This was the fourth date they’d be on, and Whitney was hoping that it would end in sex – he liked to think he could be a gentleman, but he wasn’t usually one to wait too long. Circumstances could extend that, like he knew this woman had a young infant, so he imagined between work, being a mother, and dating, she was exhausted. But he still hoped. He had knocked on her door, finding it almost amusing that the situation was a little frantic – her son had been sick, the babysitter was late, and the woman hadn’t even been in the shower yet. But he said he didn’t mind waiting at all. Except while she was in the shower, the baby started crying again. He knocked on the bathroom door, a little awkward about it, but had offered to try and settle him.
He had walked around the living room, bouncing the baby he had wrapped like a burrito – he knew feeling warm and snuggled like the womb helped. Or so he had been told. He sung a lullaby he had heard a while back, surprising himself that he remembered all the lyrics. It was called Sleepytime by Anne Murray. He wasn’t sure what did it, but the boy eventually fell back asleep. Whitney sat down, exhausted after coming off a twenty-four hour shift, and though he closed his eyes, he kept humming the song and lightly bouncing the sleeping boy, unaware that the woman he was supposed to be on a date with, had come out.