AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 5
Cain never texted me back. I found myself standing in front of a full-length mirror in my bridesmaid dress being pinned and tugged while I did all the fixating that I normally despised in girls. I considered and discarded a hundred reasons why Cain hadn’t answered me.
He was at work.
He was hungover.
I hadn’t given him anything to respond to because I hadn’t ended with a question.
His phone had died.
He never wanted to talk to me ever again.
I scowled at myself in the mirror, thoroughly annoyed that I was trying to telepathically determine what another human being was thinking or doing. It was futile and I knew it.
“Did I hurt you?” the seamstress asked.
“No, I’m fine,” I said absently.
“Okay, this is good. Do you like it?” she asked. She was a petite woman in her forties, with reading glasses perched on her nose.
I was indifferent about the dress. The style was cute enough but I wasn’t a huge fan of the blush color with my complexion. “It’s fine.” I stepped off the platform. “Can I change?”
Bella was in a fitting room being squeezed into her dress.
“Yes, you can change.”
“Thank you.” I glanced out the window as I walked past it to my own fitting room. I did a double take.
Cain was walking by, carrying a little boy with wispy blond hair. I had an immediate reaction to seeing the lobster fisherman. I got hot. My nipples hardened. My breath caught. He disappeared from view and I scrambled to the window to see where he was going, and to see if it really was him. It was. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with him but I had seen and felt the way he moved, had measured the breadth of those shoulders with my hands, and had run my fingers through that short, dark hair.
He crossed the street and entered the park, where there was playground equipment. He put the little boy in a swing and pushed.
I bolted, changing out of the dress, dropping it on the floor of the fitting room and pulling my jeans and T-shirt on. I shoved my feet into the flip-flops and ran out of the fitting room. “I’ll be right back!” I said to the startled seamstress. “Tell my sister I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Chasing a guy down in the park wasn’t my usual style but I wasn’t going to be in Camden that long, and once my whole family arrived for the wedding I would never have a minute alone. There would be zero time to have sex with Cain. I wouldn’t even be able to see him because my mother would be filled with nosy questions and criticisms. So instead of wasting time wondering why Cain hadn’t answered my text, I was just going to throw it out there and see what happened. Hell, it had worked the night before.
Bella was going to be pissed that I had left the salon but I would be fast. I darted across the street between two parked cars and fast-walked toward the park. There was no time to glance around and appreciate the architecture of the town. Normally, I enjoyed the orderly symmetry of downtown, but today I had bigger issues at hand. I went up to the swings and stopped in front of the little boy Cain was pushing.
“Hi,” I said, slightly out of breath. I crossed my arms over my chest, realizing that I had no bra on.
“Hi.” He was wearing shorts and a black T-shirt. He didn’t look hungover. Nor did he look excited to see me. Conversely, he didn’t look annoyed. Just flat. Remote.
I wasn’t expecting a kiss or wild enthusiasm, but I guess I thought he would at least smile. Show recognition that just hours before we had been naked in bed together.
“Who’s this little guy?” I asked when the silence stretched out. The baby was very cute, with chubby cheeks and a button nose. He was staring at me as he went back and forth gently in the bucket swing. He had on denim shorts, a T-shirt with a puppy dog on it, and little navy sandals. I was no expert on child development, having never been one to babysit, but if I had to guess his age I would put it between eighteen months and two years.
“This is my son.”
Okay, so my jaw dropped. I didn’t mean it to, but it did. “Oh, wow. That’s…awesome. Does he live with his mother?” Because there had been no child in his house the night before.
“He lives with my mother.” Cain gave him another push.
The baby kicked his feet out and waved his fists, yelling something that sounded like “mo” over and over. Now I thought maybe he was younger than I had originally guessed but I wasn’t sure. I was shocked only in that I hadn’t pictured Cain as a father and he hadn’t mentioned a child. Didn’t most parents mention a kid? But I realized it didn’t actually matter. That was his private life, and I hadn’t asked him any personal questions and he hadn’t offered me anything. Why would he? We were total strangers essentially, despite our physical intimacy. Interesting though that this child lived with his grandmother instead of either parent. I pictured Cain slinging back whiskey and decided maybe that wasn’t so shocking.
Bella was going to send a rescue crew out after me if I didn’t go back right away. So I stayed the course. “I think we should have—”
I stopped myself. Maybe saying the word “sex” in front of a baby was not cool. “I want to repeat last night with you. Tonight, if you’re free.”
