What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,60
Nate had driven off, if Nate could please take him to the annual father-son dinner. Every year she’d been his substitute dad, but apparently that wasn’t going to work this year.
She understood. She did. And tried not to make it about her or her simple lack of a penis when that had been okay for the last five years. But it did still hurt. Just a little.
“Well, can we call him? I want to ask him before he makes a date with some girl or something.”
Claudia’s heart clenched. Justin had walked out to the deck right after she made her announcement to Nate that he was going to be her cake. He hadn’t said anything after that to her, as Justin had started yammering. Then Nate left, saying nothing other than goodbye as he walked out the door without looking her in the eye.
Had she miscalculated? She probably should have asked him if he was dating someone before she started batting her eyelashes at him and kissing him, letting him take her straight to the moon and back. But they’d never really shared much about their love lives with one another. They could, and did, talk about nearly everything else, but that was one subject they each seemed to keep to themselves.
“I’ll go call him,” she said, when she realized she’d taken too long to answer and Justin was staring at her as if she had three heads. “You get your shower and then bring your homework out.”
Picking up the phone from the kitchen, she hesitated over the keypad. She felt almost weird calling the man she’d talked to every day for years. She needed to get over this and figure out if she should do a full frontal assault again or look for her cake elsewhere.
The phone rang four times, and she was about to click the End button when he picked up.
“Hello?”
Her breath became shorter, hearing his rumbly voice across the line. Her palms were sweating, and she wondered briefly if she was in the middle of a panic attack.
“Hello? Is anyone there, or were you just planning on heavy breathing in my ear?”
Her heart fluttered damn near out of her chest.
“Last chance, sick puppy. I can hear you breathing, so unless you have something to say, I’m hanging up.”
And then all she heard was a click as the line went dead. She’d never been more thankful Nate was one of the few holdouts on Caller ID. At least she didn’t run the risk of him knowing it had been her.
Now all she had to decide was whether to call him back right away and pretend nothing had happened, or to wait a little bit, make sure Justin was starting his bath, then call and act as if nothing happened. She opted for number one, since it would mean getting the whole thing out of the way. And she wasn’t much of a procrastinator.
Plus, she could hear the shower running down the hall, and Justin would yell if she walked in now and saw him naked. Boys—kids, for that matter. It wasn’t like he had anything she hadn’t seen before. Hell, she used to wipe his little butt for him for almost three full years.
And now she was procrastinating, again. She pressed the Talk button and then Redial. Putting the phone up to her ear, she waited for the ringing to start and mentally rehearsed what she would say to Nate.
But no ringing sounded in her ear. The only thing she heard was Nate’s deep voice saying, “Well, hello, Claudia, were you planning on talking to me this time or am I in for a little more heavy breathing?”
Claudia couldn’t help the nervous laughter that burbled out of her throat. So much for staying anonymous. The luxury had been taken right out of her hands. “Hey, Nate. Um, no, no more heavy breathing. Sorry about that the first time, I was trying to listen for Justin getting in the shower and got distracted before you answered the phone.”
“Sounds kind of like a load of crap.” The smile in his voice was evident.
Yeah, the excuse sounded lame to her, too, but she wasn’t going to explain herself further or even discuss that subject again. Ever, if she could help it. “Anyway, Justin has a father-son dinner coming up on Friday night that he wanted you to go to with him, and I was wondering if you were available.” She worked hard to restrain her imagination as to what she