Category: Superhero
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As I stood on the balcony of our hotel suite, the warm ocean breeze tousling my increasingly salt-and-pepper chest hair, I couldn’t help but be suspicious of the long overdue peace that washed over me. I peered down at the turquoise waves breaking gently on the shore, studying them as if they couldn’t be real. The last six months had taken every bit of time, energy, and give-a-damn that I had in the tank.
The soothing rhythm of sea against sand accomplished something that the overnight flight and the water taxi to the resort hadn’t. I finally felt transported a million miles away from the cacophony of my double life. Here, on this secluded tropical island, I wasn’t Mike Dawson, the middle-aged executive with a stack of unread emails and looming KPI deadlines. Nor was I DadMan, the caped superhero the press couldn’t get enough of and whose secret identity every newspaper in town wanted to expose.
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Read part 1 of “DadMan” to get caught up…
Buzzwords was a trendy coffee shop near the university campus, full of tweedy young professors waxing dialectic, shy college students hunched over chessboards, and aging hipsters with a veritable prism of hair colors. It wasn’t where I’d have chosen to meet for a first date, but Frank, the beefy accounting executive of my dreams, lived in one of the medium-rise condos nearby and suggested meeting there. As I walked from my car to the cafe, I wondered which building he lived in. Whichever it was, my modest suburban townhome paled in comparison.
I arrived first, ordered a coffee, and claimed a table by the windows to catch Frank’s arrival. I didn’t have to wait long. I hadn’t been seated for two minutes before he rounded the corner with a bounce in his step and a casual grin on his face. He was dressed in a navy blue two-piece suit that so accentuated his build that it must’ve been made to measure. Each step he took up the sidewalk drew my attention to a different part of his body: his big thighs, his broad shoulders, the way his belly strained at the buttons of his dress shirt. He caught me staring through the windows as he made his final approach and smiled wide. I stood to greet him, and we shook hands when he arrived at my table.
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I had sworn off dating as my New Year’s resolution. Between my busy day job at the advertising agency and my secret side hustle that was becoming harder and harder to keep secret, I just didn’t have the time or patience for the snake pit of dating apps. My decade-long relationship ended last summer, and at 45, I wasn’t old, but I wasn’t young anymore, either. Out of practice and wanting something more than a one-night stand, I felt like re-entering the city’s dating scene was the romantic equivalent of a polar bear plunge. The more I tried to adapt to the culture of swiping, sexting, unmatching, and ghosting, the older, less relevant, and less desirable I felt.
And then I met Frank. The attraction was instantaneous; I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt sparks upon meeting a guy. Frank had recently transferred from his accounting firm’s HQ in Boston to run a field office in the same building as my ad agency. About the same age as me, he radiated the refreshing confidence of someone who no longer needed to prove himself. He cut an impressive figure in a suit and tie, too. Just a whisper taller than my six feet, Frank had the build of an ex-college athlete who’d gotten quite comfortable in the C-suite. The way his belly pushed against his belt buckle, making it rest atop the ample bulge in his slacks, drove me wild. His thick, chestnut hair had more than a touch of gray at the temples, and while he was cleanshaven when I first met him, he’d let his salt-and-pepper beard grow in, much to my delight. Frank was a welcome change from the guys who cluttered up all the dating apps and prowled the back rooms at Buddies, our city’s local bear bar. Mature, easygoing, and drop-dead sexy, he was just my type.
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