Cheating on Myself by Erin Downing

to her level to say, “That’s Joe. He’s so funny.”
    Joe caught me watching him, and grinned again. I looked around, and realized I wasn’t the only adult woman who had noticed how hot he was under the hat and the fluffed-up hair. Several women had recently reapplied their lipstick (at ten in the morning, mind you), and a few were dancing along (one was swaying seductively in her ass-crack jeans, which seemed way wrong). Joe finished singing, and bent down to talk to a few of the kids who had pressed up close to the stage. He really knew how to talk to kids, and I caught myself smiling.
    Even though I didn’t want kids of my own, guys who knew how to talk to kids and interacted with them in a normal way always impressed me. Erik had always been so awkward with Heidi and Pippa—he’d always get them all riled up, then got frustrated when they chased him around the house. And it had irritated me when he talked to them like small morons. They were smart girls, and he treated them like dolls or babies.
    Heidi rushed over to me, her face flushed with happiness from her brush with fame. “Did you see him, Stella? Isn’t he ah-ma-zing?”
    Before Heidi could gush more, Cat called to us from across the lawn. She’d spread a blanket on the grass, and had poured little cups of hot chocolate for the girls to help keep them warm. Aurelie, the au pair, was shivering inside her cute-but-chilly shawl.
    “So these guys are from around here?” I asked Cat as I settled onto the blanket. Both Heidi and Pippa tucked up against me, cuddling into my armpits. I squeezed the girls, and wondered how much I would see them now that I wouldn’t be at any of the Wesley family functions. I hated thinking about breaking up with Erik’s family, too, but it was inevitable in situations like mine. I couldn’t stay with a guy just because of his nieces, right? And Cat and I would make it work… eventually, both Erik and I would find other people, and Cat and I would be just like any other friends.
    “They’re both from Boulder or something, but they mostly play shows in the Midwest now. The girls love them, obviously.”
    “Obviously,” I said, rubbing Pippa’s soft, blond hair. Pippa was as tiny as her mom, but had gotten her dad’s coloring. She was a petite blonde pixie, and absolutely adorable. I couldn’t resist grabbing her up into a squeeze-hug, but she squirmed out just as soon as the band started playing.
    “Mom, I’m going to take Pip to the stage, okay?” Heidi looked at Cat hopefully, and Cat nodded. She gave Aurelie a look, and the au pair stood and followed the girls at a distance.
    “That banjo guy is kind of hot,” I said, watching as the band transitioned from a song about pancakes to one about a kid who turned into a tree.
    “Yeah, I’ve always thought that, too.” Cat laughed. “I think half the moms who take their kids to these concerts have the hots for one of the guys in the band.”
    I looked around, and noticed all the women sitting near us were smiling way more than they ought to have been for a kids’ concert. “What is it about musicians?” I asked. “What’s the deal with these guys? Single? Married? Kids?”
    “Ooh, are you interested?” Cat lifted her eyebrows and stretched out on the blanket. The girls were dancing in front of the stage with a few dozen other rabid fans.
    “No!” I was not attracted to musicians. Certainly not musicians in costume. But even as my head insisted I not think about Joe, my body grew heated at the thought of what he would look like when he was freshly-showered. And naked. What was hiding beneath those overalls? “I’m just curious.”
    “Well, the rumor on the mom circuit is that Joe—the real charmer—is a total douchebag. Janell LaMere had a girlfriend who heard he sleeps with anyone within a ten-mile radius. Frank—well, let’s call him the ugly one—lives with his parents and has a dot-com day job. Theo—he’s the dorky-looking runt—is in a