Page 44 of Big Balls
“Zoe,” he says, his voice low and urgent at the door. “I’m here to talk to you.”
I pause and let the rest of my clothing drop to the floor in a vaguely sticky pile. “It’s going to have to wait, Mr. Alexander. I didn’t invite you here to our home, and I’m not ready to receive company at this time.”
To punctuate my sentence, I turn on the hottest shower possible. Straight from the depths of hell level hot. The mirror quickly fogs up with steam so I don’t have to stare at the dark circles underneath my eyes.
“I’m going to wait until you’re done.” I hear his voice and have to close my eyes against it.
“You don’t have to, Ethan. I’m okay now.” I hope I sound more convincing than I actually feel. Because I feel like crap. Microwaved cat crap.
I can feel him sigh more than hear it over the noise of the shower water.
I sniff myself again. “I’m getting in the shower now, and I’m letting you know now that it’s going to be a while.”
He mutters something profane and then I finally hear him move away from the bathroom door. When I wash my hair for the third time, I force myself to stop crying because I’ll be damned if I let him see how much his words are still wreaking havoc with my feelings.
I turn off the now barely warm water and then take as long as I can drying myself off. I stare at my gross robe, but it’s either that or strut through the house naked, so I slither it back on.
I grab my dirty pajamas and head out from the steamy, fogged up bathroom. I slip past the kitchen, where my dad and Ethan are still giving each other the stoniest version of the silent treatment I’ve ever seen. Good. Let Ethan marinate in that awkwardness a while longer.
I’d like to pretend I dress up because I’m feeling better, but it’s mostly because I want Ethan to think I’m feeling better than I really am.
The soft pink sweater makes my breasts look even bigger than they really are. And while I don’t normally wear skirts around the house, I’m willing to make an exception today. I’m determined to look my best as I put on a quick round of makeup.
Because here’s the truth: I don’t blame him for what he said. He doesn’t owe me any kind of relationship at all, and if I thought we were going to have one, that’s really on me.
In a pathetic sort of way, I even admire him for being faithful to his dead wife. It’s something I’ve always liked about my father, too. He’s told us more than once that our mom was the love of his life, and I’ve never known him to date anybody the entire time I was growing up, even though I have seen firsthand how difficult it was for him to be a single dad.
And I think I would have loved to have a stepmom. Someone to talk to when I was growing up, specifically about girl stuff.
Add celebrity status and ongoing invasions of your privacy by the press, and you get Ethan Alexander’s life. So even though it hurts—and it really, really hurts—it’s not like he’s the bad guy in this situation.
He didn’t break any promises to me. He didn’t raise his voice or yell or make a scene at all, despite his reputation for having a bad attitude.
Instead, he gave me honesty, which is more than I can say for most of the guys I’ve dated. And if his words made my little daydreams of us being a family splinter into a pity party, then that’s on me.
Obviously, this man is way out of my league. He’s a star athlete and the richest man I’ve ever known. What would he possibly want with a nanny who lives in her dad’s basement and can’t seem to take care of herself, let alone anybody else?
And for that very reason, I dress extra carefully and take the time to flat iron my hair and put on some makeup. Because while Ethan has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t think I’m anywhere near good enough for him, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to look like I’m more than good enough to be beside him.
Under him. Bent over in front of him. Whatever.
I look at myself in the mirror and despite my misgivings, I feel like I’ve cleaned myself up fairly well. I hope when he sees me, it wrecks him a little bit that I’m doing absolutely fine despite the casual, vicious way he completely foreclosed any relationship between usin front of his daughter.
And if I’m not actually fine, I can fake it for now. For my last remaining shreds of self-worth and dignity, I’m going to give it my very best out there. I need everyone to believe that it doesn’t matter that I was working for Ethan Alexander until we had sex. Especially him.
Because it shouldn’t matter. He’s the one who said so, wasn’t he?
But also I put on some light sparkly lip gloss, because I want Ethan to stare at my mouth. And possibly if he stares a little too long, my father will hit him in the face with a chair.
With that happy thought in mind, I head back to the kitchen where the silence is so heavy that the air itself feels dangerous, almost like I broke up some seedy arm wrestling contest. I sit between the two men and look from one to the other.
“Dad, this is Ethan. Ethan, this is my father.” I gesture between the two of them, like we are at a garden party instead of our family kitchen with the faithful avocado green appliances.
“I know who he is,” my father says in a low, dangerous voice that he only uses when someone is about to get in an entire truckload of trouble.
Yikes. I’m a grown-up now, sort of, but the tone of voice alone is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.
Ethan bares his teeth at my father in his fake nice smile that actually looks more like an animal snarling. “Charmed, Coach Deveraux.”
