Adventures in Online Dating

by Julie Particka

  Alexa surrendered to gravity and stopped bracing herself upright. Marshall leaned down and planted gentle kisses on both her nipples before pulling out and cleaning himself off. She breathed heavily and muttered, “Remind me to thank Peyton for the advice.”

  “Thank her for me, too.”

  That was it for afterglow. His break ended in only a couple of minutes, and they both had to get dressed, which was why he wanted some real time together. Stolen moments were sexy as fuck, but he wanted to lie next to her in a bed and hold her naked body against his. “So, about date night this weekend…”

  Alexa tugged on her shirt, fluffing her hair out from under the neck. “I can’t. Not after being gone the last two Saturday nights. While I may not be their favorite person in the world, the kids do like to spend time with me on occasion.”

  “I like to spend time with you, too. What happened to me not being your dirty little secret? Because that’s what I feel like right now.”

  “You’re not a secret, Marshall. I’m not hiding you, but there are only so many hours in the day, and of the ones not dedicated to work, most of the others go to my kids. It’s why the dating thing was only supposed to be for a few weeks—that pace isn’t maintainable. With the extra work Marflow and Rath keep throwing my way, it’s hard enough keeping up as is. That’s the downside of dating a single mom.”

  “But we aren’t dating. We’re just fucking…at work, no less.”

  Sighing, she leaned in close, standing perfectly still with her head on his shoulder, until he wrapped his arm around her. “We’ll figure it out. Realistically, this is all still new. It’s going to take some time to work out all the kinks.”

  Fine. He could be patient. “Kinks? Now you’re talking. I’ll make a checklist for Monday so we can compare notes.”

  She gave a low chuckle. “And there you go, planning things. I’m not even sure I recognize you anymore.”

  Squeezing her tighter, hating that it would be a few days before he even got to touch her again, Marshall kissed her long and tender. “See you Monday. Unless you might be up to Skyping tonight.”

  “That’s a possibility. See you Monday.”

  That had been their routine. Suggestion of business improvement while undressing. And then he had twenty minutes to make good on his guarantee of more than satisfactory casual sex.

  It was great.

  And it was horrible.

  Granted, the sex had been amazing every day, and even the whole doing-it-at-work thing was kind of hot. But they didn’t talk. Not about anything real, at least. And there was never another mention of going on a date or spending time with each other outside the café. Today was the closest they’d gotten to touching on it at all, and he’d promised to be patient.

  Whether he liked it or not, she had said casual, and they seemed to be fitting more and more into that carefully defined box with every passing day, which was what made Friday night all the more confusing.

  He got to his apartment after leaving the Bean Counter and booted up his laptop. She hadn’t dismissed the idea of Skyping tonight, but he wanted to email her and firm plans up. Because if they couldn’t even talk online over the weekends, he wasn’t sure how well this was going to work for him.

  You’re a fucking idiot. A million guys—at least—would kill to have what she’s giving you. She’s not even requiring anything exclusive. You’re the one who keeps insisting on her or nothing.

  Arguing with himself about her was getting old, so it was nice to have the distraction of clearing out junk mail. At least until he found his cursor poised over one labeled as from Brendan.

  Shit. He’d totally forgotten the kid had asked if he could email sometime. Considering how Alexa felt about separating what they had from her relationship with her kids, he debated deleting the thing unread. But that wasn’t fair to Brendan. Marshall had been thirteen once. He knew damn well how hard it must have been to reach out to someone who was practically a stranger.

  Besides, this wasn’t invading Alexa’s relationship with her kids. It was simply him having a relationship with one of them. And, damn it, he liked the kid. Hell, he liked all her kids. Her cutting him out of that part of her life sucked. Besides, Brendan needed a guy friend—one with more life experience than the rest of the eighth grade.

  So he clicked on the email.

  Hey Marshall,

  I know you said I could email, but if this is weird for you, I’ll understand. I have a girl problem. (Please just stop reading now if that’s too much information.)

  The kid was hilarious. If girl problems were enough to concern him, he never would have given up his email address at all. “Come on, kid, hit me with something good.”

  We have a dance coming up. It’s a formal thing, and there’s a girl I want to ask, but she’s never alone. The guys tell me to just ask when she’s with her friends, but that’s a world of pressure I’m not really okay with. Is there some easy, but not shady, way of getting her alone for two minutes to ask her to the formal?

  Brendan

  P.S.—Is it normal to dream about girls from school? Like DREAM about girls from school?

  That was it? How to ask a girl for a date? Part of him debated responding with stories about all the times he’d hit on Alexa and she’d blown him off, but that whole division of relationships came into play. While he was pondering his response, another email popped from Brendan.

  OMG. Ignore that last question. I shouldn’t have asked that. Also, you know if I was comfortable talking to my mom about this, I wouldn’t have emailed you, so please keep this just between us.

  Marshall paused with his cursor over the reply button. He didn’t want to hide anything from Alexa, but she was the one who’d insisted on the situation as is. If he were her boyfriend, he’d be able to have a different kind of relationship with her kids—one that she would know all about. But as far as the kids were concerned, he was just “the coffee guy,” and as the coffee guy, he had no reason to have a problem offering advice without spilling. He was the equivalent of a bartender to the under twenty-one crowd. A preacher who didn’t feel the need to bring religiosity to the fuzzy-wuzzies.

  Fuck it.

  He clicked reply and began typing.

  Hey, Brendan. I won’t ignore the last question, because it IS totally normal if this is a girl you like a lot. That doesn’t mean you should act on the stuff in the dream, but it does make sense why a public invite and response would be harder to handle. So, what you probably want to do is…

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Pizza again? Is everything okay, Mom?” Brendan frowned, concern etching lines in a face too young to have them.

  Who would have thought pizza for a few Tuesdays in a row would be the thing that wound up being noticed? She really thought she had everything balanced fairly well. Obviously, she was wrong.

  “I’ve just been really busy between my regular job and the Bean Counter the past few weeks.” Which meant she was too busy doing everything else to take the time to parent properly. Brendan’s frown found its way onto her face. What was the point in doing all of this if it negatively impacted her kids?

  “You work too hard. Maybe I could take a part-time job, if we need the extra money. Mow lawns or something?”

  “You are thirteen, Bren. Unless you’re in need of extra fun money, your job is school and helping around home. That’s it.” She couldn’t believe her life had gotten to the point where her kid thought he had to pick up the slack. This was what came of not planning. Everything got out of hand because no one was paying attention to the big picture.

  “Okay.” He glanced toward the kitchen and said, “Maybe I could start making dinner or something? At least when I don’t have play practice.”

  “That would be… Play practice?” When did that become a thing? They’d had a long talk over the summer about starting to prep for college. Eighth grade didn’t really count, but better he start early than too late. “I thought you were making student government
your focus.”

  He shrugged and swiped a breadstick through the sauce on his plate, not meeting her gaze. “I just thought drama would be fun. It’s still an extracurricular to put on applications and stuff.”

  This wasn’t in the plan at all. “So where does that leave student government? I thought you were planning to run for class president this year.”

  “I don’t know. I have to see how meetings and practices line up.” He still wasn’t looking at her, which meant he knew perfectly well how they lined up, and that he’d be skipping out on something important.

  This wasn’t like him at all. He had been the one who brought up prepping for college. What had changed in the last two months? He’d gone back to school and… Oh no. No. He couldn’t fall into the same trap she had. “Is this about a girl?”

  “No.” He shoved half a breadstick in his mouth.

  “Yes, it is,” Beau piped up. “It’s about Ginny.”

  Oh God. There’s a girl. And her son was changing his life plan in order to follow her. “No.”

  “What?” Brendan choked out around the mass of bread in his mouth.

  “I said no. You are not abandoning your plan to chase some girl.”

  “But, Mom—”

  She turned her full-on mom glare his way. “This isn’t up for debate, Bren. You need to learn to make hard choices.”

  And so do I.

  Too bad this particular one had her teenage-boy-turning-man shoving away from the dinner table and stomping toward the stairs. “In that case, I’m deciding to give up pizza. In the meantime, I’ll be busy having absolutely no social life all through high school.”

  Definitely time to put action behind her words. Just like Brendan, she was abandoning her plan in favor of having fun with Marshall. It was beyond time to start righting that ship.

  …

  It was the middle of the Wednesday teen rush when Alexa pressed her front to Marshall’s back while delivering a coffee. She leaned close and whispered, “I can’t stay past four anymore.”

  That so wasn’t what he’d been expecting when she got so close. “What do you mean?”

  But when he spun around, she had already gone back to her station. Her words had been an announcement rather than the opening of a conversation. And considering the line of people at the register, they wouldn’t be able to have any sort of real talk now anyway.

  When cheerleader number three cleared her throat and said she needed to order because she had to be at school for practice in like five minutes, he turned back to the task at hand.

  Order. Call it. Money. Next. Order. Money. Call it. Next.

  Over and over, until the last of the line dissipated right before the minute hand on his vintage wall clock ticked up to four. A glance around showed Alexa had already made her way to the storeroom. “Hey, Claudette, I have to—”

  “Go and do your thing. I can handle the stragglers.” She strode to the register, and he dashed to the back, determined to find out what the hell had happened.

  Alexa already had her apron on the hook. As if her announcement earlier was the end…of whatever they had from what he could tell.

  “What’s going on? This arrangement was your plan, you know.” Maybe using her favorite word against her wasn’t the best idea ever, but damn it…

  She shrugged into her jacket and picked up her purse. “Our twenty minutes haven’t been multiplying, but I’ve taken the habit of lingering too long, and my family is suffering. I haven’t made a weeknight dinner since we started this. Something has to give, and for better or worse, that would be us.”

  Ouch. Bottom of the damned pecking order. “Is this a last-hired, first-fired kind of thing?”

  “No. It’s an I-need-to-get-my-life-back-in-order thing. If you can find a better way to do it, I’ll happily accept an alternative plan, but my kids need and deserve more than a fast-food mom.” She shook her head and exhaled so heavily her shoulders visibly sank. “I am running myself ragged. I do my day job in the mornings and early afternoons. I come here until four thirty or five. I go home to feed my kids takeout and help with homework. Then I do research after they go to bed. I’ve been falling into bed at night and lying awake feeling guilty as hell about everything I’m not doing.”

  “Okay.” It wasn’t okay, at all, but he did understand part of where she was coming from. “But today I’m claiming the twenty minutes, and we’re talking this through. Let me help you.”

  Head drooping, she reluctantly allowed him to lead her into the tiny office. For the first time in forever, neither of them started stripping out of their clothes when he shut the door. She sank into the chair, and he perched on the desk. “It’s not help I need, unless you can add more hours to the day.”

  “My Time-Turner broke in the Battle of Hogwarts.” He shook his head. This wasn’t the time to be glib. “Sorry, I know how you hate the Harry Potter references. Lay things out for me. Where exactly are the problems and the guilt? Because I’ll be honest, I don’t really want to give up my post-rush break.”

  If he’d thought that would make her smile, he was dead wrong. Instead, she dove into an overview of her day, from the time she got up in the morning until she passed out sometime after midnight, making a point to remind him of both the short-term intent of her dating plan as well as the extra projects coming in from the corporate bigwigs at Marflow and Rath. “I don’t want to leave you in the lurch during rush, but right now, my priority has to be getting things under control as far as mealtimes. I’m setting my kids up for a lifetime of poor eating otherwise.”

  He tended to disagree at least a little—most people he knew who were allowed to eat junk food as kids grew up to eat a hell of a lot healthier. But he doubted she was the person who put any sort of moratorium on foods normally. The nutrition pendulum had just swung too far for her comfort right now.

  “And if you can get them fresh and healthy meals, we don’t have to give each other up?”

  She gave a dejected laugh, one that sounded like she’d already surrendered any chance for the two of them. “Sure, but I don’t think it’s going to be a simple matter of today I go home and make dinner, and then I magically have a plan that will work moving forward.” She scrubbed at her face. “If I can’t borrow your Time-Turner thing, do you have a line on fairy godmothers?”

  He didn’t make any promises, but he did pull her to her feet and wrap his arms around her. Fairy godmothers were hard to come by, but contrary to her insistence otherwise, this was something he knew he could help with.

  …

  Marshall’s decision to help her out seemed to be cemented by a new email from Brendan.

  I need your help again. Ginny said yes, and I’m sure the dance this weekend is going to be great. Only problem is her schedule is changing at the end of the marking period, and after that we won’t have any classes together. I joined drama club—she wants to be a movie star—but Mom threw a fit. She says I need student government for the leadership stuff on college applications. I actually WANT to do drama. And it’s not even all about spending time with Ginny, but I don’t have a good argument. Any ideas? Brendan

  As much as he didn’t want to argue with Alexa or tell her how to raise her kids, this was clearly her own issues rearing their heads and affecting Brendan as a result. The kid was in eighth fucking grade. He had an entire life ahead of him filled with things he had to do. Now was the time to experience the things real life would make him give up soon enough.

  Hey, man, if she seriously refuses, you’re out of luck. but if you’re just in need of a defense, you might bring up the fact that while everyone and their brother will be fighting it out for class president, you could already have drama club president and some team captainship under your belt. Two leadership roles are better than one—or at the very least as good as one. Good luck. Marshall

  He hit send without another thought and fell asleep, secure in the knowledge that he was helping Alexa’s family out. It balanced the scales a little after
all she’d done for him. The café was in the black with numbers climbing steadily enough he might be able to hire someone else to run the damn register within the next month or so. Yeah. He owed her as many favors as he could manage. And maybe once she realized he was committed to being a part of her life, she’d let him inside for real.

  …

  Alexa’s brain hated her. She’d made the choice to give up time with Marshall in favor of her kids, and while the guilt had disappeared when she roasted chicken and potatoes along with garlic green beans for supper, her libido had screamed at her once she was in bed. Her body had grown used to a good and thorough sexing most days of the week, and it hadn’t liked her skipping out on her twenty-minute rendezvous with Marshall. She’d masturbated for almost an hour before giving up on the idea that orgasming would help her sleep.

  Instead, she’d lain awake half the night thinking of him, about the way he’d held her so tenderly yesterday, as if saying goodbye.

  It was ridiculous. They would still see each other. Things just needed to go back to something vaguely resembling their former status. Maybe she could tweak meals so that they did some sort of takeout on Mondays and pizza Fridays. That was still five days of home cooking every week.

  And she’d still be exhausted all the damn time seeing as she was only substituting sex with Marshall for cooking and cleaning at home.

  By the time she’d dragged herself into the Bean Counter Thursday afternoon, she had no good answer to any of it.

  Marshall, however, seemed as if he’d slept like a baby.

  “Hello, gorgeous.” He swept her into a clandestine embrace as she tied on her apron. The kiss he brushed over her lips didn’t linger, but it was a definite kiss. What about that goodbye hug yesterday? Or had she totally misread that?

  Alexa glanced toward the front of the café, but Claudette was busy doing something and not watching the two of them. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing, but I’m planning to get into you in about an hour.” He winked and pressed another kiss to her mouth before striding confidently out of the storeroom.