“I’m well aware of the responsibility of being a parent. I told you if I do this, I’m taking a year off of work.”
“Dr. Dad. I can’t really picture it. I mean, I can picture you as a father, just not as a stay-at-home dad.” He drained his bourbon. “What is this stuff? It’s very smooth.”
“It’s like two hundred bucks a bottle. That’s what it is. You’re supposed to sip it, not shoot it.” I demonstrated. “See? Sip. And why can’t you see me staying home with a kid? I’m highly offended.”
He snorted. “Have you thought about how you’re supposed to date when you’re raising a baby?”
I shrugged. “Speaking of dating, remember that woman I went to dinner with a month ago, Savannah? Turns out I was catfished.”
“I remember her. The redhead. Why and how were you catfished if you met her and it was really her?”
“Her friend was the one who was actually messaging me.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I had looked up Felicia after she had left and found her social media, including some of her old modeling shots. I pulled up a more recent photo, where she was modeling some of the clothes she had listed for sale. Her dark hair was in loose curls and she had on bright red lipstick and fake glasses. “This is her.” I handed the phone to Sean. “We’re going out Thursday.”
“I hate you,” Sean said. “Seriously, what the fuck, man? You got catfished by a woman who is actually attractive? That’s unprecedented.”
I knew he was right. I grinned and leaned forward and snagged a piece of shrimp. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? Her name’s Felicia and she has a very cute British accent.”
“She’s more my age than yours. You’re swimming in my pool, fucker. Go wade in your own.”
“No way. Age is just a number.”
“You’re a douchebag.”
“And you’re a dick who is at least five years older than her anyway,” I said good-naturedly. Sean and I got along great, always had. We had a sister, Maeve, who was in between us in age, but she lived in California now. Sean was a chef in Brooklyn and worked as many hours as I did, if not more, so we didn’t get to hang out a lot but when we did we fell back on the old habit of giving each other shit. “How’s your love life?”
He made a face. “Let’s put it this way. If I ever get the urge to have children, I’ll probably be calling your surrogate.”
“We are not using the same surrogate. Our kids would be cousins and half-siblings. That’s bizarre as hell. Why don’t you jump on a dating app?”
“I’m on all of them. Easily six apps. It’s like Wheel of Fucking. You spin, pick someone, and have sex. Then you ghost each other and move on to the next one.”
“You could try conversation.”
He made a sound. “What, like you? All that got you was a brunette pretending to be a redhead. Twenty bucks says she’s flat-out crazy.”
“It’s entirely possible.” I hoped not. But it was possible. A chirping sound occurred again for about the fifth time from somewhere in the apartment. “Do you hear that?” I said, distracted. “I keep hearing something beep, like a notification. Is that your phone?”
“No, mine are on silent.” But he pulled his phone out and looked. “Definitely not me. Is it your phone?”
He’d set my phone on the coffee table after looking at Felicia’s photo. “No. It’s coming from over there somewhere.” I gestured toward the door.
I stood up. It was driving me crazy. It was irregular. It would do it multiple times rapidly, then nothing for ten minutes. “It’s not the smoke detector.”
Then I spotted it. “Oh, Felicia left her tablet here. She must have forgotten it when she put her boots on.” I picked it up, intending to turn it off or stick it in a drawer until I could return it so I didn’t have to listen to the notifications pinging.
Only I realized that her texts were popping up in the right-hand corner and one included my name. Unless Felicia knew more than one Michael.
It would be wrong to shag Michael after one dinner, right? Tell me not to shag him.
Hell, yeah. The words went straight to my cock and I pictured Felicia naked in my bed, her dark hair spread across my white linen sheets.
“Look at this,” I said to my brother. “She wants to have sex with me.”
“You shouldn’t be reading that.” But Sean took the tablet anyway and said, “Damn. She’s definitely DTF. Down to fuck. Plan accordingly.”
I reached down and picked up my glass. I couldn’t sit back down. I had a hard-on now. “She’s crazy, isn’t she? That has to be the catch.” It seemed too good to be true.
“For wanting to have sex with you? Definitely.”
“Shut up, dick. You know what I mean.”
“Oh, for sure,” he said, cheerfully. “Beautiful, single, lies easily. You could definitely wind up with a stalker.”
That made me roll my eyes. “That seems like an overreaction.”
“Crazy women are great in bed. Just enjoy the ride before she starts slowly and methodically ruining your life.”
“I’m not worried about that.” I wasn’t actually worried about anything. I was excited. Intrigued.
“Her friends are mostly telling her not to have sex except the one is saying she can’t really give advice on restraint since she had sex with her fiancé after he gave her a ride home.” Sean looked up at me. “My kind of girl.”
I gave a soft laugh. “Someday you’re going to fall head over ass for a woman and I’m going to love watching you squirm and resist.” I reached out for the tablet. “And you’re right—we shouldn’t be reading those.”
“Even though she says if you came over right now, she’d ride you like a mechanical bull?”
Fuck. I got even harder. “She did not say that.” Knowing Sean, he was just yanking my chain.
He shrugged. “Look for yourself. Trust me, I would not make that up.” He handed me the tablet back.
I studied the screen. There it was. Almost word for word what Sean had said.
“Get out,” I told him.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“You need to get the fuck out. I’m going to take this tablet back to her.” Only a fucking idiot wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity.
“Right now?” Sean shook his head. “You can’t do that. She’ll know you read those texts and then you’ll just look like an asshole. A horny asshole.”
“No, she won’t. We didn’t open any of them. They just pop up, then disappear. When she logs in with her password they’ll show on her tablet as unread. Besides, I’m sure she wants it back as soon as possible. She took pictures of Becca’s clothes to list for sale.”
“You still have Becca’s clothes? That’s not weird or anything.”
“I didn’t know what to do with them. I don’t know. They’re in her closet and I just kept the door shut.” I didn’t think it was that weird. Well. Maybe ten years made it kind of weird.
I grabbed my phone and called Felicia.