Luke didn’t ask Aleen where she planned to meet her potential sperm donor for coffee, but he knew Aleen and her habits, so he took a chance and stopped by Tiana’s for a morning cup.
He wasn’t being nosy. Just protective.
Aleen noticed him as soon as he entered the building. She glared at him before turning her attention to the menu. As if she didn’t have the thing memorized. There was never a doubt what she’d order from Tiana’s diner for breakfast—stuffed banana cream French toast with a side of homefries. And ketchup. Always ketchup. When the plate was delivered, she’d eye Luke’s bacon until he handed her a piece.
Luke ordered his coffee and smiled at the new girl working the register. No older than nineteen or so, Tiana had hired her to help out with the morning rush on the weekends.
As the girl handed him his caffeine fix, Aleen approached, asking for extra sugar. As the girl went to the back room to refill her sugar packet supply, Aleen turned to him, eyes flashing.
“What are you doing here?” If she were a snake or a cat, she would have hissed.
“Getting my coffee. Just like everyone else.” He looked over her shoulder. “How’s it going with the macho man?”
The guy had broad shoulders and, from this angle, anyway, appeared to flex a lot.
“Macho man is quite… macho. As macho as a kitten. So leave us alone so we can have our date, would ya? He appears to be sensitive, and I don’t want him to know my best friend has a penis. Not yet, anyway.”
“You think he’d be threatened by me?” Luke felt himself flexing his biceps beneath his button-down shirt.
Aleen rolled her eyes. “Get to work. But call me on your lunch break so I can fill you in.”
She glanced over to her table to be sure Macho Man was still staring at his hands as he clenched and unclenched them, then reached up to kiss Luke on the cheek.
“Be sure you stay in a public place.”
“Yes, Lukey. I’ll be good.”
He watched her walk back to her seat. She had worn her so-called “good butt jeans” again, and the shirt she wore rested just above the swell of her butt.
Why was he noticing her butt?
He guzzled his coffee, forgetting it was piping hot.
The girl working the counter realized his pain and handed him a cup of water. He thanked her with a ten dollar bill in her tip jar.
Aleen reached her hand out to Macho Man’s. Luke bit his scalded tongue and winced. Time to get out of there before he did more damage.
Aleen’s smile as she gazed into Macho Man’s eyes haunted him all morning.
***
“Awful, Sabrina. It was awful. They both were.” Aleen slumped into her seat, grateful for the mass discharge of patients this morning and the fact that they had survived another full moon cycle. Hopefully things would be calm for a while.
“There had to be something good about one of them…”
“The first one belonged here on the psych floor. The second one probably did, too, actually. He was extremely in tune with his emotions. Especially the ones that made him cry. I have to tell ya, I like a sensitive man as much as any woman, but the fact that he burst into tears as he told me about his ex-wife taking the cats…”
“That’s sweet!” Sabrina exclaimed, holding her hand over her heart.
“I’d think it sweeter if it had happened recently. But we’re talking three years ago. Three. Years. Time to move on, man.”
“You’re cruel.”
“I’ll give you his number.”
Sabrina slid a notepad across the desk.
“You’re shameless, Sabrina. What about your poor husband?”
“As long as my husband has his porn collection, he’s fine. Trust me, he is my husband in name only. I wouldn’t mind having someone who could shed a tear or two…”
“Sabrina—why do you stay with him?”
Sabrina sighed. “I’m too exhausted to go through the effort of kicking him out. Besides, where would he go? He hasn’t worked in four years. His family disowned him. I may not be in love with him, but I don’t hate him, either.”
“You’re a good human, Sabrina. But I wish you could do something to make yourself happy.”
“Who said anything about not being happy?” Sabrina’s smile broadened. “But back to you and your newly exciting life. What’s next on the date agenda?”
“I think I need a break.”
“That’s a terrible idea. You need to get back on that horse until you find a stallion worth riding. Unless you suddenly don’t care about meeting your goals…”
Aleen leaned back in her chair.
“You’re right. And knowing how right you would be, I already booked the third date. Dinner tomorrow night, but this time I picked the restaurant and am meeting him there.”
“You’re catching on to this dating thing. You should live tweet the whole thing. And then you can start an anonymous blog about the life of a single woman.”
“Okay, in all my spare time I’ll do that.”
“Yay!” Sabrina thrust a fist in the air. “Don’t forget—if none of these guys work out, there’s always your vet.”
“Nope. Not a chance.”
“Come on. I’m sure you guys could work out one of those contractual agreements. You know—if you’re both still single at a certain age, you’ll get married so you can have kids.”
“I’ve got work to do. Can’t sit around gossiping and writing fiction with you all day.” Aleen stuck her tongue out at Sabrina as she flipped through her charts.
“Show me the guys you dated.” Sabrina logged into the computer and tapped her way into the profile she had set up for Aleen.
“I knew I should have changed the password,” Aleen mumbled.
“Ooh, bachelor number two is cute. Very manly.”
“He’s the kitten.”
“I’d do him. Ooh, bachelor number three looks like a winner. What are all these chat bubbles popping up?”
Aleen rolled her chair over to Sabrina. Her belly threw stones into her throat as the messages—in bright red font—leapt off the screen as vividly and cruelly as the mean girls in high school.
Aleen pressed her cold hands to her burning cheeks.
“Fat cows shouldn’t be allowed on the site.”
“You need a makeover, sweetie.”
“Are you a drag queen? Cuz I could be into that.”
“I’m willing to take you on a date. All you have to do is pay me five hundred dollars. I won’t kiss you in public, but for an extra two hundred, I’ll hold your hand. If you want to screw after, I may be able to throw it in for free. As long as you don’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t listen to the guys commenting on your profile, sexy hot stuff. I bet your vag is starving for some action. I have a giant…”
Aleen looked away. “Shut that thing down. I don’t want to see any more.”
“Aleen. These messages are not a reflection on you. They are the slugs of the world. They live to hurt people. Don’t let it get to you.”
“I won’t let it get to me. But I don’t want to keep reading it. Is there a way to turn off that feature?”
“Wait, listen to this. ‘Glimpsing into your eyes is like seeing into the future. I would love the chance to be in your future.’ Oh, and here’s another goodie. ‘You are all woman. You seem like you’d be the perfect snuggle partner. I want to romance you. Message me back and we’ll make that happen.’”
“I really can’t deal with this right now, Sabrina. I get that I’m curvy but I hate the fact that strange men think it’s perfectly acceptable to comment on that before they’ve even met me. Good or bad. I mean, look at the guys I picked. They aren’t exactly big-screen material, you know?”
“It’s all part of the game. You have to put up with the shit to get to the well-fertilized parts of the field.”
“Don’t worry about me, Sabrina. My eye is on the prize. I want children. I have no time to go out and meet a guy the old-fashioned way. If I have to deal with a few dicks along the way, so be it. I can handle it.”
“That’s my girl. Let’s just hope some of the dicks you get to deal with are nice and firm and delicious.”
Aleen laughed, hiding her face in her hands. Sabrina’s joke was well-timed, as the laughter would make the tears appear to be of good humor.
Who would have thought finding the father of her future child would be such a painful experience?