Hot guy with strings

Stella

With an empty plate and a full belly, I’m not crazy about dressing up for a formal dinner party in a few hours. I’m also craving a cigarette more than life itself.

I don’t have a lot of experience with kids, other than my younger sister and brother, but Cannon intrigues me, and I think it would be fun to spend some more time with him.

“Hey, listen, I’m attending as my family’s last resort representative, and I don’t really want to be here. So I was thinking, if you want to go to that dinner tonight I wouldn’t be opposed to staying here with Cannon.”

Ash is sitting on the edge of an enormous California king, four-poster bed in the master suite. I'm talking to him through the large set of double doors separating his room from the living room where Cannon and I are still wallering on the couch.

I twist and look at him over the back of the couch, “Oh, and I’m still not staying here. I’m going unpack in my room downstairs, and I'll come back if you want to go.”

His head is bowed in thought, but he looks up at me when I add my addendum. “You sure? I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but he can be a serious handful, in fact, he is always a serious handful. I don’t know what’s come over him today.”

“Well, we already discussed it, didn’t we, Cannon?” I look over at Cannon, who is pushing a chunk of tomato around on his plate that he didn’t eat.

“No yelling and listen with my ears,” Cannon says nodding his head in affirmation.

“Who are you and what have you done with my son?”

Cannon’s head snaps up to look at Ash. “It’s me, Daddy… Cannon.” He jumps up from the floor and rushes to stand between Ash’s legs placing his little hands on his father’s cheeks.

Ash embraces him kissing his forehead and for the second time today, or is it the third, I can’t remember, I swoon. I’ve never dated a man with kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them and seeing the way these two interact makes my insides turn to Jell-O.

I stand on wobbly legs and walk into his bedroom, lean my hip against one of the thick posters of the bed and focus on Cannon. “I think your daddy was being facetious, do you know what facetious means?”

Cannon turns around in Ash's arms to face me. “Uh uh,” he answers shaking his head.

“It means he was kidding around.”

Ash looks at me sideways with concern, “You do know he’s only four and a half, right?”

“Yes, but it’s never too early to expand your vocabulary.”

He chuckles a low rumbling, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive chuckle and I steady myself again.

“I guess you’re right, not sure how much of that will stick but it can’t hurt.”

“Can she stay, Daddy?”

Ash looks down into Cannon’s upside down face. “You’re sure you will be good? You don’t have the best track record with nannies, ya know.”

“She’s not my nanny. I’m good, please?” he says stretching out his please and arching his back.

“I guess you’re right, she’s not your nanny. Yes, if she wants to do this, you can stay with Stella.”

“Yay!” Canon throws his hands straight up in the air and runs in circles around the room. This kid sure has a way of making me feel great about myself. He’s a real self-esteem booster, even if it is just a case of puppy love, I’m cool with that.

“Wow, I have to say, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen him get excited about babysitting him.”

Cannon stops his victory dance and whips around glaring at his father. “I’m not a baby.”

I place the tip of my finger on my bottom lip and tap it contemplating, “Well, let’s see… You don’t poop your pants, right?”

He wrinkles up his nose. “No, ew.”

“And you use a fork and a spoon when you eat?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can put on your clothes and wash your butt?”

Cannon giggles and one corner of Ash’s mouth twitches like he’s suppressing a smile.

“Yeah, I wash my butt.”

“Then it’s settled. You are most certainly not a baby, and that means you cannot be babysat. How about we hang out and keep each other company like friends?”

And again up go his arms, and joyous yelling commences along with another bout of running around like a lunatic.

“Stella, where are you from?” Ash asks out of the blue.

“Redwater, Montana on the Deardon Rose Ranch.”

“I’ve heard of it. Isn’t it right across from the Whiskey Hill Ranch?”

“Yes, that’s us… the people across the road from the Whiskey Hill Ranch,” I answer, my words saturated with sarcasm.

He grimaces, “Wow, hit a nerve?”

“Sorry, yeah, our families don’t get along, it’s a very long, very old story.”

“Hmm, maybe you could tell me over breakfast tomorrow?”

I chew on the inside of my cheek and try to decide if he’s insinuating that I will be spending the night again or if he’s being polite and inviting me to breakfast.

“In the café downstairs,” he adds, when he sees me struggling to either sling him some sass or politely accept his invitation.

“Oh, okay, sure. You might regret it, but we all have to eat breakfast, so we might as well do it together.”

He leans back and kicks off his boots, one and then the other with his eyes still on me. “I don’t think I’ll regret it at all.”

His words are, I don’t know, loaded chock-full of innuendos and dirty flirty tones that make me press my legs together.

“I, uh, I think I better go and find my room. The dinner’s at six o'clock, if I’m back by 5:45 will that be okay?”

“I would like it better if you didn’t go and find your room and stayed here with us, but if you insist, yes, 5:45 will be okay. And thank you for offering to stay with him, you didn’t have to.”

He stands and takes a step toward me. When he’s in my space, my bubble, my zone, he bends his knees so that we are eye to eye. “I don’t know what planet you came from or what kind of magic it is that you wield but, lady, my son likes you, and that means I like you, too. I don’t plan on letting you disappear anytime soon.”

I like the sound of that.

I feel warm air enter my mouth when it falls open, drying my tongue. I stand frozen in place watching his absurdly perfect ass exit the room. When I start breathing again, I’m sure I have most definitely stopped, I gasp and organize enough brain cells to tell my legs to get the hell out of here.

On my way through the Presidential Suite, that I have learned includes three bedrooms, a full kitchen, a formal dining room, more bathrooms than I have had time to count, and a living room bigger than the lobby downstairs, I see Cannon dumping out a large duffle bag of toys onto the dining room table.

He’s busy, and Ash is nowhere in sight, good. I pad across the plush thick carpet to the door and sneak out into the hall carrying my suitcase instead of rolling it to keep quiet.

I have to get out of here, smoke a cigarette, and screw my head back on straight. I came here to do business, not fraternize with fellow ranchers, right? Right.

But that was before People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive started flirting with me and luring me to his hotel suite with his daddy skills and his adorable overzealous son.

I’m starting to think this convention might not be the dread-fest I was expecting. A few days with Mr. Whoa, oh my God, superhumanly handsome, yet familiar–– because he’s on the front of a magazine, sounds like it might be fun.

I can handle a roll in the hay and a few laughs with a hot guy with no strings attached, right? Usually, but this hot guy has a kid and kids equal strings. Can I handle that?

For Ash, I think I’m willing to find out.