Текст книги "Shiver : 13 Sexy Tales of Humor and Horror"
Автор книги: Belle Aurora
Соавторы: Penny Reid,Ruth Clampett
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 39 страниц)
Part One – Cora
Friday, October 31, 2014
7:03 A.M.
“Would you like to come in for some coffee?” he asks, waving an open hand toward his front door in a welcoming gesture.
If coffee is a euphemism for being fucked until I can’t remember my own name, then yes, I’d love some. Thank you.
As if reading my mind, he wastes no time on awkward, neighborly small talk. He pushes me through the front door of his home, and has his lips on mine before the door closes behind us. He tastes like cherry Kool-Aid, just the way I remember.
Without taking his lips off mine, he waves his arm behind us, and sweeps the contents of his dining room table onto the floor. I hear glass break as a candle holder hits the hardwood. Pieces of mail flutter to the floor behind it.
I’ve never seen that move done in real life – definitely not in my life. No one has ever wanted me enough to make a huge mess in his own house. I can’t help but wonder who is going to clean it up. Maybe he hires a maid service.
He gets a good grip on my ass, lifts me up, and nearly slams me onto the table.
I stop thinking about the mess.
“I like this aggression,” I say, trying out my best sexy voice and hoping I pull it off. It’s been a long time.
With his hands on my shoulders, he pushes me down onto the table. It’s a heavy wooden table, the kind I imagine Beauty and The Beast having in their castle.
In another act I’ve never seen outside of internet porn, he grabs hold of my white button-up shirt at my chest, pulls it up until my back arches, and then rips it open. The pearlescent white buttons sound like raindrops as they hit the table around us.
It’s okay. I can live without the shirt. It was just a boring button-up from Target. It wasn’t even that white anymore. I have the worst time keeping my whites bright.
He leans over me and bites my neck – not vampire style, just a tiny bite – as his hands creep up my black pencil skirt.
He stands up again and raises my legs straight up in the air until my ankles rest on his shoulder. I feel the stretch burn behind my knees, but I don’t mind the pain. He digs his fingers under the waistband of my pink lace panties and starts to remove them. For a moment I wonder if he’s taking the aggression a little too far for our first time. But then I realize I don’t care. I just want him. I’ve been waiting for this since I was fifteen-years-old. If my body has to take a little beating, I’m okay with it – as long as my G-spot gets one, too.
He has a dark, intense stare in his eyes as he slides my panties over my thighs, across my knees, and past my calves. He twists them around his wrist as he tugs, tighter and tighter. Without breaking eye contact, he twists until his wrist, and the knot of pink lace, rests at my ankles.
I look up at him, at his dark eyes and hair, and the neatly-trimmed beard he’s been sporting this fall. He looks more like a man than I’ve ever seen him. He’s not the teenager I remember – which is good, or I’d end up on Nancy Grace. He’s grown up and sexier than ever.
I take in the sight of my stiletto-ed feet on his shoulder and I’m glad I decided to walk Lucie to school this morning in heels. There’s something seriously hot about lace panties and stilettos. This image wouldn’t be nearly as nice if I’d worn my Skechers today.
He closes his eyes before he runs his panty-covered wrist under his nose and inhales. I think he just smelled my underwear. Is that creepy or sexy? I decide on sexy because creepy would be a mood killer, and I’m not letting anything ruin this moment for me. Not even that Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed toy on the couch. I swear that thing is staring at me.
I don’t have time to worry about Winnie because the man who just tied my legs together gives me a cocky grin. Without breaking his stare, he slowly unwinds the panties from his wrist. When he pulls his hand free, he places the lace between his teeth to keep my ankles tightly together. Then he unbuttons his pants.
* * *
“Go-od morn-ing,” I heard, in a woman’s singsong voice.
“I hate you,” I muttered, as I leaned over and grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand. I hurried to swipe my finger across the snooze button before the annoying troll could say another word. What a rude awakening.
I set my phone back on the nightstand, closed my eyes, and snuggled closer into my pillow. I wanted that dream back. I wanted to see him again. I had nine more minutes to finally see what he had in his pants. We could get a lot done in nine minutes.
I didn’t usually snooze on Friday mornings. Don’t get me wrong. I was a devoted snoozer. On Mondays through Thursdays I hit snooze at least three times before I dragged myself out of bed to get Lucie ready for school. I then walked her there in the same yoga pants and t-shirt I slept in the night before, my face greasy with night cream, and my hair looking like it hadn’t seen a comb since Prince was referred to by a symbol. And I was totally okay being a mess – on Mondays through Thursdays.
Today was Friday. Fridays were different. Fridays were the days Ben Ogea walked his daughter to school. Ben Ogea was the reason I didn’t snooze on Fridays. He was also the reason I’d woken up with my panties in a twist this morning.
Oh shit. I sat up in bed when I remembered. This wasn’t an ordinary Friday. It was Halloween. I needed extra time to get Lucie into her Frozen costume and braid her hair like a princess. There was no chance of finishing that dream this morning.
I sighed and reached into the drawer of my nightstand for my bullet. Thanks to a brand new set of batteries in my boy-toy, I was ready to start my day in approximately twenty seconds.
* * *
7:32 A.M.
I had spent the last five nights watching blog tutorials and playing with Lucie’s American Girl doll trying to master the princess crown braid. I wanted to surprise her with my newfound hair skills, and maybe earn the Best Mom of the Week award. Turned out this wasn’t my week. (Last week wasn’t either.)
After a few failed attempts and tangles, we ran out of time. Lucie had to settle for an ordinary French braid pulled across her shoulder. Sometimes, when I thought too much about it, I felt like Lucie had to settle for a lot.
I realized that most of the girls in Lucie’s class would be dressed as Elsa from Frozen. I’d tried to talk her out of the costume. I’d tried to get her to choose something more unique. One thing I should note about my six-year-old is that she didn’t mind being like everyone else. Another thing I should note is that she didn’t mind being different either, when she wanted to be. She hadn’t yet learned to care what other people thought, and that made me feel like I’d gotten at least one thing right with her. Me, I was still trying to unlearn this – a revelation that grew clearer to me every day.
There was a competition that took place every morning outside Lucie’s elementary school by a group of moms I’d dubbed The Fucker Mothers. You’ve seen the movie Mean Girls, right? Imagine those girls growing up, having children, and spending a little too much time on Pinterest. Then imagine their kids going to school with yours.
Here, let me introduce you: There’s Shauna– blonde, shapely, goes to (insert some kind of exercise class) four times a week, married to a (insert occupation of a person who works a lot), drives a (insert designer car), and is the mother of the smartest, brightest, most athletic student in the school, who also happens to be a (insert word for a child who has been raised to believe he/she can do no wrong).
I’d introduce you to Melissa, Tabitha, and Vanessa, too, but I’d only be repeating myself. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Just fill in the blanks with an appropriate word, and you’ve got the picture.
Last year, on Lucie’s first day of kindergarten, they’d tried to befriend me with their morning chitchat. It went something like this: Omigod! She’s got that baby forward-facing already? Doesn’t she know the dangers? I heard she uses a leash on her kid. Where’d she get that skirt? The Family Dollar? You know her son had to have a cavity filled. A cavity at five years old? And don’t even get me started on that kid’s name. I feel like we’re living in a trailer park every time I hear it. And did you hear her husband finally got a new job after being laid off? He’s only making five figures. She might have to get a job herself, though I don’t know how she will. I mean, she clearly has no skills of any kind. Is that little girl really wearing that shirt again? What is this? The third time this week? You know, I heard she uses boxed hair color. NO! Yes! And guess what her daughter brought for snack time yesterday – Goldfish crackers. How can anyone let their child eat such poison? Doesn’t she read anything she sees on the internet? Doesn’t she pay attention in her Weight Watchers class? I mean, assuming she is in Weight Watchers. If she’s not, she should be. So … who wants to get a margarita for breakfast? It’s noon somewhere, right, girls? (Insert evil giggle.)
I was not able to join them for margaritas before their Pilates class, because I was one of those poor schmucks who had to work. Because my husband died young. My husband died two years ago, at the age of twenty-eight, in a fork-lift accident at work. He left behind a four-year-old daughter who loved Goldfish crackers, and sometimes asked to wear the same shirt three times in one week. He also left behind a wife who didn’t know how to live without him, and had a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning, let alone listening to this bullshit before nine A.M. And guess what else, bitches? This is boxed color on my hair. (Gasp.)
I didn’t say any of that out loud though. I smiled and politely declined the invite instead. I didn’t usually tell people what I really thought about them. That kind of shit would just get me into trouble. And without Will, I wouldn’t know how to get out of it.
Will had been my partner-in-crime since junior year of high school. Both introverts, the two of us – plus Lucie once she was born – had lived happily and quietly in our own private cocoon. Until death did us part.
You know how you’re supposed to make every moment count because you never knew when it would be your last? I can’t say we made every moment count. I would bet most people didn’t live that way. If we said goodbye every day as if it were the last time we’d ever see each other, imagine how tragic and intense life would be. Sometimes we just had to have faith that the person we loved would be coming home from work that day, and that we would get a lot more chances to perfect our goodbyes.
The last time I saw Will alive, he was standing in the hallway outside our bedroom door. I still remembered what he was wearing – khaki shorts and an old Budweiser t-shirt he’d gotten at a club when we were twenty-two. Will had taken very good care of his clothes. He was the stain-removing and ironing mastermind of our household.
“Have you seen my ______?” he asked.
His what? I couldn’t remember. It drove me crazy that I couldn’t remember. His keys? His shoes? His wallet? What did he ask me for that morning?
“No,” I said, as I knelt on the floor to put on Lucie’s sandals – the pink jelly ones. I did remember that detail.
With Lucie’s backpack and my purse on one shoulder, I picked up Lucie to carry her out to the car.
“Shit,” Will said. He stood still, his finger on his chin, trying to remember where he’d put his ______. Then he’d shrugged and walked over to the front door. “All right. Love you. See you later.”
“Love you,” I said.
“WUV YOU!” Lucie yelled. “Kiss and hug!”
He gave us each a kiss, gave Lucie the hug she always demanded, and we walked out the door.
As far as forever goodbyes went, we could have done a lot worse. It was what happened the night before he died that had nearly crippled me.
As I’d driven to the hospital that morning, my knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, and my heart beat so fast I felt dizzy, like I was living in fog. I prayed for Will to be okay. He had to be okay. Because the eggplant parmesan I’d made for dinner the night before had been terrible. I couldn’t live the rest of my life knowing the last meal I’d made for my husband had been an embarrassing disaster. Yeah. My husband was dead, and I was thinking about eggplant.
That eggplant remained in focus for the entire first year. I acted like the eggplant was directly responsible. I avoided the produce section of the grocery store. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw an eggplant entrée listed on a restaurant’s menu. I couldn’t even stand to see that shade of purple. It made my eyes burn, and my fists clench in anger.
By the time Lucie started kindergarten, I was beginning my second year as a widow. I had set up a trust fund for Lucie with the settlement, cleaned out most of Will’s things from the home, and even started brushing my box-colored hair once in awhile. It was around that time when I stopped hating the eggplant. That was when the eggplant started to make me cry instead.
Because, you see, Will had eaten it. He had somehow chewed and swallowed two whole bites of that garbage. He wasn’t even going to tell me how bad it was. It wasn’t until I tried it myself, spit it out, and said, “This is disgusting,” that he laughed and asked if I wanted him to order Chinese.
I was now starting my third year, and I felt like I was really turning a corner. Just a few days ago I’d thought about that eggplant and laughed. I had learned to appreciate our easy-going relationship, and the moments we always made the best of. I was trying to find a way to live the same kind of life without him, and I thought I was doing a better job of it every day. Just in the past few weeks I had been to a salon for a professional color, started wearing makeup again, and even got a pedicure.
The Fucker Mothers had also turned some kind of corner since the previous year – they’d gotten more vicious. This was, apparently, the year of the Bento Box Battles. Every morning was the same routine – the four lined up and opened up their kid’s lunchboxes to show the other mothers how much better theirs was. Every morning it was a challenge for these ladies to beat the box (not like that, you pervs). It was a one-up-a-thon of designer foods – hard boiled eggs and lunch meat sculptures, mini sandwiches in seasonal shapes, cheese chunks shaped like moons and stars, fruits and veggies carved into popular cartoon characters – and my personal favorites – desserts made to look like sushi rolls. Seriously. One food made to look like another. Who had the time for that? Not this girl. You want to know what Lucie got in her lunchbox? A sandwich in the shape of a sandwich. A banana in the shape of a banana. And sometimes even a juice box.
The Fucker Mothers hated me. When I didn’t have anything to add to their conversation last year, and didn’t join them for drinks, I think they felt slighted. By snubbing them I had pinned a bulls-eye on my chest. Now I was the mother for them to judge and belittle every morning. I tended to give them a ton of ammunition. If showing up at school looking like a train wreck four times a week hadn’t earned me a permanent spot on the neighborhood blacklist, I was pretty sure the fruit roll-up I’d sent for Lucie’s snack time yesterday had pushed me off the ledge. We were going to be eaten alive today. But really, was a fruit roll-up all that different from their pretentious fruit leather? I thought not.
* * *
7:49 A.M
Fall was gorgeous and colorful in the Midwest. I admired the colors of the leaves under our feet. It was the perfect kind of weather for Halloween – not warm enough that I was sweating in my blazer, but not cold enough that Lucie needed to wear a jacket over her costume.
As we walked to school, her in her store-bought Elsa costume, and me in a pencil skirt with black heels (just in case), I could imagine the kind of snark I was going to hear from The Fucker Mothers. They would say something about how nice I cleaned up when I knew there was going to be an eligible bachelor around. They would mumble about how “cute” it was that I thought I had a chance with him. They would also make sure I knew what a loser I was for putting my child in a costume bought at a store.
I guess I was just a sucky mom. A custom-made costume wasn’t in our budget. I knew some mothers could go to the fabric store and whip up a costume in a jiffy, but I wouldn’t even be able to pick a sewing machine out of a lineup. #momfail #isuck.
At least I had a little something else on my mind today other than The Fucker Mothers.
Ben Ogea.
TGIF.
Every Friday since the first week of school, at some point around 7:56 am, Lucie and I arrived at the corner of Elm and Oak Streets at approximately the same time as Ben and his daughter, Olive. Olive was in Lucie’s first-grade class.
I’d done a little bit of sleuthing and discovered that Ben and his wife divorced when Olive was three. As part of their custody agreement, he got every Thursday through Saturday with Olive. The girls were in different kindergarten time slots last year, so we didn’t run into them. I didn’t see Ben much last year at all, except at a few special events and ceremonies, like the kindergarten graduation (which, by the way, I thought was incredibly gratuitous. But that was a story for another day).
On the few occasions I’d seen Ben last year, I’d gone out of my way to avoid him. It was pretty easy to avoid someone in a crowd. It was generally pretty easy to avoid people altogether, and I kind of preferred it.
It was less easy to avoid Ben and Olive on the first Friday in September when we approached the corner from opposite directions; they were headed east, we were headed west, and all of us needed to head north. We were walking to the same place at the same time on the same street. There was no way around it.
I’d maintained my composure, and acted like my stomach wasn’t somewhere around my knees. Just some guy walking his kid to school. No big thing. Nothing to see here. Move along. I gave him what I hoped was a confident smile. He gave me a friendly nod.
To him, I was just some chick walking her kid to school. No big thing.
We now had a Friday morning routine. Whoever got to the intersection first waited for the others. We gave each other a quick nod or smile, sometimes even a “Good morning,” and as the girls chitchatted about princesses and nail polish, the four of us walked the last block to school together.
We didn’t talk much, the two of us. We listened to the girls instead, occasionally exchanging knowing looks when they got excited about a TV show or a friend from class. But I preferred a comfortable silence over gauche small talk anyhow.
The few things I knew about Ben Ogea could be listed on one hand. I knew his ex-wife was gorgeous, smart, and successful – even The FMs were intimidated by her. I knew he lived somewhere close enough to the school to walk. I knew he worked for a TV station, but not in front of the camera. I also knew The Fucker Mothers panted and salivated when he walked by, like a bunch of desperate housewives.
What nobody else knew was that we had once shared a night together in a dark room.
* * *
October 22, 1999
Hope Jameson had lived around the block from me all our lives. We’d been best friends since kindergarten; a fact that baffled most people, nobody more than ourselves. She was a social butterfly who loved shopping, makeup, and boys. I was the quiet and bashful type who preferred fictional characters to real people. Real people, especially boys, terrified me.
When we were in the ninth grade, Hope’s parents retired from their desk jobs, and bought themselves a dive bar a few towns over. They never came home from work before three A.M. on the weekends. My girlfriends and I (I mean, Hope’s other friends – I didn’t have any) would hang out in her basement, steal from her parents’ liquor cabinet, and invite some boys over to flirt with. By the time her parents would get home from work, the boys would be gone, the mess cleaned up, and us girls passed out on the floor of Hope’s enormous basement bedroom.
In October of our sophomore year, Hope decided to play a game. Had I known about this game beforehand, I would have stayed far away from Hope’s that night. But she would have known that, which explains why I was not given a warning.
There were twelve of us in the basement that night, six guys and six girls. A few were sprawled on the couch, some were on the bed, the rest, myself included, were lounging on the floor on giant pillows and beanbags. We were drinking cheap vodka mixed with cherry Kool-Aid, and watching a Halloween marathon on TV.
Suddenly, Hope stood up from the couch. She used the remote to turn off the TV, held her red plastic cup up in the air like she was about to toast, and yelled, “LIGHTS OUT! Grab the person closest to you and make out!”
She clapped her hands twice and the lights went out. The small basement windows were covered in black sheets, so we were in complete darkness. Just like that. No warning. I hadn’t even had a chance to look around and see which guys were near me on the floor.
I heard a bunch of scuffling as people began to pair up, but I stayed frozen in place. I really, really wished Hope had warned me of this plan. This was totally not my thing.
I had very limited experiences with guys, and each one seemed to get more clumsy, awkward, and embarrassing than the last – they were nothing at all like the steamy romantic scenes I’d read in books or seen in movies.
I thought having a guy’s tongue in my mouth was disgusting. Slimy and wet, and probably filled with a billion contagious bacteria, and just, ick. And the one time a guy had unzipped my pants and slid his hand in my underwear, I’d been even more sickened. Long fingernails, dirty hands filled with a day’s worth of germs. Gross. I thought this was supposed to be fun. I shouldn’t be thinking of germs. I should be gasping and panting and tearing off his clothes in an animalistic rage. But I wasn’t.
Being in complete darkness, I was more aware of the sounds around me. They weren’t pleasant. Kissing noises. Gross. Everyone else seemed to fall into Hope’s plan with ease and enthusiasm.
I wished there was a way out of this. Being chased around a neighborhood by Michael Myers seemed less scary than this stupid game. I contemplated staying still and pretending I wasn’t there. Hope’s game would eventually be over and the lights would turn on and I could just pretend I’d been making out with someone. How would anyone know? Well, except the guy who I was supposed to be making out with. Since there was an even number of us, we’d both have to sit this one out. Hey, that was perfectly fine with me. I’d stay where I was, he could stay where he was, and no one would ever have to know.
I felt a hand reach out and gently touch my hip in the darkness. There was someone lying on the floor next to my pillow. I tried to remember who had been sitting there before the lights went out, but couldn’t. Let’s see… who could it be? There was Travis, Luke, Sam, Ben, David… They were all good-looking, popular guys. Nobody who would want anything to do with me. I was just a normal girl, nothing special.
I wondered, self-consciously, if I was the last girl picked. If, whoever this hand belonged to, was disappointed that I was the closest one to him and he wasn’t able to get to one of the hotter girls in time.
I bit my lip, feeling nervous as his arms timidly wrapped around my waist. He gently pulled me off my giant pillow and I landed next to him on the carpet. My back leaned against the pillow and my chest pressed against his. I could feel the nervous tension between us. If ever there was a time I wanted the world to open up and swallow me whole, yep – right there.
But then something happened that changed my mood. He kissed me. Even in the darkness, his mouth found mine on the first try. It felt like our lips were drawn to each other by magnetic force. When his tongue touched mine, I wasn’t grossed out. My body felt like it was melting into his like ice cream. He tasted like cherry Kool-Aid and smelled like Hugo Boss. This guy knew what he was doing. And I liked what he was doing.
I didn’t know who he was, but I knew I liked kissing him. It was different than the other guys somehow. It was neater, slower, more determined, but less frantic. And when he rolled us over so that he was on top of me, I felt something, and I sort of wanted to tear his clothes off in an animalistic rage.
He was hard in his pants. I could feel it when he pressed into me. It made me dizzy and I was surprised how hard it felt. When we learned about erections in sex-ed classes, I thought they got sort of plump, like a bratwurst off the grill. I wasn’t expecting it to feel this hard. This felt like steel. And if there was any truth to the romance novels I’d bought from a used book store over the summer, that piece of steel was probably as smooth as velvet. I’d have to wait to find out though. It would take more than a few sips of vodka to give me the courage I’d need for direct penile contact.
I pushed the sounds of the others out of my mind and pretended we were the only two in the room. When he slid his hands under my shirt, I didn’t even mind. When he pushed my shirt up, pulled the cup of my bra down, and slid his tongue across my nipple, I really didn’t mind it. Maybe I could rethink that part about courage and try to find out what was in his pants.
I slid my hand between us and under the waistband of his jeans, and he did the same to me. I didn’t think about germs at all. And when he hit the right spot, I wished I knew who he was so I could yell out his name in appreciation.
That was when Hope had had enough. “I’m clapping my hands in five,” she announced, and began to count down.
He froze for a second, and then quickly removed his hand. I zipped and buttoned my jeans and was back up on my pillow just as the countdown landed on one.
Clap, clap. The lights went on. I avoided the eyes of everyone else. I chipped at my nail polish. Hope turned the movie back on, but I was afraid to look around at the others. Their silence made it all that much worse. I couldn’t stand to be in that basement another second.
I grabbed my plastic cup off the floor and stood up. “I’m going to get a refill,” I mumbled as I headed for the basement steps. I walked up to the kitchen to pour myself another drink. A strong one. I needed it.
I was standing at the counter, with my back to the basement steps, when I heard someone coming up. Too embarrassed to face anyone in the harsh lights of the kitchen, I drank my Kool-Aid right there at the counter without turning around.
I heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, come up behind me, and then a hand on my ass encouraged me to turn around and face my mystery make-out man. So I did.
Ben. Ben Ogea stood before me. I was too afraid to look up at his face, but I knew it was him from the Jim Morrison quote on his t-shirt. “This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.”
I looked down at his black Chuck Taylor shoes. Someone had used an ink pen to draw chemical symbols on the white part of the shoes. Ben was the smartest guy in our class. He was a year younger than us because he’d skipped the second grade. But he wasn’t one of those geeky pocket protector carrying kind of smart people who made everyone else around him feel stupid. He made getting a 4.0 look cool.
Ben didn’t usually hang out with us and I couldn’t remember us ever having had a conversation in the past. But I knew who he was. Everybody did.
I glanced up at him shyly while still keeping my head down. He smiled. Jim Morrison had a strange life, and Ben Ogea had a wicked smile, wicked sexy. I returned his smile with a shy one of my own. Then he put his finger up to his mouth and… and he licked it. Uhhh… what?
With a hand on each one of my hips, he leaned down and kissed me one last time. Then he walked backwards away from me until he reached the stairs, before he turned and walked out the back door.
We never spoke to each other that night. And we never spoke after it. But I’d wanted to finish what we’d started ever since.
* * *
Friday, October 31, 2014
7:47 A.M.
“I guess we have two Elsas in first grade today,” Ben said when they arrived at our corner. Lucie and Olive were both wearing the exact same turquoise store-bought costume.
I knew there would be a whole lot more than two Elsas in the first grade, and in every other grade, but I didn’t correct him.
“I like your braid,” Olive said to Lucie. Her own dark hair was in a high ponytail. “My daddy doesn’t know how to braid.”
I looked up at Ben and he shrugged ruefully.
I looked at my watch. We had a few minutes to spare. “Do you want a braid like Lucie’s?” I asked Olive.
She nodded shyly.
I knelt down on the sidewalk and pulled a brush from my purse. She stood still as I quickly braided her hair over to the side like Lucie’s.
A few minutes earlier I’d felt like I failure when I couldn’t get Lucie’s crown braid to look red-carpet-ready. The way Olive looked at me when I finished with her braid, it made me feel like a hero instead.
Ben looked at me the same way and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t give my belly the squirmies.
“Thanks,” he muttered when we continued walking. “I watched some videos online, but my fingers just don’t coordinate right.”
He had actually tried to learn how to braid? I didn’t personally know any other single fathers with young daughters, but I didn’t imagine most of them braided hair.
I didn’t reply. I just smiled and nodded and hoped he had no idea how I’d woken up this morning.
I wasn’t sure if Ben remembered Lights Out, but I suspected he didn’t. He’d never called me by my name, which made me believe he didn’t know it. I wasn’t sure he knew we went to high school together at all. I seriously doubted he remembered a twenty-minute make-out session from fifteen years ago. You could bet your ass I wouldn’t ever ask him either.
