Mommy's Boyfriend (Be My Boyfriend Book 1)

by Victoria Snow

  “Please don’t tell my mom,” I said instead, my eyes round and pleading as they bore into his own. “I don’t want her to know what happened between us. Promise me you won’t tell her!”

  3

  Spencer

  I couldn’t believe my luck! After all this time, the girl who got away was hiding away in my very own hometown of Halston. It had to be a dream, right? Or maybe, if I was optimistic, I could imagine that it was some miraculous design of fate for us to meet each other here again, but… she’s Robin’s daughter. How did I not know that? Man, what are the chances. Clearly, Idaho was smaller than I thought! That definitely complicated things, but I didn’t dwell too much on the subject. After all, it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I wanted Rylee and I would be damned if I let her get away a second time. Whatever happened, I’d find a way to make this work. I needed to.

  But then she asked me to lie to her mom about us and I began to doubt everything. I didn’t want to keep secrets from my friend, especially an old one like Robin, and I definitely didn’t want to have to hide how I felt about Rylee. But if it was what she wanted, then I’d do it. At this point, I’d have probably done anything this goddess of a woman had asked me to. Even after five years, the very sight of her took my breath away.

  “Okay, I won’t tell her. I promise,” I agreed with a reassuring smile.

  Rylee seemed to relax a little after that and I leaned in closer to her, desperate to touch her, maybe even kiss her, but before I could do much else, she had pushed past me and hurried off into the kitchen after her mother. I watched her go, feeling confused and a little hurt. Didn’t she have anything else to say to me after all these years? Wasn’t she as excited about this as I was?

  I figured that it was a bit of a shock and in light of pretending to be her mom’s boyfriend, that maybe Rylee was confused as well. With a sigh, I took a deep breath and decided to go spend some time in the fresh air to clear my head. I made my way to the back porch and I felt instantly better once I stepped outside.

  Robin’s garden was verdant green and surrounded by flourishing bushes and flowers in a rainbow of colors. I took in a lungful of the pure, cold air outside and let my thoughts go wild. Seeing Rylee again after such a long time had those intense feelings all rushing back to me. It was like we’d never spent any time apart. I began to recall all of those evenings we spent flirting with each other and how I’d never imagined it would amount to anything more than a few compliments and blushes. Oh, how wrong I’d been.

  The night I’d slept with Rylee was the most passionate and earth-shattering experience I’d ever had. It had shown me just how wonderful and blissful sex could be and every person I’d slept with since had paled in comparison to her. I could still remember exactly what that night was like. I remember how beautifully Rylee had moved, how breathtaking her curvy, smooth body was, how wonderful it had been to hear her scream in pleasure…

  I cursed myself – not for the first time – that I’d left the next day for Chicago. I’d only expected the business negotiations to last a weekend, if that, but patents were a more complicated matter it turned out. I’d ended up in Chicago for a whole six months and when I came back to Boise and checked the coffee shop, Rylee had disappeared. I hadn’t had her phone number, her address, anything. But today, fate had given me a second chance and I was determined not to waste it. I knew all along that Rylee was the woman for me. Now, I just had to prove it to her.

  It would be hard though. She was acting much more awkward and skittish than she had the first time they met. I suppose that’s because I disappeared without a word, I thought as I sat down on the edge of the porch and watched the sun set over the trees ahead of me. I wanted to take back how I had left things. I wanted to go back to that night and get her phone number. I wanted to find a way to make things right, but five years was a long time and Rylee’s feelings toward me might have changed by now. How on Earth was I supposed to fix things?

  “For starters, you could apologize, you dumb oaf,” I chastised myself with a roll of my eyes. I’d been so focused on how I was feeling that I hadn’t really considered Rylee’s feelings. I needed to make it up to her and fast, before I lost my chance forever. I resolved to explain everything to her properly and find a way to talk to Rylee without her mother around.

  Having cleared my head, I stood once again, brushed down my clothing, and headed back inside. By the time I did, the two women had finished cleaning up after dinner and they were sat chatting at the dinner table. As soon as I entered, however, they both paused their conversation and looked up at me. The resemblance was striking for a moment; they both had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, yet something about Rylee’s face was far more striking and magnetic. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her plump pink lips and her soft, round cheeks. I was thrown back in time to when I’d seen Rylee the very first time in the coffee shop. I thought she was so breath-takingly beautiful, but I’d believed she was way to young to go for a guy like me—how wrong I had been!

  I darted my eyes away after I realized I’d stared for a little too long. “Thank you both for such a lovely dinner. It really was nice to spend time with the both of you,” I told them, breaking the awkward silence.

  “There’s no need to thank me really,” Robin responded as she patted her daughter on the shoulder. “This one here is a great cook! She did all the hard work. I always say she’ll make a wonderful wife for someone one day.” She looked over at her daughter with fondness and familiarity while Rylee blushed pink.

  That man will be me, I told myself. It has to be.

  “Mom, stop it,” Rylee chided with a small smile. “It was just chicken and vegetables, nothing special.”

  “Don’t put yourself down,” her mom replied, “Spencer, wasn’t dinner just great?”

  Feeling a little awkward caught between Rylee and her mom, I just nodded before attempting to change the subject. “I should be getting back now,” I said to excuse myself. I wanted more time to think over my plan with Rylee and being in her presence and Robin’s at the same time was no way to do that.

  “Of course, thanks for coming over, Spencer, and thanks again for your help with Archie! I’ll see you for our ‘date’ on Friday,” Robin told me with a short laugh.

  I smiled at her. “I’ll come and pick you up at seven. It was nice meeting you, Rylee.” I could hardly look in her direction. I didn’t want to be the one to give away that we’d met before. If I pissed Rylee off anymore, things might really be over between us.

  “It was nice to meet you too, Spencer,” she answered, looking more confident than I felt, and with that, I headed for the door.

  The drive home was fueled by nervous energy. I told myself that at least once I was back, I could speak to my buddy Sam about it all. I was staying with him on the ranch while I was in town. He was the only high school friend I’d stayed in touch with outside of reunions and I knew I could rely on his advice.

  The countryside sprung up around me and glittered in the orange and pink rays of the dusk as the sun slinked away below the horizon. The ranch looked the same as always as I parked up and I passed Sam’s sheepdog, giving him a pet as I went, before heading through the open front door.

  “Sam!” I called.

  The ranch owner appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands clean with a cloth as he approached. Despite being three years older than me, Sam looked like he might be in even better shape. The hard labor on the ranch day-in and day-out made him muscular in ways I don’t think a gym could. Unlike me, his hair hadn’t started graying. It’s brown and short, tousled a little from the wind, and his green eyes looked at me quizzically.

  “So, how’s your fake girlfriend doing?” he asked with a wry smile.

  I rolled my eyes at him and crossed my arms. “She’s doing just fine, but she isn’t the problem,” I confessed.

  “Oh?” Sam replied, his interest peaked as he draped the cloth over his shoulder and approached me. “What’s
the problem, chief?”

  “It’s Rylee.”

  “Robin’s girl?” Sam confirmed, his eyebrows narrowing. “Why, she’s a lovely girl. I always have a nice chat with her when I go down to the grocery store while she’s working. How could she be a problem?”

  “I slept with her before,” I admitted with a huff. “I think I might be falling for her.”

  “So, let me get this straight…” Sam started with a twinkle in his eye that I knew would lead to no good. “You’re pretending to be dating Robin, but you actually want to be dating her daughter? A daughter you’ve already done the deed with?” Sam let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Boy, am I glad that I stay on the ranch and keep myself to myself. None of that dating business. No, the most awkward thing I experience is when I accidentally make eye contact with a steer while he’s trying to relieve himself!”

  Sam burst into a fit of laughter and I couldn’t help following him. This crazy, weird day had left me feeling a little out of sorts. It felt good to laugh and focus on something other than the question that had been plaguing me all day:

  How was I going to speak to Rylee away from Robin?

  4

  Rylee

  Two days passed and I didn’t see Spencer again. Frankly, I was grateful for that. He’d thrown me for a loop with his sudden reappearance in my life and I was hoping he’d be gone quickly so he didn’t interfere with my life or Jayden’s. After all, he’d proven he wasn’t exactly the most dependable guy after he’d slept with me and then disappeared. I let out a sigh and glanced up at the clock. It had only just gone eleven and I had hours of my shift still left to go at the grocery store. Thankfully, I had someone to keep me company.

  “Colin put me on a Saturday evening shift again next week,” Dahlia, my best friend, complained from the check out next to mine. She let out a huff of breath and began to twirl her long, curly auburn hair between her fingers.

  “I can swap with you if you want,” I offered. I didn’t mind taking the later shifts since it meant I got to spend more time with Jayden during the day and my social calendar wasn’t exactly brimming with events.

  “Are you sure?” Dahlia asked, her hazel eyes watching me with concern. “That would be your third Saturday evening this month!”

  I shrugged. “It’s cool, I don’t mind.”

  “You’re the best, Rylee. I’ll take you out shopping as a thank you,” she told me.

  “That’s totally not necessary,” I said with a wide, toothy smile. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m happy with what I have.”

  Dahlia grabbed one of the magazines from the surface next to her and opened it up to a page about vintage corduroy. “I know you are, Rylee, but what about me! I just have to get a pair of these green pants! They’d go great with my orange chiffon blouse!”

  I rolled my eyes at Dahlia and her strange idea of ‘fashion’, but I couldn’t argue with her. I wanted her to be happy, no matter how crazy I might think it was. “Well, if you’re taking me shopping for you, that’s not really a thank you, is it?” I teased.

  “Of course, it is,” she replied instantly. “You get to spend time with me, that’s your reward.” She winked over at me and I couldn’t help laughing.

  “It would be nice to get out of the house and do something different for a change, especially with what’s going on right now,” I explained, letting out a sigh while I adjusted my name tag.

  “Why? What’s going on?” my red-headed friend asked with a look of concern etched over her dainty and pixie-like features.

  I dropped my voice to a whisper and explained. “My mom has another one of her crazy ideas and it’s much worse than any she’s ever had before.”

  “Worse than the time she decided she wanted to start beekeeping?”

  “Way, way worse,” I told her with a deadly serious look on my face. “My mom wants to pretend to have a fake boyfriend so her boss will stop flirting with her.”

  Dahlia screwed up her face in confusion. “Why doesn’t she just tell him ‘thanks but no thanks’?”

  “Apparently, he doesn’t usually take no for an answer and my mom is worrying about getting fired. But that’s not even the worst part…” I trailed off and looked over my shoulders to see if anyone was nearby. When I realized no one could overhear, I carried on. “The boyfriend she’s pretending to have is… Jayden’s father.”

  Dahlia’s eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open. “No freaking way! Are you serious?” she cried. “I thought Jayden’s father was some random one night stand you never saw again!”

  “He was,” I told her with a huff. “I never thought I’d see him again. Turns out he was one of Mom’s old high school friends…”

  “Oh my God, what are you going to do, Rylee? Has he met Jayden yet?”

  “No,” I answered with a shake of my head. “He came for dinner, but Jayden wasn’t home. Thank God! I don’t know what I would have done if he had been…” I dropped my head to my hand and let out a long, slow breath. Everything felt so crazy and I really wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to keep it all together.

  “He’s going to find out sooner or later, Rylee,” Dahlia pointed out with a sympathetic smile. “You can’t exactly hide your son on playdates forever and besides, you’re still living with your mom! If he’s your mom’s ‘fake’ boyfriend, they’re going to run into one another sooner or later.”

  “I know, I know…”

  “And even if by some miracle they don’t, do you really expect your mom to keep quiet about Jayden? You know how much she adores him,” Dahlia added, pointing her fingers at me as she spoke.

  “You’re right, I know you’re right, Dahlia. It’s just…” I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face as I tried to come up with a solution that would cause the least amount of damage. It was impossible. “I just don’t know how to break it to Spencer. What if he gets mad? What if he wants to meet Jayden and then just takes off? How do I explain this whole complicated mess to a four-year-old?”

  Just as Dahlia was about to open her mouth and reply, I felt a presence behind me and I spun around expecting a customer, but I wasn’t so lucky. It was Colin, the store manager, and he was looking at me with that same overly friendly look on his face.

  “Oh, hi, Colin. Is everything okay?” I asked him.

  “Yes, it’s a quiet day today, isn’t it?” he replied cheerfully as he passed me a plastic bag of dollar bills. “I brought these to refill your register. I thought you might need them.”

  “Um, thanks?” I said with a half-hearted smile. I really didn’t want to make small talk right now with everything going on in my head. I turned back around to face Dahlia, but straight away, Colin coughed and I rolled my eyes.

  “I was wondering if you’d ever been to the botanical gardens two towns over in Grangeville?” he asked while he scratched the back of his neck in a nervous gesture.

  “Erm, no, I can’t say I have,” I told him as I turned around.

  “Well, they’re having a special rose exhibit for the next two weeks and I thought maybe you’d like to go check it out sometime… with me.”

  The question had me stumped. Colin was a nice guy. He’s reasonably handsome, a little older than me, and he had a stable job. I was sure he’d make a great boyfriend, but in all honesty, I’d never been able to bring myself to be interested in anyone after Spencer and now that he was back in my life, Colin’s odds went from unlikely to absolutely not. Still, he was my boss and a nice person. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I smiled.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I have Jayden to look after and all. I’d have to find a babysitter—"

  “You can always bring Jayden along! Does he like flowers?” Colin asked, looking a little put out. It was a rather odd question. What four-year-old boy was interested in flowers? I glanced behind my shoulder to see Dahlia suppressing her laughter behind her hand. I didn’t want to be rude, though, and the offer was a sweet one.

  “I’ll think
about it,” I said to him in the nicest way I could. It was a bit of a cop out, but hopefully, I’d have gotten somewhere with the Spencer issue before Colin brought it up again.

  “Great!” he replied with a triumphant smile. “I look forward to hearing from you when you’ve made up your mind.” He nodded at me before peering over at Dahlia. “And you, do you need any more change for your register?”

  “Nu-uh,” Dahlia told him with a shake of his head. “But for the record, I do like flowers.” Her face was the picture of innocence, but I could see the mischievous glint sparkling in her eyes and I let out a small giggle.

  “I’m afraid there aren’t any flowers in the office, just bills,” Colin replied curtly. “Get back to work, both of you.”

  “Yes, Colin,” the two women replied in unison before bursting into laughter the moment Colin was out of earshot.

  The day passed after that like any other. I was busy sliding items across the scanner and helping customers bag up their products and I guess I kind of spaced out a little. I couldn’t drag my thoughts away from the whole Spencer issue. All I kept thinking about was Jayden’s little face and how disappointed Spencer could make him if something went wrong. I tried to think of the right way to tell Spencer I secretly had his child four years ago, but it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t imagine any scenario where he wasn’t going to explode and end up angry with me. It was really bumming me out and making the day drag on.

  I was caught up in my imaginary scenarios that when I glanced up at the next customer approaching the check out, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Stood in front of me was none other than gorgeous, sexy Spencer. His eyes were watching me carefully, those cloudy gray eyes gauging my reaction to his presence. I couldn’t help it. I don’t think it had really sunk in that he was here in Halston. I blinked once and then another time.