I let my robe fall off my shoulders and onto the carpet and checked out my growing midsection in the full-length mirror. “Yeesh.”
“You look great,” Nat said.
“You lie.”
“No, I don’t.” Nat plucked the dress from my hands and held it open as I stepped in. Then she zipped me up and smoothed out the wrinkles. “You know who’s probably going to be there tonight?” She held me at arm’s length, as if trying to figure out a way to mold me into less of a mess.
“I don’t care,” I said, shrugging her arms off mine. “This is a work event. Work. I have to be there. He doesn’t. And I definitely don’t have to speak to him.”
“Understood.” Nat handed me a pair of peacock-blue earrings that somehow made the pink of my dress look less like bubblegum. Ah, the magic of accessories. “I’m just saying…the last time you and the father of your future child hung out at one of these things…”
“A different era, and well before he walked out on me after our baby’s ultrasound. We are done.” I wiped my hands together. “Besides we already slept together, and I no longer do repeats—or is this just you working overtime to get that SMARTboard?”
Nat’s eyebrows twitched. “Not at all. You and Ian hooked up before we made that deal. I’ll let you have him as a freebie.”
“You’re like a drug pusher offering ‘just a little taste,’” I said. “Still. Not gonna happen.” I grabbed a pair of emerald-green pumps from my closet. That’s how I’d fix my dress situation. I’d go full eccentric. I’d turn my ensemble into some fun, Madonna-esque costume with bright jewelry and lace gloves. I’d have fun with it. I was forty now, after all. And pregnant. A pregnant, single, forty-year-old woman was entitled to wear whateverthefuck she wanted. “Tonight is all business. My job is to convince donors that first graders desperately need to learn either French, Spanish, or Latin.”
Nat saluted me.
I slipped on three chunky multicolored rings that were like bowling balls on my hands. “I need you to be my support system tonight, talk about how much your students need a daily dose of language.”
“And I’ll tell them how much I’d love to send the kids away for an extra twenty minutes a day so I can get some planning done.”
“Ha-ha.” She was joking, but I used to teach, too. Truth lurked under her wit, and I didn’t begrudge her that. Teachers often got flack for all their time off, but they worked hard every second of the school day. “Maybe leave out that part.”
That night, a few hundred Glenfield Academy boosters crammed into yet another Evanston hotel. I’d worked with Jennifer, the fund-raising chair, to come up with a menu highlighting France, Italy, and Mexico. On our way in, Nat and I each grabbed a quesadilla appetizer, and she snatched a flute of champagne.
“It’s packed,” I marveled. When I first started the new job back in August, I fretted that we’d quickly tap out the donors with all the fund-raisers and money drives. But here they all were, ready to hand over buckets of money for a new foreign language endowment.
“Of course it is.” Nat patted my hand before wandering off in search of Third-Base Chris, who’d said he’d meet her here.
I busied myself right away—chatting with donors, making sure the food and drink kept flowing, reciting my elevator pitch on the importance of foreign language in elementary schools. I barely had a moment to wonder whether or not Ian would show, but then I accidently caught sight of him hanging out near the bar, a tumbler of scotch in his perfect, strong hand.
Damn.
I’d never considered myself a horny person. But just seeing Ian—the jerk who abandoned me while I relived myself in the bathroom of my doctor’s office—across the room in his tux, with his tie slightly crooked like he couldn’t be bothered to straighten it—I had to have him. I’d transformed into a Hungry Hippo for him, practically gnashing my teeth in an effort to scoop up all his marbles. And when he took off his glasses and cleaned them with his red pocket square—his red pocket square!—I nearly started grinding up against the nearest person—sorry, elderly woman in the rabbit fur coat.
“Dr. Sharpe.” The woman in the rabbit fur turned toward me, hand out. “Laetitia Collins. My grandson, Marcus, is a seventh grader.”
I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Collins.” I peeked back at the bar, but Ian had disappeared.
Good. Who needed him?
After another half hour of schmoozing and glad-handing, Nat grabbed the mic at the front of the room. “Good evening, everyone!” She grinned at a specific person in the crowd, and I followed her gaze to Third-Base Chris, who double-fisted two drinks as he beamed up at her. “Thank you all for coming here tonight to support our school and its burgeoning foreign language program. I’d like to invite the woman of the hour, Dr. Erin Sharpe, up to the stage.”
I set my water on a nearby table and scooted up to the front, where I took the mic from Nat with a hug. A roomful of rich people stared up at me, waiting for me to tell them how to spend their money. A very unusual sensation, indeed, but a perk of my job and a luxury I unfortunately never experienced while teaching in the Chicago public schools. My old school had no money for anything like an elementary school foreign language program, and no hope of raising the funds. These people had no idea how good they had it.
I leaned in to the mic. “Hello. Thank you all for coming tonight. Glenfield Academy has so much to offer its students, but we’re always looking for ways to improve, to push the envelope. That’s why we’re here tonight. In our country, we often start exposing children to foreign languages too late, missing the prime time for language development. With your help, we can implement an exploratory French, Spanish, and Latin program starting in kindergarten.” My face burned. Getting up on stage like this tortured me. I was an educator, much more comfortable in front of a bunch of kids than a group of adults hanging on my every word. I spun around and pressed play on the laptop behind me. An image of the school appeared on the large dropdown screen. I’d let the video the fund-raising committee made do the talking for me.
Several kids gave their testimonies about foreign language, but then a few alumni popped onscreen to offer their thoughts. One of them was Ian Donovan. In a suit. Talking about how his study of language and cultures had helped him in the business world.
I touched the corner of my mouth with my napkin to stem the drool. I had turned into a cartoon wolf. My eyes may have literally bugged out of their sockets.
These pregnancy hormones were no joke.
When the video ended, people clapped, and then they started rushing up to me with questions. And then I spotted Ian again, over in a corner, talking to Jennifer, the head of the fund-raising committee.
He was wearing a suit this time, not a tux. He reached up with one hand and loosened his tie.
Oh. My. God.
My attraction to his tie loosening was nothing more than a Pavlovian response thanks to the last time we had sex. The fact that Ian literally could not be counted on for anything did not change the fact that he was an incredible lay or that I hadn’t been with a guy since Halloween.
My body swirled with emotion—desire, anger, hatred, gratitude for his standing up for my foreign language program, confusion.
I grabbed another cheesy canapé from a passing waiter—giving myself a little credit for not grabbing the waiter, too, in my lust haze. Maybe I could feed myself to satisfaction. Maybe food was enough. I mean, back when I was dating Dirk, I’d fill my lonely nights with popcorn and the occasional entire pie. That all worked out very well for me.
As I bit into the cheese puff, I glanced back at Ian. My eyes were simply drawn to him. They would stick on him like glue tonight. The tang of sharp cheddar on my tongue couldn’t satiate me. I needed Ian’s lips. I needed his hands. I needed him. In me. Like, yesterday.
What. The. Hell. Was wrong with me?
He caught me staring, because, duh, my eyes had been boring holes into him. Instead of running away screaming, he waved. And t
hen he said goodbye to Jennifer and started walking over. Crap. How was I going to have a conversation with this dude without humping his leg? Or smacking him? Or smacking him in the face and then humping his leg? This was seriously a problem I’d never, ever imagined myself encountering. I dumped my cheese puff onto the nearest table and smoothed down my poufy dress as much as possible.
“Hi.” Ian kept a safe distance, which was smart. I’m sure he noticed my eyeballs were basically shooting out of my skull and attaching themselves to his ample pectorals.
“Hey.” I shook some imaginary hair off my shoulders. That was cool, Erin. Way to be smooth.
“I’m glad you’re here. I’d like to talk. To you.” He paused. “I want to apologize.”
Yes. I was in the mood to “receive” his “apology.” Holy shit. I was now in the everything-can-be-a-double-entendre phase. I was a lost cause. But damn it, no, Erin. He should have to apologize. I folded my arms. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”
“I’m really sorry about how I bailed on you. I’m utterly embarrassed.” He leaned in closer, and, my God, the scent of him. He was whiskey and leather and some kind of wood. Oak? Pine? Didn’t matter. He was wood. Ah, wood. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a dad-dad, but I wanted to let you know I’m here if you need anything, like stuff-wise.”
Oh, I needed something. A good stuffing.
“I do want to help.”
“You want to help?” Yes, Ian. I am willing to accept your offer. Help me.
He was about a body’s width away from me now. Definitely within grabbing distance. “I’ll do anything. Whatever you need.”
“Whatever I…” My voice trailed off as I pictured that whatever and all its infinite possibilities. My eyes traveled up to his. He was gazing down at me—intense, serious. When Ian’d said whatever, I’m sure he meant building a crib or paying for college. But I didn’t need his help with those things. I needed his help in a whole other area. A very specific area. And after walking out on me and our baby in the doctor’s office, he definitely owed me one. “Will you have sex with me?” This was an emergency. It was Valentine’s Day, and my baby’s daddy had offered to help me in any way I needed.
He backed up a few paces. I managed to step outside myself for a second and view the situation as an unbiased observer. I, a four-months-pregnant woman in a Pepto-Bismol pink taffeta dress just asked the hottest man in the room to do her. He’d offered, basically, to help me pick out a baby swing, and I’d asked him for his dick.
Not nutty at all, Erin. Totally within the bounds of rational human behavior.
I backed off. I’d take care of this at home, as I so often did, with my trusty vibrator, Ray Donovan. “I mean. Not. Though. Um. What?” I was just saying random words now.
But a smile had rooted itself on Ian’s face. He didn’t run away screaming or call in the cops or any other action that would’ve been fully within his purview. He grinned and leaned in, his brows furrowed in the most delicious, devilish way. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”
Ian stood so close, I could lick him, which was, for some reason, my first instinct. What have you done to me, fetus? I thought we were friends. “Yeah,” I said. “I’d heard that women can get kind of, you know, amorous while pregnant, and, well, usually they have a partner around to scratch that itch…”
“And you want me to scratch the itch for you?”
Oh, sweet lord. “Well, you are very good at it.” Very, very good.
“And it is partly my fault that you’re in this situation.”
“Hey, now you’re getting it.”
He held out a hand, and I laced my fingers between his. Ah, the sweet, sweet friction of skin-to-skin contact. I tugged on his arm and basically dragged him out of the ballroom.
This was an emergency.
…
Ian
“There’s even a couch in this bathroom,” Erin said. “It’s almost like they’re daring people not to have sex in here.”
She perched on the couch, looking cute and sexy and sweet at the same time. She was glowing. I mean, yeah, she was wearing a ridiculous pink dress and a whole bunch of other colors on her feet and fingers, but I wrote that off as part of her job. She was an elementary school principal. She was supposed to dress a little silly. It probably kept the children inspired or something.
I hung just inside the door of the private bathroom for a second, grasping the doorknob for safety. If I hadn’t been holding on, I would’ve run right to her, and the two of us, we needed to talk first.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. Heck, was I?
“Positive.”
I hadn’t been with anyone since Halloween. That was…almost four months ago. The last time I’d gone that long without having sex, I’d been a fifteen-year-old virgin. I was in a rut. I’d been out a few times while on the road or in town, but I mostly sat alone at the bar watching basketball.
Basketball! Me!
I barely knew myself anymore.
And now the reason for my identity crisis was perched in front of me, waiting for me to make a move.
“Nothing’s changed,” she said. “This is a one-time thing. Like last time.”
“Though, if we do it tonight, that makes it a two-time thing.”
“Dude, you knocked me up.”
“If I remember correctly, you had a hand in this situation, so to speak.”
“It was your garbage condom.” She wasn’t mad. At least not about that. Surely, part of her still loathed me for the way I left her at the doctor’s office, but right now her face wore a crooked grin, a mischievous grin. A sexy-as-all-hell grin.
I gripped the doorknob tighter. “You were so hot that night, I probably fucked up and put it on wrong.”
“So get over here already.”
I checked the door again, to make sure it was locked, and then I slowly approached and sat next to her on the couch. I laced my fingers between hers and moved in for a kiss—a chaste little peck. I’d suddenly regressed to being an eighth grader at his first coed party.
Erin playfully shoved my chest. “Lighten up, man. I’m not going to break.”
“Are you sure?” My eyes lingered on her abdomen. I knew people had sex while pregnant, obviously. I’m sure Tommy and his wife did, but it just wasn’t something we talked about. When a dude got married, or even started to get serious about a girl, the sex talk stopped. Was I going to hurt the baby? Or Erin? Would the baby somehow know what was going on? I mean, I knew intellectually that wasn’t possible, but still. What if it was? I’d been so worried about scarring this kid after it was born, I never even thought to worry about messing them up before birth.
“I’m sure.” Erin pushed me onto my back and crawled on top of me, straddling my hips. She leaned down to kiss me and ground against me. “You’re hard,” she whispered in my ear.
And now I was a little bit harder. “Well, you’re really fucking sexy,” I said.
Her knees tightened their grip.
“What do you want?” I asked. “This is all about you. You’re the boss.”
“I want you inside me. I’ve wanted you inside me since I saw you at the bar.”
This was what I’d been hoping for, right? One last tryst to get Erin out of my system? Well, here she was on top of me, literally grinding against me. I lifted my hips and fished a condom out of my wallet. I held it up to show her. “Is that silly? Do we need one? It’s not like you can get more pregnant.” I shrugged. This was such an unsexy conversation, but oh well. “I mean.” God, I was almost blushing. I hadn’t had this conversation with a woman since…college, maybe? “I’m disease free since aught-three.” And I hadn’t been with anyone since Erin, but I couldn’t admit that to her.
She giggled. “Aught-three? Do I even want to know?”
“You do not,” I said.
“Well, I know I’m definitely sans STDs. I’ve just recently been tested for basically every disease or disorder
known to humanity, but just to be responsible…” Her sky-blue eyes crinkled at the edges.
I laughed. “We’re such Gen X-ers.”
Her eyes widened, and she laughed at me. A woman was laughing at me while straddling me, her gorgeous chest bouncing up and down under her strapless dress, and it was totally wonderful.
I didn’t want to talk about the other women I’d been with, but whatever. There were no secrets, no boundaries between me and Erin anymore. We were fucking just one more time in a public bathroom. She was carrying my child. “…Millennial women don’t have the same fears that we were brought up with.” I ripped the foil off the condom.
“Oh, that sex will kill you?” She wiggled out of her underwear and tossed it to the ground. We were doing this clothes-on, wham-bam. No falling asleep together and accidentally waking up in each other’s arms. Erin totally got me.
“Yeah. Sex will kill you, and so will drugs and Halloween candy and Stranger Danger.” I rolled the condom on.
“We were raised to think everything would kill us.” She eased herself onto my cock with a little moan.
And just like that, the giggles subsided. A wave of calm radiated out from my groin, like my body had just discovered the meaning of life. I placed my hands on Erin’s hips as she rocked against me, taking charge.
She leaned down and moaned right in my ear, which got me going, and I bucked up against her.
“Take me from behind,” she whispered.
I did what I was told. The lady was in charge. She hopped off my lap and leaned over the couch, clutching the seat back and raising her taffeta-covered ass in the air. I dove right in. It didn’t take long after that. For either of us.
When we righted ourselves and I disposed of the pointless condom, I couldn’t stop looking at her. I couldn’t stop smiling at her. I liked this lady. I was glad she, of all people, would be the mother of my child.
“My ribs hurt.” I clutched my side.
“Too old for a bathroom dalliance?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No.” I kneaded a knot from my flank. “Too much laughing. That was fun. Fun and hot and all that jazz, but also fun—funny. Glad I could help you out in some small way.”
Knocked-Up Cinderella Page 8