The Player and the Single Mom

“What? What am I supposed to wear?”

“Anything but sweatpants. Lingerie, a nightgown, one of those little cute matching sets.” I was really pushing it, and I knew it. I wanted a confrontation about what had happened earlier.

“I’m not wearing lingerie to bed, are you kidding me?” Sera shook her head and climbed into bed with a sigh. “I need a good night’s sleep and I can’t do that all twisted up in silk slutiness.”

“You can’t do this one thing for me when I do everything you ask?” I eyed her. Did I think she looked adorable in my sweats? Absolutely. Did I want to force her to say how she felt about me? One-hundred-percent.

“What are you talking about?” She sounded astonished and annoyed. “Why are you being so demanding today?”

“I’m a yes man outside of this bedroom. I do whatever you ask of me. You’re not feeling well, I pick up the kids. You want me to take off my boots in the house, I do it. You decide what we’re eating and I’m okay with it. You rearrange the furniture in my house and I don’t complain. You wanted me to let the cleaning ladies go because you don’t want other women in the house, and I was cool. Just did it because you asked me. I don’t have big needs. I’m a simple man. So when I ask you to not wear sweatpants to bed, I would like you to respect that.”

Sera stared at me. “Wearing sweatpants in bed isn’t the same as muddy boots in the house. And hello, your cleaning ladies were hot twins in their thirties. What am I, a total idiot?”

I shouldn’t have brought up Dora and Nelsie. That was distracting her. “You’re missing the point. Sometimes I feel like I’m just your personal assistant, not your partner. You can’t even bring yourself to say you care about me, but you can damn sure ask me to stop at the store for some milk.”

“You have never once said that you resent doing all of those things.” Her cheeks were stained pink. “And I can’t believe you just said you feel like my personal assistant. That’s bullshit, Cash.”

I sighed. “I don’t resent doing those things. That’s not what I mean. I will do any damn thing that you want me to do if I know that we’re in this together. That you care about me.”

“Of course I care about you. Is this because I said I wasn’t sure about getting married?”

“Yes. That’s definitely part of it. I want a commitment. But that's not all of it. I need to know where your head is. Where your heart is.”

“I have no idea what that has to do with what I wear on my ass to sleep.”

“Can you just think about what might make me happy for once?”

“Your happiness is dependent on me wearing clothes that will ruin my night’s sleep?”

She was deliberately misunderstanding me. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings for me. Or her lack of feelings for me.

I was hurt and I was angry. “You know what? Forget it. I’m going to go and sleep in the family room.”

“What? You’re kidding. This is our first night together.”

“And you’re wearing sweatpants in bed.” I got out of bed and pulled my shorts back on that I had dropped on the floor. I grabbed my pillow.

“How am I supposed to explain you sleeping on the couch to the kids and your sister?” Sera asked.

“Tell them I was snoring.” I was way too agitated to stay in our room.

“Cash.”

“Yes?” I waited, wanting her to say something, anything, to make me stay. To let me know that she cared.

But she just shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

That made me soften. “I know, Sera,” I murmured. “I know you don’t. It’s okay. It’s really okay.”

I left the room and went to the couch. I lay there awake, a blanket pulled over me. The house was mostly quiet, but it hummed with the energy of multiple people. Boxes were stacked and scattered everywhere. I was used to living alone and I had been looking forward to that no longer being the case. To filling this house up with a family.

Now I was wondering if we had made a huge, massive mistake.

It wasn’t okay that she didn’t know what to say. But it was going to have to be. I had a decision to make and so did she.

This was what it felt like to have all your hopes and dreams shattered and it was just as unpleasant as one would imagine.