Chapter Five #2
Hell, I’m surprised too. I wouldn’t mind watching her daughter, she’s cute as a button, and I really am great with kids.
But I don’t want to just watch her kid. I want to take her out, I want to kiss this woman in front of me, and I want to show her that I could be someone she has fun with when she needs a break.
“Wow.” She breathes out a sigh and nods her head, and I can tell from the movement—mostly because she’s not great at hiding her feelings—that she did not expect that from me at all. Her and I both. “That’s so kind. Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”
“Sure, let me give you my number.”
For a split second, she halts her movements, and I swear I see something like disappointment in her eyes.
I’m disappointed in me too.
But she recovers quickly, handing me her phone and letting me type in my number. I add my last name too, and when she gets it back, she looks at it in amusement. “Fowler?”
“Yup,” I answer, pissed with myself for messing this up so royally. I need to get it together. “Is that funny?”
She shakes her head, a smile on her lips. “Oh, no. Just an interesting last name.” She opens her mouth to say more, but we’re cut off by the next team getting up to play their round.
Not long after the awkward conversation—the one where I was supposed to woo the woman and absolutely flopped—she announces her departure.
I stand with her and Quinn, and she says bye to the group, receiving the same in return. I walk her to the door, Quinn staying back to let me and shooting me a wink. Oh, she is going to love what I’ve roped myself into.
“Well.” Elizabeth clears her throat, her hand clutching her purse strap tightly and looking at me like she wants to say something. She licks her lips, and I wait on bated breath for her next words. “Thanks for having me.”
“Anytime,” I reply, clenching my fists and unsure what to say next. But what I came up with should not have been it. “Let me know if you need any help with Aurora.”
Again, there’s a shadow in her expression like that is not what she wants me to say, but my tongue is tied, my foot is lodged somewhere between my windpipe and tongue, and my brain has decided to take a vacation.
“Okay.” She nods her head and then reaches for the door handle. Get the door for her, dumbass! “Well, thanks.”
Then, she’s gone. Walking down the long hallway to the elevator and out of my life forever.
Unless, of course, she needs a babysitter.
I shut the door and let my head bang against it for a moment before realizing that the chatter in the living room has ceased. I turn, my friends all with a clear line of sight to me in my misery, and Quinn raises an eyebrow at me.
“Well? Did you ask her out?” Her anticipated expression crushes my soul even more.
“I gave her my number.”
“Yes! I knew it!” She turns to Graham, who’s shaking his head in disappointment. We’re all disappointed, buddy. “I told you he was into her!”
“Did you get hers in return?” Chris asks, his analytical voice in use.
“No.”
A resounding groan echoes among the guys in the room, leaving the girls confused.
“What’s wrong with that?” Jane asks, looking to the girls for confirmation. “I’m sure she’ll call.”
“How did she get yours? What’s the context?” Viviana asks, looking like she was ready to start finding angles on how to get this to work.
“I…” I don’t want to admit it out loud. I know the second I do, they are going to start throwing things at me.
I already know what an idiot I am. Do I really need an audience for it?
“Derek,” Graham prompts, looking at me with curiosity. “What did you do?”
I swallow, then, leaning against the back of the couch, I blurt it out in one long word. “Iofferedtobabysitherdaughter.”
“What?” Quinn asks, frowning.
“Oh my god.” Garrett laughs, shaking his head, and Molly, his mortal enemy, shoots him a glare.
“What? What did he say?”
I take a breath, because apparently Garrett’s the only one who understands what I said and can’t seem to catch his breath.
Shaking my head, I finally admit the truth with unearthing defeat. “I offered.” I lick my lips. “To babysit her daughter.”
For a moment, there’s a collective silence throughout the room. Garrett notwithstanding, since he can’t breathe from how hard he was laughing. The boys give me sympathetic looks, and the girls seem to be trying to puzzle out what a colossal fuckup this was.
“I thought you liked her,” Quinn says, a questioning look on her face.
“I mean, to be fair, I only saw you together at the wedding once, but—man, okay, I’m retiring from the fix-ups.
I’m obviously way off base.” She turns to me and then makes me feel worse.
“Derek, I’m so sorry for springing her on you. I really thought you were into her.”
“I am,” I answer, trying to figure out why I’m an idiot.
“But… wait, what?” Quinn questions with a lifted brow, looking at me. “Why didn’t you ask her out?”
“I swore off dating!” I say loudly, looking at my buddies, who were just now realizing what I was talking about. “I did it in front of all of you. Well.” I look at Graham. “Not you, you were in wedding bliss.”
“Thank you for leaving me out of it,” Graham replies, taking a sip of his beer.
“You were serious about that?” Enzo asks, reclining onto the couch and crossing his leg over his knee.
“Um, have you seen me date anyone since the wedding?”
I get a look from my friends at this. “What?”
“The wedding was two weeks ago, Derek.”
“Yeah, fourteen whole days, and not one date.”
“Am I crazy, or is that like… no time at all?” Archer asks, looking at me quizzically.
“For the serial dater, it’s longer than you think,” Garrett says, gesturing to me. “This guy is usually out every night.”
“Ew,” Quinn says and then slaps her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No, that’s pretty problematic,” April pipes in, and I look at my friends. The only two who haven’t commented are Nora, Enzo’s girlfriend and my other roommate, and Molly.
I stare at them in horror. “I’m not sleeping with someone every night!”
“Well, you understand our concern,” April replies, looking at me with worry. “Are you okay, Derek?”
I groan and hang my head. Most of the time, I love having a big family like this, where everyone is in each other’s business whether we like it or not. But right now, I am not feeling like I love it. Not one bit.
“I’m fine,” I reply as calmly as I can manage.
This whole thing is getting away from me.
“Okay, walk me through this,” Quinn starts, and I see a little grin on her husband’s face.
Nice to know he thought this shit was funny.
“I bring my gorgeous, smart, funny friend to game night with the exclusive thought that, ‘Hey, Derek will totally woo her and sweep her off her feet and then date and marry her.’”
She pauses, and I balk for a moment.
“And instead of you doing all of that, you… offer to babysit her daughter.”
I let out a ragged breath. This conversation isn’t going to go my way at all, I can just feel it.
“She was saying that her sister said she needs to get out more,” I start, and before I can continue, Chris barks out a laugh.
He looks at me in apology. “Sorry, just, that was your opening.”
I frown and shake my head. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Oh yeah, she was definitely hinting,” Viv says, dipping a chip in some delicious concoction that Nora made.
“She was not hinting,” I deny, though I see now that it would have been a pretty good opening to asking her out.
“Anyway,” I start again. “She mentioned that her sister and parents watch her kid sometimes when she needs them.”
“Hint number two,” Garrett chimes in, with excessive agreement from the group. Fingers are even pointing at him to emphasize the point.
I nearly growl out my next point. “Anyway, I then said, if she needed help with her kid when she was busy, I could watch her. Because I’m great with kids.”
“I’ll agree with that point,” Quinn says, putting false happiness into her tone. I see what she’s doing. She feels bad and now is trying to make up for it by highlighting my finer points.
“Thank you,” I say anyway, knowing that she is already beating herself up.
“How did she seem when you offered that?” Nora asks her first question of the evening.
“She seemed fine,” I reply, then I can’t help the way my shoulders droop when confession spurs me on. “Okay, she seemed… disappointed.”
“Well, that’s that then,” Garrett says, getting up to get himself a beer. When he returns from the kitchen, he has a hard seltzer in his other hand and hands it to a puzzled-looking Molly, who thanks him quietly. “You screwed that one up.”
“I didn’t…” I start and then groan. “I said I was done dating!”
“That’s usually when people meet their soulmates,” Viv states, shrugging as if this news was not devastating to me.
“I have a friend who was doing some online dating. Well, she was sick of the weirdos on there and was going to delete her account when a new message from this guy popped up. She decided to give it one last shot and responded. They’ve been married now for ten years and have two kids together. ”
I stare at her in horror. “Are you saying I just rejected my soulmate?”
Viv’s eyes widen, obviously realizing her mistake, and she purses her lips, shaking her head. “No. Of course not. I mean, it’s not like Elizabeth is dating someone else.”
“That we know of,” Archer says in response, and my head feels like it was about to explode.
“Great. Well, this makes me feel all better. Thank you, seriously.” I take a step away, ready to hide away in my room for eternity.
“Aw, Derek. I’m sorry,” Quinn says, seeming genuinely upset.
I never want to be the reason any of my buddy’s girls are upset, so I lean over the back of the couch, giving her a hug, and then proceed to my room for a much-needed break.
Never in my life have I felt like I lost so much after game night.