Like Father, Like Son ✔

Chapter 11 - Physical Attraction

CHAPTER 11

CAT

Luke got so excited the second he found out that his dad was coming over to pick him up. Cat waited until the very last possible moment to tell him, just in case James decided to bail at the last minute, which had happened too many times before.

"You got everything, buddy?" Cat asked her son, watching him pull on his sneakers with her hip resting against the wall.

"Yep," Luke replied.

"I think we're all good," James grinned, picking his son off the ground. Luke laughed that sweet, childish laugh of his as he was raised high into the air above James' head. "What are you doing this weekend anyway?" he added, and the fact that he seemed to genuinely want to know kind of surprised Cat.

"I'll probably just catch up on some shows I have recorded on my DVR or something," she said lamely, straightening up and giving Luke a kiss on the forehead. "Might do some cleaning around the apartment... You'd be surprised. For such a tiny guy, that boy can cause a mess."

"Sounds good," James nodded.

It was only a few hours after James left with Luke that Cat began feeling restless and bored. She did the dishes from lunch and mopped the kitchen floor, after which she went downstairs and did some laundry. She had to stay down there to make sure nobody else came and stole her clothes, which gave her plenty of time to read a few chapters of a new e-book, since she'd finished the other one last night.

After going back upstairs, folding everything and putting it all away in closets and dressers and the linen cabinet, she found that there really wasn't much else she needed to do. She had Luke clean his room before going off with his father and the living room looked presentable...

What else was she supposed to do? She really didn't feel like watching TV and all of her friends were visiting family for Easter.

She decided to get dressed and go for a walk. After all of the food she had last night and the two cinnamon rolls she scarfed down, it was probably for the best that she went out and burnt a couple calories. It'd been a little under three years since she had Luke, and yet still she was a few pounds over her pre-pregnancy baby weight, but no matter how hard she worked out she could never quite get rid of those extra eleven pounds.

When she started walking in a certain direction, she didn't really have a destination in mind. She'd forgotten her phone at home on the kitchen table, but she did have her purse with her, so she could stop if she really wanted to do some shopping or even just get a coffee from Starbucks just a few streets down from her apartment complex.

It was only when she realized she was just a few blocks from Nick's place that she decided to go see if he was around. It was perhaps a little impulsive to just show up without even texting him, but she already knew he didn't have anything planned – he said so last night.

So she decided to give it a shot, walking right into the apartment complex and climbing up the stairs to the top floor. She fixed her hair and adjusted her sweater before ringing the doorbell.

She waited for a few seconds and was just about to turn around and go, figuring he must've gone out to do something, when the door swung open.

"Hi, it's—," she began, her voice trailing off at the sight of him standing there. Her mouth suddenly felt very dry and her tongue seemed to weigh more than it should. "—me," she concluded as a rush of heat reached her cheeks and the back of her neck.