Just My Type(31)

All of the things I did to get ready for tonight. Which is not a date.

Brandon continues to stand there staring at me and the effort I put in to get ready, the way he asked, “Are you going out? Like, on a date?” playing on a loop in my head. It was so goddamn shocked. Like, he couldn’t possibly believe I really had plans. Completely astounded I finally pulled my head out of my ass and started giving a shit. The smirk on his face as he finishes looking me over says there’s no way in hell he believes I’m going on a date, even though it looks like I am. He seriously thinks I’m lying. That I gussied myself up just to pretend like I’m finished being a hermit loser who did nothing but feel sorry for herself.

I not going on a date, but fuck that shit if I’m going to tell that to this smirking bastard.

“Yes, I’m going on a date. With a charming man I met through work. He comes from good stock.”

What the hell are you doing? It’s not 1812!

“I thought you said you were interviewing some asshat for work and it was absolutely, positively not a date?” Lincoln announces as he steps up next to me in the open doorway, repeating something I muttered word-for-word the other day, like the good boy he is.

“Lincoln, language,” Brandon scolds, giving me the evil eye, because Lord knows stick-up-his ass over there never swears.

I want to punch the judgy look right off his face.

Why am I not punching the judgy look off his face? Baker would be seriously disappointed in me right now. Jesus, stop thinking about Baker.

“Lincoln, why don’t you go wait in Dad’s car? I need to talk to him about something,” I tell him, bending down and kissing the top of his head.

I watch as he races down the steps of the porch and wait until he’s safely inside the car until turning back to Brandon.

“Lincoln asked me again about getting a dog. He’s not going to give this up. His grades are good, he’s pretty responsible for his age, and I really think a pet would help settle him in here even more,” I explain, repeating the same things I’ve been saying to him via text for weeks.

“We discussed this already. I don’t have time to take care of an animal when Lincoln is with me, and it’s too much trouble to cart that thing back and forth anyway. Taking care of him is hard enough,” Brandon mutters, pulling his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his suit coat when it dings with an incoming text.

No. No he did not just complain about taking care of his son.

I can perfectly picture Baker’s face as he held onto that heavy bag and I beat out all my frustrations about the man standing in front of me, typing away on his phone like we aren’t in the middle of an important discussion about our child. Baker was paying attention to every single word that came out of my mouth, even the crazy shit that didn’t make sense.

I am not meek and mild Ember anymore, dammit.

“Fine, maybe not a dog then. It’s not like I have a yard or anything for a dog. But I think it would do Lincoln good to have a pet. Maybe something a little less work than a puppy. Maybe a gerbil or—”

“He’s not getting a pet, Ember.” Brandon sighs, head down, still typing away on his phone.

I glance over at our son sitting in the backseat of the car, the light from his iPad shining on his face, which is currently laughing at whatever he’s watching on it.

I look back at my ex-husband who is completely bored with me, and wonder why I never noticed before now that he’s never not acted this way with me. Like he’s just waiting for me to stop talking so he can get back to something more interesting.

No one I have ever met in my entire life before Brandon would have thought of me and the word boring in the same sentence. I was the wild child growing up, and well into my twenties. I’m the reason parents threaten to send their daughters to convents. I had sex in high school. I drank in high school. I went skinny dipping in high school. I corrupted Brooklyn and got her to have sex and drink and skinny dip in high school. I won a wet T-shirt contest during spring break when I was twenty-one. I got into a fight with another girl at a bar over a guy, the week before I met Brandon. She thought I was flirting with her boyfriend, when I really was just telling the poor schmuck he had a piece of toilet paper hanging out of the back of his jeans. She threw a drink on me; I screamed and ran like hell. Whatever, the cops were called. It was a big thing.

Brandon doesn’t even really know that Ember. I started toning it down after our first date. She poked her head out when Brooklyn moved back to town, but not enough. Not all the way.

Not like the way I am with Baker. Not like the way I want my son to see me. Strong and confident and a fighter, but you know, not so sweary when he’s in the general vicinity.

Leaning back inside my house, I grab my cell phone off the little flea market table I have sitting right inside the door and type up a quick text.

Brandon’s phone dings with my incoming text, and I watch him do a double-take when my text pops up on his screen, over the email he was typing. My text that said, Look up, dickhole.

Brandon looks up at me in exasperation.

“Was that necessa—”

“I’m getting our son a fucking pet,” I cut him off. “I don’t know what it will be yet. It could be a turtle, or it could be a chinchilla. You will help our son take care of the turtle chinchilla without bitching when he’s at your home, and you will cart the turtle chinchilla back and forth between our homes without bitching, because that’s what a dad does. He does something he might not like, to make his child happy.”