Just My Type(74)

We spent the day at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Ember and I holding hands with our arms swinging between us all day, while Lincoln walked a few feet in front of us, chattering away non-stop about every animal we saw. It was especially fun to see a flush move up Ember’s chest to her cheeks, when we got to the otter exhibit and saw them swimming around in their pool.

“Probably because you didn’t want to be left out when Lincoln challenged me to a race back to the car,” I remind her, my dick starting to swell in my jeans with each little whimper and moan she makes as I continue rubbing her shoulders.

We were one of the last ones to leave the zoo before it closed, and the parking lot was almost empty. Seeing nothing but wide-open pavement between us and my Jeep parked at least twenty rows away, Lincoln made the right decision. After walking around all day, I knew my knee wouldn’t make it through a sprint across the parking lot. I took off running with all three of them and then stopped immediately, just so I could watch Ember do exactly what I expected her to. Run full-out and put everything into that race, because there was no way in hell she was letting her son win. She also refuses to let him win at Uno, even if the game has been going for three hours. Ember will not fold.

Ember’s not like a regular mom; she’s a cool mom.

She beat Lincoln by two seconds, and rubbed it in his face until I joined them at the car, Lincoln got in the backseat, and her winning smile dropped as she sagged against me, groaning in pain, asking me why I let her do that. I had to practically lift her and put her into the front seat like a toddler.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have inhaled three bags of cotton candy and two soft pretzels right before we left, and that race wouldn’t have winded you,” I tease her.

“Maybe you should suck my dick,” she replies back sweetly as I kiss the top of her head with a laugh, and move away when Lincoln comes out of the laundry room with Ron Jeremy.

“I’m thinking tacos for dinner. Who’s in?” I ask, moving over to one of Ember’s kitchen drawers to pull out her stack of take-out menus.

Lincoln quickly throws his hand in the air, and Ember follows, but much slower, and with a groan of pain like she’s ninety-years old.

I’m still laughing at her, even after she flips me off, and I pull my phone out of my pocket to order delivery from her favorite Mexican restaurant a few blocks away. The call just starts to connect when we hear the doorbell ring. Ember gets up from the table, glancing at the front door questioningly.

“Want me to get it?” I ask, dropping the phone from my ear and tossing it on the counter.

She looks back and forth between me and the door, biting her bottom lip with indecision. I come around the counter and stand in front of her as Lincoln gets a water out of the fridge, and the doorbell chimes again.

“This does not make you any less of a hardass, having a man answer the door after dark just to be safe,” I tell her.

Ember finally gives me a firm nod after a few seconds.

“You’re right. I’m a nasty bitch. But what’s the point of having a boyfriend if he can’t scare away the people who just showed up to murder me?” she asks.

“Do murderers usually ring the doorbell first?”

I start walking through the living room, and Ember stays in the doorway of the kitchen, where she has a perfect view, but she’s far enough away that she’ll have a head start if the polite, doorbell-ringing murders overtake me.

“According to your sister, ninety percent of women are killed by someone they know. Brooklyn and Clint are the only people I know who wouldn’t ring the doorbell and would just barge right in. But they wouldn’t kill me, so that’s a moot point,” she explains, as I look back over my shoulder at her when I reach for the doorknob. “That leads me to believe that anyone else I know who wants to kill me would be courteous and ring the doorbell.”

“I never should have introduced you to Blake,” I mutter with a smile, turning the knob. “She’s a bad influence on….”

My voice trails off when I open the door and see a man standing on Ember’s front stoop. He’s got dark, messy hair, at least three days of dark scruff on his face, and he’s wearing a pair of those fucking hipster, black-framed glasses. I’ve never met the guy before, but I looked through Ember’s photo albums one night with Lincoln, and he pointed his dad out in the pictures.

This is the douchebag who’s too busy for his son and didn’t realize what an amazing, perfect woman he had.

“You must be Baker. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ember’s ex says, holding his hand out for me to shake.

He definitely looked a lot more put-together in those photos than he does right now. His light blue dress shirt is untucked, wrinkled, and has pit stains under the arms, and he has bags under his eyes and what looks like a mustard stain on the thigh of his black dress pants. At least he no longer looks like a douchebag. Now he just looks pathetic.

I’m not going to be a dick, even though I really, really want to. This is Lincoln’s dad, and he’s right in the next room. As much as I’m dying to slam my fist into his nose, I’ll behave for Lincoln’s benefit. Taking his hand, I shake it once, squeezing it in a tight grip before letting go.

Sure, I’m not going to be a dick, but I can still be a little bit of an asshole and let him know that I’m well aware of what kind of a jackass he is.