Page 10 of Off Limits

She sighs, and pulls her hands out of my pants. “Was it the words long-term thing or regularly that killed it for you?”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “No,” I say, “it’s not that.” Then, “I don’t know. Maybe a little. Sorry. I think I just got in my head a bit.”

The truth is, Cynthia’s commentary has got me thinking way too much about my stepdaughter—thoughts that are making me feel guilty and confused.

She bats thick fake eyelashes at me. “About what? What is it?”

“I think…” I take a long breath. “I think we need to slow down, Cynthia. Sorry. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“What? Are you serious? Now? This didn’t occur to you until my hand was down your pants?”

“I’m sorry.” Fuck. “I’m really so sorry. I think I just got carried away and I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

“Yeah,” she scoffs, climbing back over the console to the passenger seat. “That Daddy talk really got you from zero to sixty, huh? Couldn’t think straight until I ruined it?”

“Cynthia,” I reach for her arm and touch it lightly. She looks petulant and hurt. “I’m so sorry. You’re a beautiful woman—“

“But you don’t want to fuck me,” she interrupts me, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips. “Or date me.”

“You deserve better than first-date sex in a parking lot,” I try, but she scoffs. “We have to work together every day, and you’re young. Really young. I’m forty.” I sigh. “I think I’ve made a big mess of this. I’m sorry.”

This doesn’t feel good. “I just think we’re moving a little fast,” I add, lamely.

She lifts an eyebrow. “Did I go too far? You got really hard when I called you Daddy.”

“No,” I answer emphatically. “Not too far. That was…really sexy. I don’t know. I guess that got me in my head a little bit, too, because of our age difference.”

Because you can’t be my little girl. Because I already have one.

She doesn’t say anything else, so I start the car and pull out of the parking lot. She gives me directions, but otherwise we drive in silence until I turn onto her street.

“It’s fine, you know,” she says. “To be honest, I don’t think you’re old enough for me.”

My eyebrows jump up in surprise. “Not old enough?”

She indicates with her hand and I pull up in front of a small tidy home with a white picket fence.

“I’m just looking for someone to have fun with, Mr. Rochat.”

I cringe at her use of my last name—a deliberate formality.

“If you ever just want to have fun,” she continues, opening the car door. “Just give me a call.”

She closes the door before I have a chance to respond and I watch her open the fence and walk up towards the front door. The front window curtain parts and an old man looks out, first at Cynthia, then over at me.

He’s looking at me the way I look at Kye. The protective-dad look. I know it well.

It’s been a long time since a father gave me the hairy eyeball. I turn the ignition and drive off before she’s reached the front door.

Danica

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN a good kid, especially for Jean-Luc, whom I would never want to disappoint, but his order that Kye not step foot on this property seems irrational and unfair. Why shouldn’t I be able to have a friend over? Jean-Luc’s made a point of saying that his home is my home, too. If that’s true, I rationalize, then I should be allowed to invite people over.

So in defiance of Jean-Luc’s orders, I don’t cancel my plans with Kye, figuring I can count on my dad to be out for dinner for at least three or four hours, and there’s no reason he ever has to know.

It’s a bit awkward when Kye arrives. He’s chill as ever, but I second-guess everything I say, wondering if I even know how to talk to my own peers anymore after spending so many weeks alone, killing time in an apartment I couldn’t afford to leave. We go downstairs to the den and put a dumb Will Ferrell movie on, and it’s easier when we don’t have to speak. After a while, Kye puts his arm around me, and somehow, by the time the credits are rolling on the movie, we’re making out.

The last time we did this was just days before my mom left. I barely remember what it felt like. We’d been drinking beer and all I remember is the taste of beer in his mouth and mine.

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