Page 21 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
Me: Good night. See you tomorrow.
Ryder: Good night, you seductive temptress, you.
Me: Lol. I’m neither seducing nor tempting. More…promising. I include a winking emoji.
Ryder: promising…when you’re not here to make good on the promise? Seductive temptress.
Me: You’ll see me TOMORROW! And I did just send you the exact photo I promised you and myself I wasn’t going to send you.
Ryder: Oh. Good point. Still, it’s fun to call you a seductive temptress. So…
Me: Good night, Ryder.
Ryder: Good Night, Seductive Temptress.
I laugh softly to myself, and then, just to be sure I actually sleep, I turn my phone on “do not disturb” mode.
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.
Chapter 5
“Mom?” Nate, in the backseat, is eyeing me with intense curiosity.
“Mmm-hmm?” I ask absently, as I make a left turn into Paul’s subdivision.
“Why are you all fancy?”
This jolts me to awareness. “Um. I…”
“Are you going on a date tonight?”
I smile at him in the rearview mirror. “Yes, I am.”
“I thought so.” Nate, my nine-year-old son, is tall for his age, with dark brown hair and light brown eyes, and an adorably earnest grin. “You only make yourself that pretty when you’re going on a date.”
I laugh. “So, what—I’m ugly the rest of the time?”
“No! Don’t be dumb. You’re pretty all the time. But when you’re going on a date, you’re extra special pretty.” He plays with his LEGO guy for a moment, jumping him across from armrest to knee and then flying through the air—but I can tell Nate has another question percolating. “Mom?”
Ah, there it is.
“Yep?” We’re on Paul’s street, and I pull over to the curb a half mile away so I can finish talking to Nate—Paul has a tendency to come right out as soon as he sees me pull up.
“Is it with Derek?”
I hesitate. “No, it’s not. It’s someone else.”
“Oh, good. He was a butthole. He only liked you ’cause you’re pretty.”
I shove the shifter into park and twist to look at Nate directly. “Excuse me?”
Nate shrugs, nonplussed at my outburst. “It’s true. He was a big slimy butthole and I didn’t like him. And I heard him on the phone one time, talking to somebody about you. We were out to dinner, and I was in the stall going poop, and he came in to pee and didn’t know I was there, and I heard him talking.”
“And? What did he say?”
Nate shifts. “You won’t be mad?”
“At you? No? Why would I?”
“Cause I didn’t tell you what he said.”
I smile. “I’ll answer that after you tell me what Nate said.”
Nate fiddles with the gun in his LEGO guy’s hand. “He said that you…” he trails off. “It wasn’t appropriate. Do I have to say it?”
I frown. “I hate that you overheard this.” I pat his hand. “Just tell me, and remember you don’t talk like that, now or ever.”
“He said the only real hot thing about were your…” He makes a dramatic, disgusted grimace, and points at his chest. “And then he said that’s really the only reason he kept seeing you, because dealing with her annoying brat was almost not worth it.” His expression darkens. “I peed in his shoe and blamed it on the cat.”
I splutter before I can stop myself. “You did not!”
Nate holds the angry expression. “I did! I peed in his shoe, and when he found out, I blamed it on Mr. Tubbins, because Mr. Tubbins is always peeing on things.”
“Nate—” I have work to hold back the laughter. “That’s not okay. You can’t go around—you can’t go around peeing in peoples’ shoes just because they say mean things about you.”
He crosses his arms dramatically. “Then why do you think it’s so funny? He only liked you because you’re pretty! I don’t know much about going on dates because I’m only nine, but even I know that makes Derek a big slimy butthole. After someone pooped—and didn’t wipe.”
I gag. “Nathaniel Paul Madison! That’s disgusting.”
“He’s disgusting. He called me an annoying brat.”
I sober. “Okay, serious time. Yes, that just adds to the ways that Derek was a…a not nice person. But that’s not how we behave in this family, you understand me?”
“What family? It’s just you and me. I think you need at least three people for a family.” He points ahead. “And don’t say Dad, because he doesn’t count. I only see him cause the court says I have to, but when I can decide for myself, I’m not gonna. He’s an annoying brat.”
“Nate, now come on—”
“He is!”
“I thought you had fun when you spent time with Dad?”
He shrugs. “Oh, sure, I have fun. He takes me to laser tag and arcades and buys me stuff, and I always leave it at his house so I have something to do when I’m there.”
“Laser tag and arcade games sound fun.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t do it with me. He just watches. So, yeah, I have fun doing that stuff, but the whole point of me spending every other weekend at his house is for him to see me, but he never actually spends time with me. It feels like I go over there because he feels like he has to spend time with me, because the court says so.”
