Page 50 of Surprise Baby for Daddy's Best Friend

A text message came in on my phone, and I snatched my phone quickly without even realizing I had done it. My heart sank as I realized it was Jessica. Not like I should have expected anything different. Kim and I had moved on, and Mandi was busy on vacation.

So, how's the new lady friend?

Horrible.

Oh no! Does she eat like a caveman?

Worse. Don't set me up with her ever again or I will take the bill out of your paycheck.

"Is something wrong?" Danielle asked.

I shook my head and shoved my phone back in my pocket, "No, I'm fine. Just my assistant checking on me."

She leaned forward and hovered above the table a little as if she would like to see what I had typed despite my phone being put away. "I hope you told her how much of a lady I am."

"Something like that," I wanted to tell her my assistant called her a caveman and she wasn't far off, but decided against it to keep the peace.

The rest of the dinner went exactly as I had expected. Danielle freaked out when she realized escargot were snails and demanded the dish be taken back, because they were trying to poison her. Then when the steaks came out, she tried to accuse the waitress of undercooking it when she was the one who had asked for blue rare.

We ended the night in near silence. Between the horrible meal and us not having much more to talk about, there was a mutual understanding that we were not made for one another.

I wasn'tsure what to expect from the next three dates Jessica had set up for me. Each was worse than the last, one date even insisted I take her shopping! That was the worst of the three by far. I didn’t even want to think of how much money I had spent over the last week just to deal with rejecting each of them in different ways. At least none of them ended with them claiming they would report me to the newspaper.

A call came halfway through my lunch. I almost didn't want to answer in case it was a journalist wanting to follow up on a story one from one of the women. When I checked the caller ID, it was Maurice. I shoved the phone to my ear and smiled.

"Thank god, it's you."

"Well damn, never thought you felt that way about me," Maurice chuckled. "Are you alright? I haven't heard from you lately."

I sighed and slumped in my chair, "You have no idea how difficult it's been. Is everything alright with you?"

"Yeah, things are going well. Actually, I wanted to see if you were up to meeting me tonight."

"What are you planning?" I narrowed my gaze, hoping he wasn't about to offer a blind date as well for me.

"Nothing. I figured I'd stop by your apartment this time. I need to get out of the house. It's way too quiet lately and Kim's been avoiding me."

"What?" I stood back up. "Is she alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, she's fine. Said she's been dealing with stuff, so I figured it's that time of the month or something. She tends to get mopey around this time and I know she’s been on some shitty dates lately, that's probably killing her too."

My heart sank at the news that she was going on dates. It wasn't like I wasn’t doing the same thing. I needed to remind myself we had both agreed we wouldn't see one another again after the vacation. It sounded like we were both struggling to replace the other.

"Jared?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! You can come over. I need some help unpacking."

"Sounds good. I'll bring a couple of beers and we can watch a wrestling match on pay-per-view. I hear it's one of the big events tonight."

I didn't want to correct him that they weren't really called pay-per-views anymore. I found myself using older terms too and it wasn't like we usually watched wrestling either. I couldn't remember the last time I watched a match. Likely when I was still enlisted and it happened to be on in the dayroom. Other than that, I had never bothered to watch it willingly on my own.

"Yeah, let's do that. Get something a bit hoppy if you can."

"I'll do my best to get you one wearing a tuxedo if it will help you get out of whatever funk you're dealing with."

We both laughed. That was always something I could count on with Maurice. He knew when something was wrong with someone before they ever said anything and knew how to make them smile.

"I'll see you then."

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