom. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “I have to go get Cora off the bus.”

  “Okay, I’ll get my stuff together and head out.”

  “Just wait, okay. I need more time to think. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I dress quickly, avoiding eye contact with the perfect-looking man in my bed. That’s my problem. Perfect-looking men.

  I run out of the bedroom and down the stairs, throwing my coat on and slipping into my snow boots, leaving the laces loose and hanging to the sides.

  The winds are almost unbearable, and the snow is blowing sideways, directly into my face. It’s hard to see, it’s so bad. Why didn’t they close school earlier? There’s easily half a foot already.

  I reach the bottom of the short hill and pull the hood of my jacket down over my face to block out some of the snow.

  Somehow, by the grace of God, the bus is on time, and Cora jumps off the big step with her usual perky smile. I never should have let Logan in the house before I knew him well enough to let Cora get mixed up in this.

  “How was school, kiddo?” I ask her, trying to hide the pain in my voice.

  “It was boring. We couldn’t go out and play today.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be outside in this for too long. Trust me,” I tell her.

  As we walk closer to the house, she notices Logan’s truck in the driveway. “Logan is over?” she asks with excitement—excitement I’d rather not hear.

  “He is. He had to help me with something for work,” I lie.

  “So, he’s not staying again?”

  “I’m not sure right now, sweetie.” This blows. I should have known something was up. Life doesn’t just happen the way it happened. He was so wrong to do what he did. It was deceitful, and I promised myself I’d never end up with someone like that again, not after what Rick did to me.

  We walk inside, and Cora shakes the snow off her body and tosses her boots to the side. I follow suit, then hang everything up and place our wet boots on the doormat next to Logan’s.

  “Beefcake Batman!” she shouts. She runs into the kitchen as if she knows exactly where he is.

  “Miss Cora,” he says with a smile I can hear. “How was your snowy school day?”

  Cora chatters more about her day in thirty-seconds to him than she did with me on the three-minute walk home. I hate that she likes him. I hate that he’s good with her. I hate that I let him into my house with Cora home, now that I know what he did.

  “Can you make a snack?” Cora asks Logan.

  “You may want to ask your mom first,” he tells her.

  “I think you should go, and I’ll cancel your flight for tomorrow. Just do paperwork in the office until I decide what to do with you.”

  Logan looks heartbroken, and I feel the same. I liked Dickle15. I knew if we met it would most likely be different. Then he stopped talking, and it proved to be a lose/lose situation.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says while grabbing his coat and boots.

  “Mom, I don’t want Beefcake Batman to leave. It’s snowing really bad too.”

  I can’t listen to Cora. She doesn’t understand, although I don’t understand either.

  “I put up with crap like this for years, Logan. I just can’t.”

  “Crap?” he responds. “I wanted to meet you so fff—orking bad,” he catches himself before cussing in front of Cora.

  “Well, now you have, and you can go … spoon yourself tonight.”

  Cora giggles. “What are you talking about? I can give you guys a fork and a spoon. They’re right here.”

  “You wanted to meet me because I knew nothing about baseball, right?” I retaliate. We had that conversation more than a few times, and now I know why. I hadn’t heard of him, and I was safe.

  “No. Well, yes, I wanted a clean start. I didn’t want to be known as ‘that guy’ anymore. You can’t fault me for that.”

  “I don’t.” I press my hand onto the kitchen island, needing it to hold me up as my heavy heart tries to anchor me to the ground. “I blame you for not being honest.”

  He ties his second boot and stands back up. “Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly, you went about getting it in the wrong way?”

  I can’t think clearly enough to answer his question, so I don’t. “Please be careful driving home.”

  He looks down and away from me as he opens the door. “Wait!” Cora says while running over to him. She wraps her arms around him, looking like a little doll compared to Logan’s size. She yanks at his shirt, pulling him down to his knees and whispers something into his ear.

  “Cora,” I say, wanting her to stop doing whatever she’s doing. In response to me calling her, she releases his shirt and runs back over to me. Logan looks up at me once more, then leaves a cold gust of wind in his place as the door closes after him.

  “What did you just say to him?” I ask Cora.

  “I just … I told him I’d miss him.” She’s lying.

  “Let’s get your homework done so we can pack you up for your dad’s. I’m leaving in the morning for Florida, remember?”

  “I remember,” she says with a sigh. “I wish I could go with you.”

  “Me too, sweetie.”

  “I like Beefcake Batman,” she says. I wish she would stop calling him that.

  “I know, but some people come and go from our lives and we need to be okay with that. What’s important is that we always have each other, and we’ll never come and go. Do you understand that?”

  “No,” she says as she climbs up on the bar stool. “He likes you too. So, why would you make him leave?”

  Her words are making this harder and the hurt worse, and I’m still trying my best to digest all of it. If this was just about Logan for the past week, a man I just met, my heart wouldn’t be hurting, but it’s not. This is a year’s worth of conversations, topped with everything else that happened over the past seven days, which included me taking care of him when he was sick and vice versa. It’s like we had a relationship but didn’t. My head is just everywhere. “He made a mistake Cora, that’s all.”

  “You don’t like mistakes, do you?” Cora asks.

  “Cora, it’s not like that.”

  “What if I make a mistake? Will you not like me anymore either?”

  I take the seat next to her and pull her hands into mine. “Cora, you are my little girl. I don’t care how many mistakes you make in your lifetime, I will always, always love you. Do you understand?”

  “Kind of,” she says with a whole lot of disappointment settling into her big, blue eyes.

  She’s not old enough to understand the big picture, but I don’t want her to feel any of the repercussions of my decisions. I feel like I’ve caused her a whole lot of discontent in the last year. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I am.”

  “It’s okay, mom. I’ll try not to make mistakes, okay?”

  I’m leaving home with a broken heart tomorrow morning, for so many reasons.

  But at least my ass cheeks aren’t still glued together.

  Chapter 27

  A week that was supposed to be filled with hotel sex … was not filled with hotel sex

  Four Days Later

  “Folks, the flight might be a little bumpy, so we’re asking that you keep your seatbelts fastened throughout the trip. We should be arriving in in approximately three hours and ten minutes, where it is currently snowing and the temperature is thirty-two degrees. We hope you enjoy your flight with us today.”

  I need wine or something. “I hate flying, even in good weather,” Brielle whines in my ear. This week has felt like three while listening to her go on about her threesome troubles, a lack of a ring, and no guaranteed wedding date. I’m looking forward to going home, getting my Cora snuggles and forg
etting about everyone and everything else. “Did you shut your phone off?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” I take my phone from the pocket of my bag and find a notification from Words With Friends on my display. Actually, there are twelve notifications with new game requests. I open the app quickly, keeping an eye on the flight attendant who’s slowly making her way down the aisle. All the requests are from Dickle15, but why twelve games?

  I start with the first one, looking at the game board, finding the word,” hi.”

  I click “next” for the second game board and find the word: “no.”

  The next ten have either a “no, sad, mad, low, foe,” oh, and there’s a “dumb” mixed in with his two and three letter words. Then, the twelfth game has the word “sorry.” A thirteenth game request comes in, and it’s the word “love.”

  Love. You can’t love someone after a week.

  A message on the side pops up next:

  Yes, I love you. It’s been a year, and during that time, I fell for your personality. No, I didn’t know what you looked like, but that was just the extra good part of everything.

  I screwed up bad. I wasn’t thinking. I wanted to be with you, and men don’t always make the right decisions. We can’t always handle life properly, kind of like the flu. I originally got your name from a friend, who explained your situation, which, marital-wise, was like mine. After sucking at vocabulary most of my life, I was willing to take a chance. I never thought this silly game would create a friendship, as well as teaching me some words I’ll never use in real life.

  Anyway, Hannah, I miss you. I’ll play another 365 days of Words With Friends with you if it means you might forgive me someday.

  “Ma’am, I need you to turn your phone off now.”

  “Oh okay, sorry,” I tell her.

  “Told you,” Brielle adds in.