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There was a scuffle, followed by a beep from the call disconnecting, which I could only assume was an accident. I plopped down on the bed and laughed to myself over the song Avery was singing in the living room. Maybe Sophie didn’t accept it, but I did. My love life was over the second I met Avery’s worthless father.
I had no business dating while the rest of my life was such a mess. Most days, I was barely hanging by a thread. Avery’s behavioural problems were proving to be much worse than the phase his doctors insisted I was dealing with. He was getting sent home from preschool constantly, and it was impossible to get any work done while he was home. The strain on my working hours had me at the end of my rope with almost no money to pay my bills. How was I going to sit across the table from some man over a fancy dinner and pretend like everything was fine?
I gave up on Sophie, since she never called me back, and changed into my sweats. I threw my hair into a sloppy bun on top of my head and grabbed my phone, gearing up to message my date and tell him it was off.
But just as I was about to hit send, a knock came to my door. I instinctively ducked and started hissing at Avery to get down and hush. The last thing I needed right then was another heated discussion with my landlord, who had officially lost all patience for me.
"It’s me!" Sophie called out from behind the door.
I walked over and answered. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious. You’re not missing this date," she grinned, breezing past me. "Now go get dressed. Me and Avery are gonna have a blast together while you’re gone. Isn’t that right, buddy?"
He stared back at her with a blank face, then walked over and flipped his hand over into hers. Her face twisted in disgust when he pulled it back and revealed a big ball of cold, wet slime in her palm.
"You can blame Jo for that," I snickered. "She’s the one who taught him how to make slime in his last art class with her."
"Right. I’ll be sure to have a word with her about that, but you have to get to it, Missy. You don’t want to be late."
I rolled my eyes, but with a thankful grin, mouthing ‘thank you’ to her just before slipping into the bedroom to change.
The only good thing about Sophie showing up as the surprise babysitter was that it didn’t leave me any more time to obsess over what I would wear. I threw on a yellow button-up dress that popped against my tan skin and complimented my honey brown hair, slipped on some pink flats that I thought complimented it nicely, and grabbed my usual oversize mom-bag.
"That’s the best you could do?" Sophie snipped when I came out.
"I don’t have time to worry about it!"
"You’re supposed to be showing up as Becca, the sex kitten, not Becca, the kindergarten teacher!"
Avery started running circles around the room shouting, "Sex kitten! Sex kitten! Sex kitten!"
I darkened my eyes over Sophie. "Nice job. But I’m not supposed to be a sex kitten. I’m supposed to be working and making money to pay bills and trying to figure out how to survive…" I glanced over to Avery and let out a heavy sigh. "Life. How to survive life."
"You have to do something for yourself," she insisted. "You can’t just work and be a mom 24/7. If you keep going like this, you will snap.
"You’re probably right," I admitted. "Okay, well, watch your language while I’m gone, will you? He only rotates between saying five words at a time for reasons no one, not even his pediatrician, can explain to me and he WILL pick the five WORST words you say to repeat over and over again for the foreseeable future…"
"I got it. Sorry for the slip, but we’ll be fine from here," she assured me, shoving me towards the door. "I’ve got you covered for the night, so please don’t come back until you’ve… you know."
"That’s a lot of pressure to…"
"Bye!"
She practically shoved me out the door and slammed it shut behind me. I sucked in a deep breath, fished my keys out of my purse, and headed to my car. I had high hopes when I was leaving…
…Only to find myself pulling right back in the driveway less than two hours later.
"What are you doing back so early!?" Sophie gasped as she let me in.
I stomped inside, pouting as I flung my purse off - not caring where it landed this time.
"The same thing that always happens," I scoffed as I steadied myself against the wall to pull off my shoes. "Men are garbage. It was awful. I barely made it through one round of drinks and the appetizer before I made up an excuse about Avery being sick so I could leave."
She tilted her head and studied me, as if she was trying to decide if the terrible date might have somehow been my fault.
"Come on, don’t look at me like that. Before you accidentally stumbled into everything with Liam, you were just as anti-men and dating as I am," I reminded her.
"I know," she sighed. "It’s not your fault. I was just hoping…"
