Page 2 of Falling for My Son's Best Friend

“Oh you!” pshawed Angela. “So picky, and it’s only your first night out! No worries, a heartbeat it is then,” she smiled wickedly. “But let me get you a drink, mojito okay?” she asked before turning away. And just like that, my friend started burrowing into the crowd at the bar, pushing her way through reams of well-dressed people, determined to get to the front.

I sighed. Ang was always going to be Ang, the good and the bad mixed into one. On the one hand, my friend was a lifesaver. She was the one who’d convinced me to come out, who’d harangued me during multiple phone calls, cajoled me into this outfit, and built up my confidence so that I could wear something sexy, something revealing, giving up my nurse’s scrubs. But on the other, Ang was so bold, so brave and socially confident that she’d left me alone at the party. She was now deep into the thicket, her blonde head shining amid a sea of others, authoritatively ordering drinks, clasping her purse tight as elbows jostled, drinks sloshed, and talk rang out, loud and raucous.

I could never do that. I’ve always been shy and parties have never been my thing, even when I was young. Besides, it’s always been Rob for me. Or was, past tense. We’d met when I was fifteen and he was sixteen, getting married as soon as we were legal. Back then, I thought it’d be a forever thing, that the handsome boy would morph the man of my dreams, that he’d be everything and anything I needed. But after fifteen years together and one beautiful baby boy, it all went to shit. Rob found his teenage slut, and over the course of one year, managed to divorce me, marry her, and get her pregnant, three for three.

So I snorted a little. Life hasn’t been easy, and yeah, it’d taken five years for me to recover. I’d thrown myself into work, into being a mother, and fortunately my son Robbie has turned out okay despite his parents’ acrimonious divorce. In fact, Robbie was at State now, doing a double major in Environmental Science and Economics and I was never more proud of him. My handsome boy had grown up and was ten times the man his father was, responsible, hardworking, and a stellar athlete at that, it was his soccer scholarship paying his tuition. I’d gotten off light given that school fees now topped thirty thousand a year.

But still, there was something missing in my life. Maybe it was the fact that Robbie was gone, maybe it was the fact that the house was empty without him, dark and silent when I came home at night, maybe it was the fact that I was hitting forty soon. But what would make me happy again, what would make me buzz with excitement and life, was another child. Yes, it was time for a second baby, and now at thirty-nine, my timeline was short, biological clock thumping like the beat of congo drums.

So yeah, I was here hoping to meet a man, but realistically, was my baby daddy going to be here tonight, at this party? Probably not. What with meeting someone, dating for years, getting engaged, being engaged for years, and then finally a wedding, getting to baby the traditional way took forever and then some. So yeah, it was unlikely that Mr. Dad was milling about tonight, sipping a cocktail, making small talk.

But no worries, modern technology is wonderful because it almost doesn’t take a man anymore. There’s a thing called sperm donation, guys who sell their swimmers to a bank and then you can literally buy the goods. It’s crazy if you think about it, a man selling his DNA, what makes him him. But I guess it makes sense given that there are so many reasons why a woman might need sperm. Maybe they’re a lesbian couple who wants to conceive, maybe they’re an infertile hetero couple who need a little juice. Or maybe you’re like me, hitting forty with no man in sight but determined to have a baby, a cooing infant in my arms.

So surreptitiously, without telling anyone, I’d researched the process and looked into the best donor banks. It made me a little nervous honestly, going to the fertility clinic and clicking through page after page of information about potential baby daddies, nothing but words, words, words, plus a childhood picture if you were lucky. And so far, I hadn’t found anyone I liked, despite spending hours studying each profile, reading each one carefully, weighing the pros and cons of each man. There was Donor 162, who was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes, but his hobbies were puzzles, crosswords, and Sudoku. Nothing against that, but it just sounded unbelievably nerdy to me, even if the guy’s IQ was sky high.

And then there was Donor 1798, who was of mixed Greek, Latin, and Mediterranean heritage, and spoke six languages after living in thirty countries as a war photographer. But that was the thing. What if my child wanted to find his father one day? What were the chances that the war photographer would still be alive? So I shut the door on that donor too, sighing and exasperated. There were so many guys, but the descriptions didn’t do them justice, it was so difficult to describe a person via an application. And frankly, I was starting to give up. What seemed like it would be easy, plucking a resume from a stack, was actually turning out to be a huge chore, sobering and dispiriting.

But I wasn’t here for that tonight. I was here to drink, dance, get out, and let loose a little after years with my nose to the grindstone, home alone with my cat most nights. So I glanced around, waiting for Ang, hoping I didn’t look too desperate.

And whaddya know, but another senior citizen came up to me. Why was I attracting these ancient guys? This one looked like a fat cat, an investment banker with French cuffs and striped suspenders, his face red and glistening.

“Hey,” Mr. Cat growled. “What’s up?”

Was that all? Was that how he courted women, hoping to get laid? But maybe he was relying on his fancy Ferragamo loafers, the Hermes belt, the gold ring on a chubby pinky.

“Hi,” I said politely. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, I’m Patrick,” he said peremptorily. “Architect over at Hudson Bay. You heard of it? We did the World Trade Center, built that up after the planes took it down.”

I nodded, trying to look impressed. The city had been shaken after the attack, and the new Freedom Tower was a source of pride for us all, a hallmark of how far we’d come since the attacks. But the new WTC took ten years to build and had involved thousands, if not tens of thousands of people across two administrations. There was no way this guy had done it alone. But Patrick wasn’t waiting for an answer, nor was he exactly humble.

“Yeah,” he boasted. “Bloomberg was shit and Di Blasio wasn’t much better, without me there would be nothing,” he said. “Without me spearheading the effort, we’d still have a construction pit in the ground.”

That made me pause. In fact, I’d heard nothing but positive things about our two mayors with respect to the rebuilding effort, why was this guy denigrating them? It was hardly the way to introduce yourself to a new lady, putting others down as much as possible. So I tried to excuse myself, mumbling something about my friend waiting, how I needed to get back to her. But the portly man was insistent and slapped a hand on my waist.

“You look curvy, just my type,” he sneered. “I can make it good for you chica.”

What the hell? I looked at his meaty fist on the curve of my hip, sitting their possessively like it belonged there. Ugh, there was a sweaty handprint forming on the fabric of my dress, I wanted nothing but to get away. So I made my excuses, more forcefully this time.

“Um, I’m sorry,” I said frigidly. “But I’m not looking for whatever you’re offering.”

And Fat Cat goggled his eyes at me again, pulling me closer, that meaty hand still clawing at fabric of my dress, making my skin crawl with disgust.

“Come on little lady,” he leaned close, the alcohol stench from his breath blowing in my face. “Come on, let ole Pat put his dick in you, it’ll feel good in that tight cunt.”

And I gasped, about to grind my high heel onto his foot, make him squeal like a pig on a roast when suddenly I was pulled away and into safety, into the arms of an alpha male.

“Sorry buddy,” came a low, growling voice, “but she’s with me.”

I looked up to see the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. Tall, with dark hair and deep blue eyes, his chest was broad and wide, arms toned, long legs encased in black slacks. And a white smile flashed although it was anything but friendly. Instead, the man looked about to growl, to jump the fat architect and beat him to a pulp upon the slightest provocation, he just needed a good excuse.

But the fat man caved like a candle melting in flame.

“She didn’t say she was with anyone!” he whined. “She was just standing there, hanging onto my every word, she liked me!”

And I grew stiff, outraged and protesting.

“No,” I started, “I never said anything, I was …”

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