Chapter 13: The Third Date
Present Day...
Allie
I woke to a finger in my ear. Sadly, this was not an altogether unusual occurrence for me, but it was startling, nonetheless. Jolting, I opened one eye to see my angelic-looking offspring standing next to my bed, finger poised above my ear to poke me again. When she noticed I was awake, she covered her mouth to hold in her giggles, then proceeded to pounce on the bed. Since I was lying in said bed, she landed on me in a tangle of knees and elbows that would surely leave bruises. "Ooof! Easy there, Gracie-girl. If you kill me, I won't be able to make your breakfast!" I said with mock sternness.
"I'm sorry, Mommy. I pwomise I'll kiss your boo-boos and you'll be all better and then you can make me a good bweakfast, cuz you're the bestest bweakfast maker ever," she said pitifully, complete with a tiny lip quiver, pouty eyes and all.
Oh, this kid. She was good. Cute as a bug and she knew how to work it. I couldn't imagine where she learned that from. We might have to work on her pronunciation of consonant R-blends, though.
After I shooed my almost four-year old alarm clock off of the bed, I flung back the covers and hopped out of bed ready toface the day. Oh, who the hell was I kidding? I grudgingly tossed the covers off with a groan and slid out of bed. I stumbled, did a funky little hop-step, and fought to dislodge my left foot that had somehow gotten tangled in the sheet. I won that battle and picked up the corner of the sheet that had been dragged off the bed, counting it a win that I was still actually upright at the moment.
I yawned, stretched, and wondered for the thousandth time how I had birthed a child who was a*gasp*morning person!I blamed her father. Alex always woke up in a good mood. I wake up in a mood all right, but it rarely qualifies as good. It was a good thing Nico doesn't often see me when I first get up, or he'd change my nickname for sure. "Sunshine" in the morning, I was not. I was more the why-the-hell-is-it-morning-already kind of woman who stumbled around like a drunken zombie until I had a cup or three of hot tea.
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I grabbed my phone off the charger and turned off the actual wake-up alarm that didn't even have a chance to go off yet. I wandered into the kitchen, hollering for Gracie to turn the TV down, which was currently up loud enough for the neighbors three doors down to hear. I hoped they liked Paw Patrol. She has limited screen time, but I did let her watch morning cartoons while I fix breakfast most days. I filled the tea kettle, and got a mug, tea bags, sugar, and creamer out. This morning's mug said,"I have zero fucks left to give!"Don't judge me - my kid can't read yet. I'll worry about getting G-rated mugs when she masters her ABCs.
I grabbed the kettle as it started to whistle and filled the mug. While the tea was steeping, I got a handful of grapes from the bowl in the refrigerator and peeled an orange. Adding sugar and creamer to my now perfectly steeped tea, I gently blew on itand took my first sip of the day. Ambrosia. Pure ambrosia. Or at least as close as I could get at 6:00 on a Wednesday morning.
"Do you want oatmeal or pancakes this morning?" I asked, wandering into the living room while munching on a grape.
"Waffles," she said, hanging upside down over the arm of the sofa.
I gave her the stink eye and motioned for her to sit upright. "Waffles are not on the menu this morning. This diner is only serving oatmeal or pancakes."
"Donuts," she shouted with glee.
"If we had donuts, I'd be eating them already instead of this fruit. Oatmeal or pancakes?"
"Cereal" is the response I received, as her gaze remained glued to the Paw Patrol action on the TV.
"Oatmeal it is then," I said with a sigh. I was clearly going to need another cup of tea.
An hour and a half later, we pulled into the parking lot of Gracie's preschool. I signed her in and turned away from the desk to give her a hug and kiss. Gracie, however, had spotted her "bestest fwiends" and had rushed off to join them on the story-time rug. Their teacher, Miss Rosa, always started the day with a story to go along with whatever their lesson was about for the day.
"Bye Gracie. I'll see you around 5:00. Love you!" I called over to her. Gracie gave me a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement over her shoulder, as she and her friends huddled their heads together chattering and giggling already.
"Oh, Mommy, I love you too. I'll miss you,"I muttered to myself sarcastically. I heard a rumble of laughter behind me, and turned to see Liam, and his son Grayson standing behind me waiting to sign in.
"Sorry," I said with a smile, stepping aside so he could get to the desk.
"It's great to be the center of their world, only to be shoved out into the cold and forgotten about as soon as they see their friends. I think this prepares us for the teen years, when they'll pretend we don't exist all the time," Liam said with a smile of commiseration. Grayson had already run off without a word to join the group on the rug.
Liam's son had started attending this preschool a few months ago, but we had never really spoken until a couple of weeks ago. We had both volunteered as parent chaperones on the preschool's field trip to the zoo and were paired up to watch over a group of six kids, all between three and four years old. Yeah, I don't know what the hell we were thinking. We had bonded over spilled drinks, multiple potty breaks, and a minor freak-out in the reptile house. That the freak-out was mine - I had a phobia about snakes - seemed to charm Liam, and he'd lightly flirted with me for the rest of the day.
He had asked me out for lunch the next day, and we'd had a nice time getting to know each other without the pre-K audience we'd had at the zoo. I'd discovered Liam had been divorced for a year and had primary custody of Grayson as his ex-wife was an ER doctor who worked long hours. He worked as a film editor, so he wasn't star-struck over my job as a few of the men I'd met were. We had traded war stories about some of the outrageously entitled celebrities we'd met, chatted about our kids and being single parents, and had a really wonderful time. He'd given me abrief kiss on the cheek as he walked me out to my car, then asked me out for the following Friday night, when Grayson would be with his mom again.
Our second date had also gone really well. I'd met him at the restaurant again, taking an Uber this time since I knew I'd probably have a glass of wine with dinner. He was easy to talk to, and we had a lot in common. We shared similar tastes in music, books, and TV shows. After dinner, he had offered to drive me home. I was comfortable with him by that point, so I had agreed, appreciating the offer. Hannah and Dean had come over to watch Gracie again, so the lights were on in the house when we had pulled into the drive. We'd spent several minutes kissing in his car before I got out and went inside. It had been so nice to be held and kissed, and just to be close to a man. There was a bit of a spark. Nothing like what I felt when I was anywhere near Nico, but a little spark, nonetheless. I had hoped that maybe, finally, this was what I needed to get over my feelings for my best friend.
After he signed Grayson in and received the same kind of half-hearted wave from his son that I'd gotten from Gracie, we turned toward the exit. He held the door open for me, and we both stopped outside under the wide awning.
"So, I'll pick you up tonight at 7:00. I made 7:30 reservations, and then we have tickets for the 9:30 show. The restaurant is around the corner from the comedy club, so that should give us plenty of time to eat first," Liam said, confirming tonight's date.
"Sounds great, I'm looking forward to it," I said with a smile.
Luckily, it was a routine day in the office for me. I was working on things for a few of the other bands and artists that Michael managed, while he was out meeting with a producerand some executives with one of the record labels. My mind wandered as I worked in the solitude of the office. Truthfully, I was pretty nervous about my date tonight. Hannah had been teasing me yesterday about the "third-date rule” and asking whether or not I was planning to sleep with Liam tonight. I didn't think I was ready for that quite yet, and I hoped he wasn't expecting to go that far. Our mini make-out session in my driveway after our last date was the most intimate contact I'd had with a man since Alex had gotten so ill, outside of my dreams of Nico and that one tequila-induced sleepy ass-grinding he'd given me on his sofa months ago. I was fairly sure those didn't count. God, I was damned pathetic.
After my parents picked up Gracie that evening, I paced anxiously in front of my living room window, watching for Liam to pull up. I'd almost talked myself into canceling that afternoon but knew that wouldn't be very fair on such short notice. So, I'd come home and gotten ready to go out on a third date with a man I felt a little spark with but probably would not have sex with, and tried to quit comparing him to Nico.
