Page 74 of More, Daddy
I turn to leave when he adds, “Just your car keys.”
I look down to my palm, where my keys rest. Those keys are my freedom, my way out of this responsibility hell-hole, my way to my safe places, my way to West. I need this car.
“It’s my car.” I almost want to stomp my foot.
“It’s my car,” he softly asserts, "because I paid for it.”
“But I pay the insurance,” I counter, already running through scenarios in my mind in which I can make tonight happen without my car. Because tonight is going to happen. I could get a Wheel Get You ride share but… I still have to shoplift. I can’t expect a rideshare driver to wait while I steal wine. Plus they’d be able to find me by tracking down the driver, then me.
“My truck ain’t runnin’ and I need to get to the truck stop tomorrow. You can pick the car up from there.” He lets out a sigh as he flips the channel. “It’s just one day.”
Fuck the day. It’s about now. It’s about tonight.
I drop the keys, unwilling to let this little hiccup stop me. In the backyard, I find my old ten-speed, one I haven’t ridden in at least three years. After adding some air to the tires and wiping the dusty seat with an equally dirty chamois snagged from a faded folding chair, I straddle the seat and get peddling.
My hair is going to take a hit, that’s for sure, but Iamgoing to get there. After a few minutes of deep breathing and patting myself on the proverbial back for solving my problemso quickly, I hop off my bike and lean it against the side of the Stop ’n Go and head inside.
In greeting, I tip my head to the man behind the counter perched on a stool with a cell phone held tightly between his hands. He hardly acknowledges me when I enter, then move through the narrow aisles to the back, careful not to knock over a poorly balanced end cap of cellphone charging cables. Facing the wall of wine, I remove the gold ring from my right finger and hold it in my teeth, careful to not have it clink against the neck of the bottle as I snatch it up then shove it deep into the breast of my coat. With it tied at the waist, the bottle rests perfectly against my chest, the waist of my coat keeping it upright. I flip my hair over my collar and chest, hiding the bulge, and slip my ring back on. I lift a worn box labeled USB-C to USB-C and hold it up.
“No USB-C to lightning?” I stick my bottom lip out in a pout long enough for the clerk to briefly glance up and see me, my lip, and the box.
He shakes his headnoas he tips his phone to the side, tapping badly as he bites his bottom lip. He’s killing someone in some game, and I thank that game for keeping him distracted.
“Thanks anyway.” I make my way outside, hop on my bike and take off.
West’s house is thankfully only about two miles away, but I take it slower than usual so that I don’t get sweaty. As soon as his street comes into view, I decide to hide my bike two houses down from his, because their garbage cans are in the side yard and offer a perfect hiding spot. Once it’s nicely tucked behind the cans, I slide off the bike and pull the wine from my jacket. It’s warm from being pressed against my body, but with the way West and I are currently feeling, I doubt we’ll even get to the wine.
He and I are going to be so unstoppable once we’re in each other’s arms. Of that I have no doubt.
Carefully, I make my way up the old walkway, blinking down to analyze the detail in the stones. I’ve only ever seen them driving by, I’ve never actually walked on them.
Holy shit.
I freeze, just three paces from the old wrap around porch.
I’m really here.
While I’ve always known myself to be resourceful when it came to getting things that I desperately wanted, I can’t deny the tiny little shimmy of surprise that wiggles down my legs as I peer up at West’s house.
I really did it.
I got him.
I got him to fall in love with me and now West Dupont is mine.
My daddy. My lover. My everything.
With dark blue quickly usurping the traces of purple and pink left in the night sky, I make my way to his front door and tousle my hair to cover most of my face. When I reach out to knock, I find a note on the door, small and yellow, almost hidden by impending darkness.
It’s open.
With a deep breath, I gently twist the doorknob, and the old, heavy door swings open easily. The inside of his house is dark—as promised—with a little bit of early moonlight peeking through a gauzy looking curtain on the back wall. I close and lock the door behind me, immediately weak in the knees from the patchouli and sandalwood scent of his place. That’s what he smells like, and being in his space where he breathes, eats, sleeps, yawns, laughs, coughs, comes—my gosh. It makes me a little loopy.
Reaching out, I steady myself with a palm to the wall,making small steps, my patent nude heels clicking quietly against his wood-paneled floor.
Surely West knows what Cadence Caine sounds like. While I’ve never seen the two of them exchange more than a couple of words, it stands to reason that if they’ve worked together at the school for years, they’ve likely spoken.
That means, until I’m ready to make the reveal, I can’t speak either.
