Page 49 of Big Daddy

I don’t want to be alone here. It’s too much Quincey to handle without him. I’ll do something stupid like start seeing myself here. Or worse. Start seeing us having a life.

“Ten minutes,” I breathe, stumbling out of bed, the blankets wrapped around me.

He nods. “Ten minutes.”

chapter seventeen

winnie

I’ve hadway too much time in my head today.

Way. Too. Much.

I woke up hungover, got fucked by the hottest man ever, and now I’m working on a business card layout while listening to the original “Dream On” by Aerosmith. I could focus on the memories of hot sex from this morning, or the design I’m creating since it’s critical to my graduation. I could listen to the law office chatter, or sing along to my favorite rock album.

I could, but I’m not.

Because I’m trapped in the prison of my thoughts, Brielle’s face flashes behind my eyes each time I tell myself not to focus on it.

She’s been the one to loan money when I had no one else, the one to let me eat her leftovers and sleep at her place, the one who loans me clothes and gives me advice, holds my hand when I’m sad, holds my hair when I puke, holds me up when I’m too weak.

She’s the one.

Not Big Daddy.

Big Daddy has helped me financially. He has made me orgasm to the point I’m not sure I’ll ever come like that with anyone else. He has White Knighted me.

Unfortunately, what he’s done is usurped by who he is.

He’s Brielle’s father. A father whom she has a complicated relationship, and has for years. How will she feel if she learned that her best friend and her father are fucking, and that he treats her bestie with more softness than his own daughter? She’ll hate me, and she’ll have every right.

I mean, Quincey and I may be physically attracted to one another and that’s oneFlowers in the Atticdifference between our relationship and theirs, but all things considered, he doesn’t truly treat me that much differently. The big difference in how we engage with each other is me.

I fight back.

I’m a brat.

The brattiness helps break the asshole spell.

I don’t make the spells, that’s just a fact.

Still, it’s all semantics. At the end of the day, I am a backstabber. I am Brutus. I am Jaime Lannister. I am the kid that sells out his siblings for candy inThe Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

Swap candy for a little emotional fulfillment and some dick and I’m that kid.

The smartest thing I can do now is shove away all hopeful musings of becoming Quincey’s serious partner, sharing holidays with my best friend as both her best friendandher father’s partner, envisioning Brielle and I having a stronger relationship because I helped Quincey make amends for his mistakes with his daughter, having a whole family of people who I love and adore, and everything else I’ve secretly been rolling around in my mind for the last few weeks.

Now is the time to be strong. The way I should have been before. I refuse to believe it’s too late to end this and keep my best friend. Refuse.

I know what has to be done.

The song changes, and Whitesnake’sHere I Go Againcomes on just in time to freeze, allowing my phone to ring. I answer without looking at the caller ID, my eyes still lingering over the business card design I’ve been half-assing all day.

“Hey, I called you twice last night, what’s up? How was whatever you did instead of having a drink with me?” Brielle asks.

She called me on the drive to work, but I couldn’t answer because I was too busy licking the inside of Big Daddy’s wrist to get him hard just to torture him.

I had every intention of calling her back once I got to work, but I slipped into a wormhole of guilt. That shit happens when you’re banging your bestie's hot dad while working at his office and wearing clothes he bought you.

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