Page 25 of Clean Slade
I started falling before I even knew what was happening.
I put my hands up in anticipation of the fall, but it never happened.
Instead, I landed on something both soft and hard. Slade.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his chest rising and falling as his gaze burned me with its intensity.
I nodded, feeling the heat crawl into places it had no right crawling to. It took control of my breathing, my ability to swallow, or speak, my skill at adulting.
He felt so warm and safe, holding me against him, with his hands wrapped tight around me.
“You should have waited,” he told me and eased me on the boat floor.
“Yes, Daddy.” I meant to say Dad. Just Dad. I didn’t know where Daddy even came from.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as the tiniest hint of a smirk crossed his face. He should have just let me fall in the water. That would have been less embarrassing.
“Sit your ass down and listen to me next time.” His voice was stern but playful, a fire lighting in his eyes that hadn’t quite been there before but was more than familiar.
It had haunted my days since he’d claimed me in that bathroom all that time ago.
I took the seat next to my daughter before Slade turned to us.
“Ready?” he asked with over-the-top excitement for Mac’s benefit, and we set off.
I put my arm around my daughter and watched the island that had been my home for years get smaller and smaller in the distance.
Would we ever see it again? Would I walk through the beautiful house I’d spent so long making into a home? Would I walk down Main Street with my best friend in tow? Would I ever see my gorgeous furry clients?
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Mac asked when I wiped a tear from my face.
Slade glanced at me and offered a reassuring smile.
“Nothing, sweetie. A bug got in my eye, I think.”
Without warning, she leaned closer and blew in my eye, and I almost fell backward laughing.
Mac watched me and laughed too, and it wasn’t long before Slade joined us.
“Daddy, you’re so silly.”
“The silliest,” I told her, but I didn’t miss the fleeting glance from our designated driver.
I grabbed Mac’s hands and warmed them in mine.
Is it crazy that I didn’t want her to lose that innocence? That I didn’t want her to find out what her daddy used to do before he had her?
I didn’t care how old she got. I always wanted her to think of me as her silly daddy who grooms dogs for a living versus this man who used to do horrible things for his “family.”
“We’re close,” Slade said a little later, and I raised my head to look toward the shore hiding behind the fog.
Once we were on land, Slade took us to a Range Rover parked on the side street in front of the dock, put his hand on one of the tires, and retrieved the keys.
“You really did think of everything, didn’t you?”
He winked at me and got behind the wheel, and Mac and I followed suit.
“We’re just a twenty-minute ride away. Who’s excited?” he asked, and Mac cheered, although I wasn’t sure she knew what she was cheering for.
