Page 39 of The Good Guy on My Porch

“I am.” Her smile was warm and friendly. “I really am.” She seemed like a nice, sane woman. Why would she put up with this nonsense?

We sat in silence for a few minutes, me trying to wrap my mind around Oscar’s surprising Lothario ways. “How was your day?” she asked. “Oscar says you work at the library in town?”

“I do.” Was I really having a normal conversation with Oscar’s pregnant girlfriend while he was out on a date with another woman? I pinched myself under my left arm where she couldn’t see, but I didn’t wake up. “I run an outreach program for the elderly residents of Catalpa Creek.”

“That’s so wonderful. I bet you hear a lot of great stories.”

“I do.” I pushed to my feet and Buddy rose with me. Maybe he was as weirded out as I was. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I haven’t had dinner, yet, and I’m starving.”

“Of course,” she said, cheerfully. “It was nice to finally meet you, Dilly.”

“You, too.” I hurried inside, Buddy at my heels, and shut the door behind us.

***

“I had a great time tonight,” a sultry voice murmured outside.

I looked up from my Kindle, blinking in the dim light of the setting sun, to see Oscar and a tall, curvaceous, blond woman, my physical opposite in every way, on the porch outside my open front window. I had pulled a chair up right next to the window to enjoy the cool spring breeze, and now I had a front row seat as the woman twined her arms around Oscar’s neck. He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. Tightening his arms, he pulled her harder against him as he deepened the kiss.

I felt like a voyeur and I knew I should sneak upstairs, but I was frozen in place, curious and a little bit turned on as Oscar’s hands slid down over the woman’s ass and gripped hard. She didn’t seem to mind, she moaned as he pressed kisses down her graceful neck. Damn, I’d appreciated Oscar’s good looks, but I hadn’t expected him to be quite so…I mean I couldn’t know for sure, but the confident way he moved and the sounds the woman was making indicated that he was very good at what he was doing. He lifted his head and said something to the woman. She giggled and gave him a quick peck on the lips. I scooted further down in the chair, not wanting to be seen, but fully expecting the woman to leave. Instead, she turned in Oscar’s arms and the two of them walked toward his door together and out of sight. The sound of Oscar’s door closing shook me like an explosion. I waited to see the woman walk down the steps and to the street, but she never did. I could hardly breathe, I was in such shock to see Oscar and his date go inside his house, the house where his pregnant girlfriend was currently living.

Was he going to have sex with his date while his pregnant girlfriend was in the next room? I mean I could almost understand an open relationship, but that…Just, ew! And what a pig. I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been about Oscar, more wrong than I’d been about my last boyfriend, more wrong than I’d been about any of my boyfriends and I’d been wrong about a lot of…Okay, fine, most of my boyfriends. I felt dirty just from having gotten so close to Oscar.

I pushed to my feet, my head still reeling and paced my living room for a few minutes. Buddy watched from his bed, his eyes half open. “Your daddy is a bad, bad man, honey. I’m sorry I ever met him.” And sorrier still that I liked him more than I’d liked just about anyone in a very long time.

I dropped my Kindle on the end table and went to my bookshelf. There was only one book that would make me feel better, only one book that would remind me that sometimes poor judgment works out okay, that sometimes people are good and moral and kind and don’t have secret wives in the attic who make you question everything…Ugh, Jane Eyre. I pulled down Pride and Prejudice. I got cozy on the couch and opened the book in the warm lamplight. The words washed over me, bringing me immediate comfort as I pushed all thoughts of Oscar and pregnant girlfriends and open relationships from my mind. I read about a simpler time, when yes there was no cure for syphilis and far too many women died in childbirth and far too few had freedom or any rights whatsoever, but a time when etiquette and rules and true love mattered.

I fell asleep on the couch reading, but I still dreamed of Oscar, with his aggressive kisses and his rough touches and his strong forearms in a bed full of naked, wanting women. I woke up the next morning exhausted and doubting there was a good man left anywhere in the world.

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