Seduction and Snacks
Page 21
"I'd like to spend some time with Gavin."
I knew he was going to say that.
"It's okay if you don't feel comfortable with me being alone with him just yet since he really doesn't know me. But I'd like to come over and see him."
I couldn't stop the smile that took over my face. Not only did his fingers deserve a major award, like a leg lamp or a national monument erected in his name, (heh, heh, erected!) he actually took the initiative and asked to spend time with Gavin - even after getting punched in the nuts and threatened with the two finger eye-watching signal.
Gavin would finally get to hang around a man other than my father and Jim.
And I'd get to have Carter tiptoe through the twolips again soon.
14. Captain Narcolepsy
"So what you're telling me is, our little Claire’s got hardwood floors, terracotta pie, a leather sausage wallet, a who-ha with no hair-ha," Drew yelled over the noise of the assembly line.
"Wow, I am really regretting that I told you anything about last night," I yelled back.
I reached above me for the hydraulic drill attached to the rig in the ceiling and pulled it down to fasten the car door to the body of the vehicle. I had three minutes before the next car came down the line and having to deal with Drew being an ass was going to make me screw everything up and force the line to shut down.
That and the fact that I really couldn't stop thinking about what had happened between Claire and I last night in the back room of the bar. Sweet Jesus she was beautiful when she came. And the little sounds she made…fuck, just thinking about them was making Carter Junior stand up and start begging for her. I hope she didn't think things were going too fast because I really wanted a repeat performance. And I didn't even care about not getting off. Watching her and feeling her come apart in my hands was enough satisfaction for me.
"Dude, you know your secret is safe with me. I will never tell a soul that you got to third base with your baby-mama last night and that Chewbacca does not live in her underwear. At least now I don't have to worry about you. "
I turned off the drill and looked across the car at Drew who was attaching the front door handle.
"Why were you worried about me?"
"Aww, bro, come on. You were one step away from lathering chocolate ganache on your dick and trying to give yourself a bl*w j*b," he said.
"Did you just say ganache?"
Drew shrugged. "Yeah. Jenny makes me watch the Food Network all the time now. Ever since she started designing the flyers for Claire, she's decided she wants to learn how to cook. She spent twenty minutes the other day looking up a recipe online for frosting made with confederate sugar."
Laughter bubbled out of me and I got back to work on the car.
"Did you tell her to try looking in the Deep South for that sugar? You might also want to warn her about the Rebel sugar," I laughed.
"Come on, man. Don't be a dick. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was called convection sugar."
Nope, not going to touch that one.
"So, are you and Jenny going to Claire’s tonight?" I asked, changing the subject.
Claire was definitely on board with letting me see Gavin. She figured starting off in a group setting would be the best thing so she invited everyone over to her place tonight for dinner.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world. I even got a new shirt just for the occasion," Drew said with a smile.
***
At six o'clock I knocked on Claire’s door. I heard footsteps pounding against the floor and suddenly the door was flung open.
I looked down at the little man that stood there staring at me and I couldn't help but smile. Jesus he looked so much like Claire. But his eyes…wow they were exactly the same as mine.
"Hi there Gavin," I said as I pulled a wrapped present out from behind my back and handed it to him. "I got this for you."
Gavin snatched it out of my hand, turned and ran away from the door screaming for Claire.
"MOOOOOOOM! That guy bought me sumfin!"
I laughed and stepped into the house, closing the door behind me.
Claire lived in a small, Cape Cod bungalow and the first thing I noticed when I walked into the living room was how homey it was. There were candles lit on the coffee table and the mantle of the fireplace and the smell of dinner coming from the kitchen was mouth watering. I walked around the room looking at all of the pictures she had on practically every surface: pictures of her when she was little, pictures of her with her dad, pictures of her friends and pictures of Gavin. My heart clenched when I saw a picture of Claire, her belly round with our son. She looked so young. I lifted the picture off of the mantle to get a better look. This was how she looked when I met her, minus the pregnant belly. Looking at this picture made me sad and angry - not with her. I could never be angry with her for anything. We were both young and stupid and neither one of us used any brains that night. I was just upset that I had missed this. I had missed watching her stomach grow, I missed being able to put my hand on her and feel him kick.
“OWWWW!” I yelped as I felt a foot connect with my shin.
I looked down to see Gavin standing there staring at me.
So much for missing out on feeling him kick. I think my shin will remember that forever.
“Hey, I forgotted your name. Can I just call you dog poop?”
Before I could formulate any type of response to that request, I heard Claire’s voice from behind me.
“Gavin!”
“I didn’t do it!” he swore, with a panicked look on his face.
“Yeah, right,” she deadpanned. “This nice man’s name is Carter, remember? Stop trying to call everything dog poop.”
I turned to find her leaning against the doorframe leading into the kitchen given Carter the evil eye.
“Don’t take offense,” she said, turning her gaze to me. “Last week, every time you asked him a question he replied “stupid fat cows are stupid” no matter what the question was.”
I laughed, grateful that the whole dog poop thing wasn’t just because he already decided he hated me. Claire made her way across the room to where I was and glanced down at the picture still in my hand.
"Oh my God, please don't look at that picture. I look like I have a giant tumor growing out of me. A tumor that kicked the shit out of my va**na and made me pee myself when I sneezed," she said with a groan. "I just told you I peed my pants didn't I?" she asked.
"Yeah, you kind of did. It's okay, I’ll only send a text to four of my contacts about it instead of my whole phone book."
I suddenly realized we were toe-to-toe and I was close enough to kiss her. I leaned forward to do just that, completely forgetting that we weren’t alone in the room.
"Mo-om, can I open my pwesent now?"
We stopped inches from each other's mouths and looked down next to us.
Claire sighed and leaned back away from me.
"Yes, you can open your present now," she replied.
He plopped down on the floor right where he was and started tearing into the paper, pieces of it flying in every direction.
"You didn't have to get him anything," she said softly to me.
I shrugged. "It's no big deal, just something little."
"Mommy, look! It's crayons and markers and paint and wow I can color stuffs and make pictures!" Gavin said excitedly, holding everything up for Claire to see.
"That's awesome, baby. Can you go put them in Mommy's room on my bed and we'll play with them later?"
"But I wanna paint now," Gavin complained, dropping the box of crayons on his foot. "Shit!"
"Gavin Allen!" Claire yelled.
I knew I shouldn't laugh, so I looked away and thought of dead puppies and that scene from "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner's character got to play catch with his dad. God dammed scene got me every time.
"The next bad word that comes out of your mouth is going to get you a spanking, do you understand me? Tell Carter thank you for the present and go in your room until it's time for dinner."
"Thanks, Carter," Gavin mumbled as he trudged down the hall.
When he was out of earshot I started laughing, and Claire smacked me in the arm.
"Sorry, but he is funny as hell."
She rolled her eyes at me and walked back to the kitchen with me following behind her.
"Yes, he's a riot. Come back to me after you've been out in public with him. Like, say in church. And when it gets to a really quiet part and all you can hear is the fountain in the back of the church and then Gavin's voice say really loudly "Mom! I hear Jesus taking a piss!" It's not so funny then."
I glanced at the counter behind her and my jaw dropped. Covered over every available surface were chocolate, cookies and candy – every kind imaginable.
"Am I in Willy Wonka's workshop?"
She laughed and opened up the lid of a huge pot on the stove and stirred the contents.
"Well, I decided to make you guys my guinea pigs tonight. And Jenny is going to take a few pictures of some of the items for my advertisements since I don’t have anything better than my cell phone camera."
I stared dreamily at everything. I may have a slight weakness to sweets.
"Holy hell, what are those things?” I asked pointing to a row of white chocolate clumps the size of my fist with caramel on top.
"Oh, those are something new I’m experimenting with. I melted a bowl of white chocolate, added crushed up pretzels and potato chips to it and then once the dropped spoonfuls solidified, I drizzled caramel on top. I may have gone a little overboard on the size of them. Right now they’re called Globs."
Sweet Mary in heaven. I wanted to ask this woman to have my babies.
Oh, wait…
A knock sounded on the front door and Claire asked me to answer it for her while she set the table and finished up.
Jenny and Drew were the next to arrive. I held the door open for them and shook my head at Drew while Jenny walked in and made her way into the kitchen to talk to Claire.
"Really, Drew?" I asked, looking at his shirt.
There was a picture of a little kid on it shooting a gun above his head. The shirt read "Don't hit kids. No, seriously. They have guns now."
"What? Kids nowadays are the devil. This shirt is a PSA for you, dude. You'll thank me one day. So, where is the little guy? Does he need his diaper changed or anything? Maybe I can show him my car or give him some candy," he said as he looked around me and rubbed his hands together.
"He's four Drew. He doesn't wear diapers. And you might want to dial down the creepy kidnapper vibe just a notch."
"Whatever. Take me to your demon seed," Drew said.
We walked past the kitchen and I stuck my head in and asked Claire if it was okay to head back to Gavin's room. She told me where it was and we went down the hall and found him sitting on the floor in the middle of his room, squirting a tube of toothpaste right onto the carpet.
"Whoa there, big guy. What are you doing?" I asked as I quickly made my way over to him and took the now empty bottle out of his hand.
He just shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."
Shit. What do I do? Should I go get Claire? I don't want the kid to think I'm a traitor though. He would get mad at me for tattling on him. Wait, I was the adult. I couldn't let him walk all over me. I needed to let him know who the boss was. And right now, it wasn't Tony Danza.
"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be putting toothpaste on your floor, are you?" I asked.
"That's a dumb question, Carter. Of course he's not supposed to put toothpaste on the floor," Drew said seriously.
I looked back over my shoulder and gave him a dirty look.
"I know that. I'm trying to get him to admit what he did was wrong," I said through clenched teeth.
"Okay there, Dr. Phil. I'm pretty sure he knows it's wrong otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Kids are dumb. They do things they aren't supposed to all the time because they can. Being an adult sucks. I could never get away with putting toothpaste on my floor now."
It was like dealing with two children.
"Why would you…you know what? Never mind," I said, turning back around to face Gavin.
"Your mom wouldn't be too happy about you making this mess. How about you show me where the towels are and we'll clean it up before she sees it."
There. He won't hate me for telling on him and I still let him know it was bad. I am an awesome parent.
Obviously Gavin was very excited to clean if it meant we didn't tell Claire what he did. I briefly wondered if she was going to find out and possibly cut my penis off or smother me in my sleep. And then I wondered if I told her, would Gavin punch me in the nuts again, or maybe go for the throat this time? I don't know whether to fear my kid or his mother.
Twenty minutes later, the carpet was good as new and Drew and I were sitting Indian-style in the middle of Gavin's room, praying to every higher power we knew that the girls wouldn't walk in the room right this minute.
Gavin had decided we should play dress up. We tried getting him to play something manly like cops and robbers, running with scissors or lighting shit on fire - anything but this. Unfortunately, you couldn't win an argument with a four-year old no matter how much you tried. Drew and I were both currently dressed as babies, complete with pacifiers in our mouths and holding on to stuffed animals. He stuck us each in these giant sun hats of Claire’s that flopped down over our faces. Drew’s was pink and mine was white. I drew the line at putting on one of his old, unused diapers that he found in a drawer in his closet from before he was potty trained.
I knew he was going to say that.
"It's okay if you don't feel comfortable with me being alone with him just yet since he really doesn't know me. But I'd like to come over and see him."
I couldn't stop the smile that took over my face. Not only did his fingers deserve a major award, like a leg lamp or a national monument erected in his name, (heh, heh, erected!) he actually took the initiative and asked to spend time with Gavin - even after getting punched in the nuts and threatened with the two finger eye-watching signal.
Gavin would finally get to hang around a man other than my father and Jim.
And I'd get to have Carter tiptoe through the twolips again soon.
14. Captain Narcolepsy
"So what you're telling me is, our little Claire’s got hardwood floors, terracotta pie, a leather sausage wallet, a who-ha with no hair-ha," Drew yelled over the noise of the assembly line.
"Wow, I am really regretting that I told you anything about last night," I yelled back.
I reached above me for the hydraulic drill attached to the rig in the ceiling and pulled it down to fasten the car door to the body of the vehicle. I had three minutes before the next car came down the line and having to deal with Drew being an ass was going to make me screw everything up and force the line to shut down.
That and the fact that I really couldn't stop thinking about what had happened between Claire and I last night in the back room of the bar. Sweet Jesus she was beautiful when she came. And the little sounds she made…fuck, just thinking about them was making Carter Junior stand up and start begging for her. I hope she didn't think things were going too fast because I really wanted a repeat performance. And I didn't even care about not getting off. Watching her and feeling her come apart in my hands was enough satisfaction for me.
"Dude, you know your secret is safe with me. I will never tell a soul that you got to third base with your baby-mama last night and that Chewbacca does not live in her underwear. At least now I don't have to worry about you. "
I turned off the drill and looked across the car at Drew who was attaching the front door handle.
"Why were you worried about me?"
"Aww, bro, come on. You were one step away from lathering chocolate ganache on your dick and trying to give yourself a bl*w j*b," he said.
"Did you just say ganache?"
Drew shrugged. "Yeah. Jenny makes me watch the Food Network all the time now. Ever since she started designing the flyers for Claire, she's decided she wants to learn how to cook. She spent twenty minutes the other day looking up a recipe online for frosting made with confederate sugar."
Laughter bubbled out of me and I got back to work on the car.
"Did you tell her to try looking in the Deep South for that sugar? You might also want to warn her about the Rebel sugar," I laughed.
"Come on, man. Don't be a dick. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was called convection sugar."
Nope, not going to touch that one.
"So, are you and Jenny going to Claire’s tonight?" I asked, changing the subject.
Claire was definitely on board with letting me see Gavin. She figured starting off in a group setting would be the best thing so she invited everyone over to her place tonight for dinner.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world. I even got a new shirt just for the occasion," Drew said with a smile.
***
At six o'clock I knocked on Claire’s door. I heard footsteps pounding against the floor and suddenly the door was flung open.
I looked down at the little man that stood there staring at me and I couldn't help but smile. Jesus he looked so much like Claire. But his eyes…wow they were exactly the same as mine.
"Hi there Gavin," I said as I pulled a wrapped present out from behind my back and handed it to him. "I got this for you."
Gavin snatched it out of my hand, turned and ran away from the door screaming for Claire.
"MOOOOOOOM! That guy bought me sumfin!"
I laughed and stepped into the house, closing the door behind me.
Claire lived in a small, Cape Cod bungalow and the first thing I noticed when I walked into the living room was how homey it was. There were candles lit on the coffee table and the mantle of the fireplace and the smell of dinner coming from the kitchen was mouth watering. I walked around the room looking at all of the pictures she had on practically every surface: pictures of her when she was little, pictures of her with her dad, pictures of her friends and pictures of Gavin. My heart clenched when I saw a picture of Claire, her belly round with our son. She looked so young. I lifted the picture off of the mantle to get a better look. This was how she looked when I met her, minus the pregnant belly. Looking at this picture made me sad and angry - not with her. I could never be angry with her for anything. We were both young and stupid and neither one of us used any brains that night. I was just upset that I had missed this. I had missed watching her stomach grow, I missed being able to put my hand on her and feel him kick.
“OWWWW!” I yelped as I felt a foot connect with my shin.
I looked down to see Gavin standing there staring at me.
So much for missing out on feeling him kick. I think my shin will remember that forever.
“Hey, I forgotted your name. Can I just call you dog poop?”
Before I could formulate any type of response to that request, I heard Claire’s voice from behind me.
“Gavin!”
“I didn’t do it!” he swore, with a panicked look on his face.
“Yeah, right,” she deadpanned. “This nice man’s name is Carter, remember? Stop trying to call everything dog poop.”
I turned to find her leaning against the doorframe leading into the kitchen given Carter the evil eye.
“Don’t take offense,” she said, turning her gaze to me. “Last week, every time you asked him a question he replied “stupid fat cows are stupid” no matter what the question was.”
I laughed, grateful that the whole dog poop thing wasn’t just because he already decided he hated me. Claire made her way across the room to where I was and glanced down at the picture still in my hand.
"Oh my God, please don't look at that picture. I look like I have a giant tumor growing out of me. A tumor that kicked the shit out of my va**na and made me pee myself when I sneezed," she said with a groan. "I just told you I peed my pants didn't I?" she asked.
"Yeah, you kind of did. It's okay, I’ll only send a text to four of my contacts about it instead of my whole phone book."
I suddenly realized we were toe-to-toe and I was close enough to kiss her. I leaned forward to do just that, completely forgetting that we weren’t alone in the room.
"Mo-om, can I open my pwesent now?"
We stopped inches from each other's mouths and looked down next to us.
Claire sighed and leaned back away from me.
"Yes, you can open your present now," she replied.
He plopped down on the floor right where he was and started tearing into the paper, pieces of it flying in every direction.
"You didn't have to get him anything," she said softly to me.
I shrugged. "It's no big deal, just something little."
"Mommy, look! It's crayons and markers and paint and wow I can color stuffs and make pictures!" Gavin said excitedly, holding everything up for Claire to see.
"That's awesome, baby. Can you go put them in Mommy's room on my bed and we'll play with them later?"
"But I wanna paint now," Gavin complained, dropping the box of crayons on his foot. "Shit!"
"Gavin Allen!" Claire yelled.
I knew I shouldn't laugh, so I looked away and thought of dead puppies and that scene from "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner's character got to play catch with his dad. God dammed scene got me every time.
"The next bad word that comes out of your mouth is going to get you a spanking, do you understand me? Tell Carter thank you for the present and go in your room until it's time for dinner."
"Thanks, Carter," Gavin mumbled as he trudged down the hall.
When he was out of earshot I started laughing, and Claire smacked me in the arm.
"Sorry, but he is funny as hell."
She rolled her eyes at me and walked back to the kitchen with me following behind her.
"Yes, he's a riot. Come back to me after you've been out in public with him. Like, say in church. And when it gets to a really quiet part and all you can hear is the fountain in the back of the church and then Gavin's voice say really loudly "Mom! I hear Jesus taking a piss!" It's not so funny then."
I glanced at the counter behind her and my jaw dropped. Covered over every available surface were chocolate, cookies and candy – every kind imaginable.
"Am I in Willy Wonka's workshop?"
She laughed and opened up the lid of a huge pot on the stove and stirred the contents.
"Well, I decided to make you guys my guinea pigs tonight. And Jenny is going to take a few pictures of some of the items for my advertisements since I don’t have anything better than my cell phone camera."
I stared dreamily at everything. I may have a slight weakness to sweets.
"Holy hell, what are those things?” I asked pointing to a row of white chocolate clumps the size of my fist with caramel on top.
"Oh, those are something new I’m experimenting with. I melted a bowl of white chocolate, added crushed up pretzels and potato chips to it and then once the dropped spoonfuls solidified, I drizzled caramel on top. I may have gone a little overboard on the size of them. Right now they’re called Globs."
Sweet Mary in heaven. I wanted to ask this woman to have my babies.
Oh, wait…
A knock sounded on the front door and Claire asked me to answer it for her while she set the table and finished up.
Jenny and Drew were the next to arrive. I held the door open for them and shook my head at Drew while Jenny walked in and made her way into the kitchen to talk to Claire.
"Really, Drew?" I asked, looking at his shirt.
There was a picture of a little kid on it shooting a gun above his head. The shirt read "Don't hit kids. No, seriously. They have guns now."
"What? Kids nowadays are the devil. This shirt is a PSA for you, dude. You'll thank me one day. So, where is the little guy? Does he need his diaper changed or anything? Maybe I can show him my car or give him some candy," he said as he looked around me and rubbed his hands together.
"He's four Drew. He doesn't wear diapers. And you might want to dial down the creepy kidnapper vibe just a notch."
"Whatever. Take me to your demon seed," Drew said.
We walked past the kitchen and I stuck my head in and asked Claire if it was okay to head back to Gavin's room. She told me where it was and we went down the hall and found him sitting on the floor in the middle of his room, squirting a tube of toothpaste right onto the carpet.
"Whoa there, big guy. What are you doing?" I asked as I quickly made my way over to him and took the now empty bottle out of his hand.
He just shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know."
Shit. What do I do? Should I go get Claire? I don't want the kid to think I'm a traitor though. He would get mad at me for tattling on him. Wait, I was the adult. I couldn't let him walk all over me. I needed to let him know who the boss was. And right now, it wasn't Tony Danza.
"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be putting toothpaste on your floor, are you?" I asked.
"That's a dumb question, Carter. Of course he's not supposed to put toothpaste on the floor," Drew said seriously.
I looked back over my shoulder and gave him a dirty look.
"I know that. I'm trying to get him to admit what he did was wrong," I said through clenched teeth.
"Okay there, Dr. Phil. I'm pretty sure he knows it's wrong otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Kids are dumb. They do things they aren't supposed to all the time because they can. Being an adult sucks. I could never get away with putting toothpaste on my floor now."
It was like dealing with two children.
"Why would you…you know what? Never mind," I said, turning back around to face Gavin.
"Your mom wouldn't be too happy about you making this mess. How about you show me where the towels are and we'll clean it up before she sees it."
There. He won't hate me for telling on him and I still let him know it was bad. I am an awesome parent.
Obviously Gavin was very excited to clean if it meant we didn't tell Claire what he did. I briefly wondered if she was going to find out and possibly cut my penis off or smother me in my sleep. And then I wondered if I told her, would Gavin punch me in the nuts again, or maybe go for the throat this time? I don't know whether to fear my kid or his mother.
Twenty minutes later, the carpet was good as new and Drew and I were sitting Indian-style in the middle of Gavin's room, praying to every higher power we knew that the girls wouldn't walk in the room right this minute.
Gavin had decided we should play dress up. We tried getting him to play something manly like cops and robbers, running with scissors or lighting shit on fire - anything but this. Unfortunately, you couldn't win an argument with a four-year old no matter how much you tried. Drew and I were both currently dressed as babies, complete with pacifiers in our mouths and holding on to stuffed animals. He stuck us each in these giant sun hats of Claire’s that flopped down over our faces. Drew’s was pink and mine was white. I drew the line at putting on one of his old, unused diapers that he found in a drawer in his closet from before he was potty trained.
