The Rules of Dating(5)
“She looked shocked, but not enough to apologize. Anyway, I bolted out of there before she had the chance to say much else.”
“I wanna go to Mommy class!” Saylor interrupted.
“Mommy class” was a Mommy and Me class I took her to once a week. I was the only adult male participant, but thankfully they welcomed us with open arms, despite the fact that there was no Mommy in the picture. Saylor was old enough to know it was odd she didn’t have a mother around, but not quite old enough to have any hang-ups about it. I knew it was only a matter of time, but for now, I was enough. “Daddy is my mommy,” she would say. I dreaded the day she started grilling me for answers about why her mother didn’t want to be a part of her life. Until then, I was thankful she never asked to know more. She accepted my generic explanations like, “Your mother is not able to be with us. She has some things she has to work on in life that we’re not meant to understand right now.”
I looked down at my phone. “We still have some time before class. We gotta get you cleaned up first. You have donut frosting all over your face. No wonder you love Uncle Holden. He’s always bringing you sugary crap.”
He shrugged. “I know she loves donuts. I can’t resist.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to bring them every time you come. I’m trying to teach her healthy habits.”
“Oh, healthy like we were?” He scoffed. “Do you not remember all those damn trips to the corner store for candy? We’re lucky we still have teeth.”
Saylor flashed a big smile, displaying her little teeth. I was already bracing for the day they started falling out. I knew I wasn’t gonna handle her growing up very well.
Holden patted my daughter’s head. “If Uncle Holden ever gets his big break, I’m gonna buy a whole donut shop and name it after you.”
I stood and carried my coffee cup to the sink. “We’ve got to start getting ready. You sticking around while we’re out?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna take me a while to fix this.”
“Alright, don’t kill yourself. It’s not a big deal if you have to come back tomorrow. It’s just a leaky faucet.”
“It’s gonna drive me nuts if I can’t figure this shit out. You know that.”
“Well, better you than me.” I laughed.
***
We were fifteen minutes late to the “Manhattan Moms of Girls” weekly meetup. Half of the heads in the room turned our direction when we walked in, but their faces were friendly. Everyone treated me like one of the girls here. Except for the fact that occasionally, the women would flirt with me. Even the married ones.
“Hey, Colby,” one of them shouted from across the room.
I smiled over at Lara Nicholson, a single mother in the bunch. She was separated from her husband, and they shared custody of their daughter, Maddie. Lara had often suggested we get our daughters together for a playdate. I got the impression it was really me she wanted to play with, given how persistent she was. I wasn’t feeling it, though. I hadn’t really been feeling much of anything lately. I went on the occasional date, but I was way more selective now that I was a father. I sure as hell didn’t want to bring a woman around my daughter unless that person turned out to be exceptional. And given that Saylor had come into this world through an accidental pregnancy, I was now paranoid of history repeating itself.
The theme for this week’s Mommy class was “spa day,” and there were various stations set up for the girls—one where they could get their hair done up in a bun like a princess, another where they could play dress up, and another where they could get their fingernails painted. It was a great opportunity for Saylor to interact with other kids outside of preschool. And I was grateful for a nice air-conditioned place to take her to socialize, considering it had been hot as balls in the city lately, so the playground sucked.
A lot of the mothers were getting their nails painted, too. My daughter took notice and announced, “Daddy, paint your nails!”
“No, honey. I don’t think that’s for me.”
“Come on over, Colby. I’ll take care of you,” said Amanda McNeeley in a suggestive voice. Amanda was another of the single ones.
Seeing no way out, I walked over and sat down. “What color should I get?” I asked my daughter.
“Pink!”
I looked over at Amanda and smiled. “Might as well go all in, right?”
Saylor picked the brightest fluorescent color, and Amanda shook the bottle. As she painted my nails, I looked over at my kid’s smiling face. She watched the process intently. There really was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. This proved it.
***
On the walk home, I noticed a mane of long, dark hair blowing in the summer breeze and coming down the sidewalk toward us. It was Billie, the angry tattoo artist, walking toward her shop from the opposite direction. Damn. Seemed I was so distracted by her miserable demeanor last night, I didn’t properly notice what a smokeshow she was. Billie was a petite little thing, short even in the sky-high heels she wore. Her black hair was a stark contrast to her porcelain skin. And she had one full-sleeve tattoo.
Her mouth curved into a smile when she spotted me. Although, I soon realized the smile wasn’t for me at all. “Who do we have here?” she asked as she stopped in front of us.