"Yep."
"Nice touch," I replied.
Jim turned around and grabbed his tampons off of the shelf.
"Well, alrighty then. My work here is done. I've got a few more items to pick up so I'll talk to you later."
***
An hour and a half later, I managed to clean up the house, change the sheets on my bed, make up the extra bed in the spare room for Gavin and set up a couple of the things I bought for him over the past week. Maybe it was a little bit much, but oh well. I'd missed out on four years of birthdays, Christmases, Valentine's Days, Arbor Days, Sundays and every other day I could have bought him something. I had a lot of time to make up for.
My son was going to spend the night at my house.
I kind of wanted to jump up and down and clap my hands like a girl. I was excited to curl up with him on the couch in his pajamas and watch the new movie I picked up earlier. I couldn't wait to tuck him into bed and wake up with him tomorrow morning and get him breakfast. I wanted to experience all of the things that made up his day. I wanted to hear him laugh, listen to him talk and watch him interact with Claire.
Claire.
Beautiful, smart, funny, sexy Claire who was going to be spending the night at my house as well. I couldn't wait to wake up with her next to me in the morning. I missed out on that five years ago, and I wasn't about to go without this time. I wanted her face to be the first thing I saw when the sun came up and her body curled up next to mine to be the first thing I felt. But most of all, I wanted to be coherent for every single second. I didn't want the haze of alcohol to take anything away from this night for either one of us.
I hope she didn't think it was too forward of me to buy condoms. If she didn't want to do anything, there was no way I would pressure her. But if she asked my throbbing python of love to come out and play, I wasn't going to complain.
I just poured a box of noodles into a pot of boiling water when the doorbell rang. I set the timer on the stove and quickly walked through the living room and answered the door. As soon as it opened, Gavin barged past me and into the living room.
"Hi Carter! Mommy has nipples! Do you have nipples?" he asked as he took off his backpack and dumped the contents in the middle of the floor.
"Oh my God, Gavin, filter!" Claire scolded as she walked through the doorway, rolling her eyes at me. I laughed as I shut the door behind her and tried not to grab her ass or sniff her hair.
Jesus, she really did have a great ass.
"What's the deal with the nipples question?" I asked as we both stood in the entry to the living room, watching Gavin sort through the stuff he brought.
"He was in my room when I got dressed earlier and he asked me what they were. I thought I should be honest with him and now I realize it was a big mistake. He spent the whole way here singing "All I want for Christmas are my two front nipples." I almost opened the door and shoved him out into oncoming traffic," Claire said with a laugh.
“Mommy stopped the car and unlocked the doors and told me to get out and walk,” Gavin informed me.
“Okay, almost isn’t exactly accurate,” she told me with a shrug. “In my defense, I did tell him if he said the word “nipples” one more time I was going to stop the car and make him walk. According to his pediatrician, it’s important to always follow through with your threats.”
I helped Claire take her coat off and scooped up Gavin’s that he’d thrown on the floor and hung both of them up in the closet.
"Maybe now isn't the best time to tell you that he asked me if I he had a vagina this morning and then asked me to read him ‘The Vagina Monologues’ at the library."
Claire groaned and shook her head.
"What the hell am I going to do when he starts preschool in a few months? He's going to be like that kid in the movie, Kindergarten Cop, except he's going to announce "Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina and my mommy has nipples!" I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her against my side, noting again how good her body felt next to mine.
"You mean what the hell are we going to do?" I corrected her. I needed to make sure she understood that I wasn't going to change my mind about all of this.
"Don’t forget, he's also going to tell everyone just how huge my wiener is. At least I hope he is. Maybe I should remind him about the awesomeness that is my wiener. "
Claire raised her eyebrows at me and I realized that didn't come out right at all.
"That sounded a lot skeazier than I meant it too."
Claire turned her body into mine so that we were chest-to-chest and my back was to Gavin. She rested her arms on my shoulders, letting her fingers play with the hair on the back of my neck. I got goose bumps on my arms and Mr. Happy just woke up from his evening nap and started drooling.