I needed to get laid. Badly.
Last night I wanked off twice and still couldn’t catch shut-eye for hours. Normally, after a good release, I could pass out for days. Finishing my morning run, I leaned over panting with my hands on my knees. Eight miles and it still did nothing to release the feeling of frustration inside of me. My neck was tense, jaw was clenched, and I had the urge to go box a few rounds with the heavy bag.
After I caught my breath, I tugged off my shirt, used it to wipe the sweat off my face, and walked the last block back to the house. I’d intentionally left while Bridget was in the shower so I didn’t have to face her, figuring she’d be gone by the time I got back. I had a certain amount of guilt about visualizing her while I wanked—obviously not enough to stop me from doing it. Twice.
I was surprised to find her car in the driveway this late. Even though I’d planned to avoid her, I knew it was later than she normally left, so I stopped in to make sure everything was okay. Bridget was hopping on one foot attempting to put a shoe on while brushing her teeth at the same time.
“Everything okay?” I looked at my watch. “Don’t you have to be at the hospital in five minutes?”
She mumbled through a foaming mouth of toothpaste. “Yes. I overslept.”
I couldn’t help myself. I grinned. “Oxytocin surge.”
“What?”
“Orgasm causes an increased production of oxytocin which triggers endorphins that make you sleepy.”
Bridget almost fell over getting on her shoe and immediately headed for the bathroom to spit out her mouth full of paste. I followed, watching from the doorway as she rinsed. Wiping her mouth on the hand towel, she said, “Is anything not about sex with you, Simon? I overslept because I’m a working, single mother.”
“Sure you did.”
She growled at me. It was cute.
“Is Brendan still home, too?”
“He’s in his room getting dressed.”
“Why don’t you take off? I’ll drop Little B at school to save you some time?”
“You’d do that?”
“Of course. I owe you one.”
Still in rush mode, she brushed past me and went to the kitchen to grab her work ID and keys. “That would be great. But why do you owe me one?”
“Let’s just say you helped me out last night. Actually…maybe I owe you two.”
I saw her blush as she ran out the door. “Kiss Brendan for me!”
“Simon, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, buddy. What’s up?” Brendan was in the backseat of my car as I headed toward his school.
“You’re kind of like an uncle since you live with us, right?”
I wasn’t sure where this was going. “An uncle is the brother of one of your parents usually.”
“But Mark Connolly’s parents are divorced, and his mom just had a guy move in and he calls him Uncle Sam.”
“Ummm. I think that’s a little different than a real uncle. Sometimes kids call close friends of their parents Uncle or Aunt.”
“So, couldn’t you be my uncle, then? You and my mom are friends, right?”
“I guess so. In that sense of the word uncle, sure.”
I heard the smile in his voice. “Great. Can you come to field day this afternoon, then? Miss Santoro says if your dad can’t make it, an uncle or a grandfather can come.”
“Sorry, buddy. I have to work this afternoon.” I pulled up to the light and looked in the rearview mirror. The kid’s face almost broke my heart. “You know what, let me make some calls. Maybe I can get someone to cover my shift for a few hours.”
His face lit up. “Really?”
“You bet.” Two minutes later, I pulled to the curb at the front of the school and turned around. “What time does field day start?”
“Eleven.”
I nodded. “I’ll do my best to be there.”
The kid was grinning from ear to ear. He strapped his backpack on and scooted over in the seat to open the door. “You’re going to beat all the dads in tug of war. None of them look like you!”
Dan Fogel was a bastard. In exchange for covering my shift, I had to cover two Saturday nights and pick him up a pile of Chinese food on an evening of his choosing. He’d initially said no, and my begging told him to up the cost. But it was all worth it when I walked into Miss Santoro’s classroom. I scanned the room for Brendan. There were a few dads milling around the room already. Little B was in the back of the class with a group of boys when he spotted me. Pointing, he said, “See, I told you my uncle was huge. Look at his muscles. We’re gonna cream you in tug of war.”
I would’ve covered twenty shifts for the way he beamed and ran over. Brendan gave me a fist bump and introduced me to all his buddies. They formed a circle around me, which made me feel a bit like Gulliver next to all the little peanut-sized boys.
“Are you really a doctor?” A suspect little redheaded freckle face squinted at me under his glasses.
I kneeled down. “I am. Do you have an ailment?”
“A what?”
“An ailment. You know…does your tummy or something hurt?”
“No. But sometimes Brendan lies.”
My eyes flickered to Brendan and back to the little boy. “I highly doubt that. Brendan is a stand-up mate.”
Little redhead put his hands on his hips. “Do you also fly planes?”
From my peripheral view, I caught Brendan’s eyes widen at the prospect of my exposing him. “Just small ones. You should come along for a ride some time. As long as you don’t mind Brendan taking the helm once in a while.”
The kid’s glasses nearly knocked square from his face when his eyes bulged. “You let Brendan fly the plane!”
I looked around and winked. “Shh…let’s keep that between us boys. I wouldn’t want Brendan to get in trouble—underage piloting and all.”
The crew of kids ran off to play after that, and I was greeted by a very pretty lady. She extended her hand. “You must be Dr. Hogue, Brendan’s uncle.”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Miss Santoro, Brendan’s teacher. He talked about you all morning. He’s super excited to have you here. I’m glad you could make it.”
“Thank you. I’m happy it worked out.”
“Do you live here in town? I work the drop off circle in the mornings, and I’ve noticed you dropping him off a few times.”
“Yes. I live with Bridget and Brendan. I’m finishing up my residency at Memorial and staying with them until I’m done.”
“Oh. You must be Mrs. Valentine’s brother, then?”
“Ummm. Yes. Bridget’s my big sis.”
“Were you both raised in England? I’ve never noticed an accent before from her…but yours is very strong. It is British, isn’t it?”
Shit. And one lie snowballs into two. What the heck? In for a penny, in for a pound. I might as well have fun with it. “I went to college and med school across the pond. I guess I picked it up over the years. Harry, my flat mate, had a pretty royal sounding accent. His brother William was even worse.”
She smiled. “Well, I like it.”
My flirting came out on autopilot. “Then I think I’ll keep it.”
Little B and I won the two-on-two basketball tournament. We romped in the egg on a spoon game, and the three-legged race wasn’t even a challenge—we pretty much walked to victory. Brendan was having the time of his life when we broke for lunch. The teachers had set up a table full of blankets and sack lunches. I grabbed our loot, and we went to sit under a tall oak.
Brendan sat Indian-style while I stretched out on the blanket, leaning up on my elbows. “Ah. It’s good to be the king, isn’t it, buddy?”
He smiled. “It’s awesome. Mark Connolly usually wins everything. He thinks his dad is the coolest because he works on airplanes. But he’s a mechanic, not even a pilot.”
I took a bite of my sandwich and eyed my little buddy. “He’s not a pilot like me, huh?”
Brendan’s face dropped. I hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. I was just teasing—all boys tell tall tales when they’re his age. “You’re not going to tell my mom, are you?”
“Of course not. Bro code. We stick together.” I offered my fist for a bump.
He looked relieved. “I didn’t mean to lie…I just couldn’t take it anymore. They’re always talking about how great their dads are. This morning, Mark made fun of me because I don’t know how to throw a spiral, and it just sort of came out.”
I mussed his hair trying to make light of it, even though I felt a crushing sensation inside my chest. “They’re all just jealous because you have this cool, long hair going on.”
After lunch, we did a few more activities and then the kids all went to do some water balloon squashing thing, and the parents stood around talking. Miss Santoro found me fiddling with my phone.
“If you win anymore events, I might have to tie one arm behind your back to make it fair for the other kids.”
It was a hot one today, and Miss Santoro had changed out of her dress and heels into cute little shorts and a t-shirt to spend the afternoon outside. None of my teachers looked like her growing up. I wondered if Little B had a crush on his teacher. “Oh yeah? You’re going to tie me up?”
She blushed. “When it comes out of your mouth, it sounds dirty.”
That was because my mouth was dirty. And sometimes, I acted like an ass. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t.” She looked up from under her thick lashes. “It sounded kind of sexy, actually.”
Oh shit. I was just screwing around. The last thing I needed was for Brendan to think I was hitting on his teacher. Or Bridget. Luckily, Little B was heading my way with two balloons.
“Can you throw these at the dunk tank, Uncle Simon?”
“Sure, buddy.” I nodded at Miss Santoro. “Don’t worry, I’m only going to use one hand.”
Field day ended at three o’clock, and all of the dads were taking their kids home with them. Brendan usually went to an afterschool program because Bridget worked, but I didn’t want him to be the only kid there today. So, instead, I took him for ice cream and then headed to the hospital. There was less than an hour left to Bridget’s shift, so I figured he could hang around in the staff lounge and raid the snack machines while he did his homework. We were both excited to surprise his mom.
Bridget was behind the nurse’s station when we walked in, typing away on the computer, so she didn’t see us come into the ER.
I leaned down and whispered to Brendan. “You wanna sneak up and scare her or should I?”
He grinned. “Me.”
Bridget nearly jumped out of her skivvies when he snuck up on her and growled. “Oh my God. What are you doing here, Brendan?”
“I came with Simon.”
“Simon? Why were you with Simon?” She turned to me. “I was wondering why you weren’t here yet.”
“Simon was my uncle today. He came to field day and beat all the other dads.”
“He did?”
“Yep. And that’s not all. You wanna know what else happened?”
I’d assumed he was going to spill about our getting ice cream.
Bridget said, “Of course. What else happened that I don’t know about? It sounds like I’m in the dark on a lot of amazing stuff that happened today.”
Brendan scrunched up his nose. “Miss Santoro was making googly eyes at Simon. I think she wants to marry him.”
Great. What happened to bro code, Little B?