Page 120 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man

Then the doorbell interrupted our conversation. My eyes flared. “Oh God. Caitlin is here. I need to hide this stuff.” I tossed the vibrator into the box, not even bothering to put it back into its pretty case, and looked around in a panic to find where I could hide it. Whatever calm had come over me quickly disappeared. “I gotta go. She’s here! She’s here!”

“Okay…give me two seconds first.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

I looked into the phone.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

I was pretty sure I could use everything inside the box all at once and I’d still feel stressed now that Caitlin was at my door. But Brayden meant well, so I did as he asked and closed my eyes. When they opened, he smiled.

“I love you, sweetheart. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“Good luck.”

My heart raced as I searched for a place to stash the box. Not wanting to keep Caitlin waiting, I stuck it on the top shelf of the broom closet at the back of the kitchen. No one ever went in there. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans as I headed to the door.

When I opened it, Caitlin held up a bottle of merlot. “Is it wine o’clock yet?”

I brought her into a hug. “It most definitely is.”

But from the moment she stepped inside, an overwhelming awkwardness came over me. I prayed it was only in my head and Caitlin didn’t feel it, too. I’d always been told I wore my feelings on my face, so I tried to keep busy so she wouldn’t notice—opening the wine, checking dinner in the oven, setting the table—though the nervous energy radiated through me.

“So, what’s new?” I asked.

My stepdaughter smiled funny, and I wondered if I was talking too fast, or maybe my pitch was too high. That happened when I was nervous.

She smiled. “Justin asked me to be exclusive with him.”

“Oh! Wow. That’s good, right?”

“It’s really good. I like him a lot.”

I hated to make her news about me, but I was thrilled about her new relationship for selfish reasons. “I’m so happy for you, Caitlin.”

“Thank you. I want you to meet him. Do you have plans tomorrow night? Maybe the three of us can go out to dinner?”

“Umm…” Brayden was arriving tomorrow morning, but I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t excited to meet her new boyfriend, so I nodded and smiled. “Sure. I’d love that.”

Caitlin sat on a stool on the opposite side of the counter and sipped her wine. “He asked me to go to a wedding with him in a few weeks. His sister is getting married.”

“Does that mean you’ll meet his entire family?”

She nodded. “I’m nervous, but I’m over the moon that he wants to introduce me already. I didn’t get to the meet-the-family phase even after a few months with most of the guys I’ve dated. I asked Justin if his family had met a lot of his previous girlfriends, and he said only one. So it feels like a big step.”

“That’s wonderful. Tell me more. Does he have a big family?”

“Ginormous. He’s one of six kids, and his dad is one of ten. He seems pretty close to his mom, which I like, but not too close like that weirdo Eric I went out with once. Remember that guy? He brought his mother with him the first time we met for drinks?” Caitlin set down her wine glass. “And then there was that guy Wes I went out with a few times, the one who looked like such a badass—tattoos all over and drove a motorcycle—but lived in his mother’s basement and talked to her on the phone five times a day.”

I laughed, grateful she was doing most of the talking. “Are Justin’s parents still married?”

“No. They’ve been divorced since Justin was little. His dad is a dentist, too. Not an orthodontist, but a regular dentist. I actually met him already. Their offices are in the same building. It works out great because his dad refers a lot of business to Justin. But I have to say, his dad is pretty damn hot. As soon as I met him, I thought to myself—would it be weird to fix him up with Alex? Probably not now, but if I married Justin and you married James, then you would be my stepmother and my mother-in-law.” She laughed. “I figured between that and the Brayden situation, we’d belong on one of those Jerry Springer daytime TV shows for sure.”

Oh, God. Great. Just great.

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