“Dad-d-dy,” Olive’s whisper booms into my ear like a bongo drum in an enclosed bathroom stall. “It’s nine, zero, zero.” Her words ignite my brain and body, forcing me to sit upright in my chair. I slept in a goddamn chair. It’s nine, she missed the bus and she’s late for school. This is officially the most irresponsible I’ve been since the day she was born.
“Shiiiiiiit,” AJ groans, peeling his eyelids open.
“Uncle said a bad wordddd,” Olive sings, dancing around in a little circle. “One quarter please?” She holds her hand out to him, waiting for another coin to put in her piggy bank that is already overflowing from AJ’s bad word fees.
“Olive, go play,” AJ groans again.
“No, we’re late for school!” she squeals theatrically.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” AJ apologizes. “This is my fault.” As easy as it would be to blame all of this on him, this time, it’s my fault.
“This one is on me, bro,” I tell him.
“I’m sorry I overslept, Olive. I’m not feeling well. I’m sick,” I explain.
“You aren’t sick, Daddy,” Olive says sternly, crossing her arms over her chest. Add this moment to the number of times over the last couple of years that I’ve wanted to respond to her with, “Okay, Ellie,” but I’ve refrained.
“I am sick,” I tell her. “My head and belly hurt.” She doesn’t say any more, but just gives me that look, the look that tells me she doesn’t know what I’m lying about or why, but she knows I’m lying.
“I’ll take her to school,” AJ says, walking into the kitchen.
“You smell like Jack, so no,” I tell him.
“Who’s Jack?” Olive asks. “Was Jack at jail? Like Jack-in-the-Box, but Jack-in-the-Jail?” she giggles ferociously at her own joke—a joke I’d find hysterical, too, if my head didn’t feel like it were about to split in half.
“You don’t smell any better,” AJ tells me.
“Get her ready and I’ll take a two-minute shower,” I tell him.
I run up the stairs, tearing my clothes off on the way. As I rip the shower curtain across the rod, the squealing from the metal rings zings through my head. Jesus. I need Advil...a lot of it. With the water cranked to full heat, I step inside, letting the shower cascade over me like a warm blanket. The steam fills my head, leaving no room for wandering thoughts or the memories of the thoughts I was trying to drown away with booze last night. Fucking Charlotte.
Come to think of it, I’m a little surprised she didn’t come banging on my door when she didn’t see us at the bus stop. She must really be pissed off, not that I know why. For someone who runs a dating site and specializes in relationships, she should know better that communication is a key component. So I’m not wrong here, she is.
After soaping up my hair and body, I’m still in need of releasing some of my anger and frustration. I grab my cock, close my eyes and let my imagination run off, hoping to escape for a few minutes, except I don’t even know who to fucking fantasize about anymore. My manhood is a limp dud that won’t turn on. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t screw Charlotte last night. Maybe my virility died with Ellie.
I grab a towel and step out, snatching the Listerine off the shelf. I fill my mouth with the blue liquid, allowing some of it to seep down the back of my throat. The burn feels good for some sick reason, even if it reminds me of the Jack that’s still rotting my gut from last night. At least I won’t smell like it now.
It takes me less than five minutes to slip on some clothes and make it back down the stairs where I find Charlotte sitting on my couch.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is shameful, despondent, hurt.
“Hey.”
“You okay?” She asks.
“Not really.”
She curls a strand of her hair behind her ear, pulling my focus to her glossy eyes. Was she crying? “I figured something was up since you weren’t at the bus stop.”
“Yeah, I have to take Olive to school. She’s late and it’s my fault.”
“Do you want me to take her?” She offers.
Some of my unreasonable anger from last night simmers in response to her question. “Thanks for the offer. I can take her. But…” I don’t know what the hell I did but by the look in her eyes, it’s definitely something. “If you want to come along for the ride, you can.” Maybe she can shed some light on my unknown mistake.
She takes a minute to answer me, stalling by looking out the window toward her house. I wish I knew what was going through that mind of hers.
“Please,” I tell her. I don’t want it to be like this. I’d rather go back to her couch and resume what we were doing yesterday, and skip over the whole part where my guilt almost pulled me away from something good.
Olive is ready and waiting at the door with her backpack on and her hair in some funky ponytail that AJ tried to...I don’t even know what he tried to do. Charlotte notices Olive’s hair at the same time I do and walks over to her, kneeling down beside her. She takes the rubber band out of Olive’s hair and slips it between her teeth while she runs her fingers through her curls. Charlotte’s face illuminates, like this makes her happy, taking care of my daughter. After a few seconds of studying Charlotte’s skill of sweeping up both sides, careful not to miss any loose hairs, she ties it up in a perfect ponytail—something I’ve yet to master. This is why the poor thing needs a mother. I wasn’t bred to do a little girl’s hair. “Perfect,” Charlotte says, pinching Olive’s cheek gently.
Olive wraps her arms around Charlotte’s neck and squeezes her tightly. “I love you,” she says.
My throat tightens; my heart swells with pain and relief, but mostly pain. Those three little words that have been only mine since the day Olive was born have now been shared with a woman who might hate me, a woman I wasn’t sure I could move forward with for reasons maybe I shouldn’t even have. The simple act of making her hair perfect brought out those sacred words. Olive doesn’t know it, but she needs a woman in her life as much as I do. Am I screwing up that badly?
Charlotte, still holding Olive tightly, looks up at me, this time with distress in her eyes, as if she wants to apologize for what Olive just said. I don’t want her to apologize, though.
“Ready to go?” I ask Olive. She walks over to me slowly and wraps her arms around my leg. “I love you too, Daddy.” What is going on inside of her little mind today? Sometimes I wonder if Olive feels the same kind of pain I do, but the only pain she really feels is the pain I’ve instilled in her. In truth, she didn’t know Ellie, she doesn’t understand what losing someone feels like, and she doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a mother. These are things only I feel in my head, and when I assume she might feel that pain too, it causes a lot of unnecessary guilt.
“I’ll see you at the site,” I yell in to AJ, who looks to be working on his third cup of coffee. He gives me a quick wave without separating his mouth from the mug.
While still wondering if Charlotte is going to come along or not, I reach for the door handle of the truck. “The seat is still free,” I tell her.
Charlotte looks across the street once more and places the tip of her thumb between her teeth, deeply contemplating this short ride. “Okay,” she says, almost inaudibly, before walking around to the other side. The moment we’re all settled in the truck, Charlotte spews out, “I’m sorry.”
“You have no reason to be sorry,” I tell her. I mean, maybe a little for getting angry with no explanation attached but I’ve never been a fan of people needing to apologize for things. Life’s too short for that.
“I shouldn’t have expected you to tell me everything,” she continues. “I guess—” She pauses for a moment and presses her fingers against the side of her head as if she has a headache. Maybe she has sympathy pains for me. “I guess I just wanted things to work out with us so badly and the thought of you maybe having something else going on with another woman made me feel a little crazy.”
Ah, what? Who would I have something going on with? “Why would you think that?” I ask.
“We should talk about this later...when Olive isn’t in the car,” Charlotte says, looking back at Olive with a smile.
No kidding. Not sure why she even broached the issue with Olive still in the car. What the hell is she thinking? I pull in to the school parking lot and park the truck. “I’ll just be a minute,” I tell Charlotte.
I grab Olive from her booster seat and jog, hand-in-hand with her, into the school, handing her off to the administrator who is eyeballing me warily. “Good morning, Olive,” she says, returning Olive’s smile, then glancing at her watch, before peering at me with raised brows. “Good morning, Mr. Cole.”
“Good morning,” I say, returning her greeting, while also feeling like a five-year-old in trouble as I lean down to give Olive a kiss on the head. “Take the bus home, I’ll be waiting for you at the bus stop, okay?” I add, as I sign her in to school.
“Okay,” she sings. “Have fun with Charlotte today.” She giggles and plops down on the plastic blue chair behind us.
“Yes, Mr. Cole, do have fun with Charlotte today,” the administrator says, crossing her arms over her large chest. Her glasses slip down the bridge of her nose and she squints one eye. “These children greatly depend on their education. It’s important to make sure Olive’s here on time in the morning.” Really? I have never made her late before. Cut me some slack, will ya, old lady.
Feeling like I’m doing the parental walk-of-shame down the empty hall, I make my way back to the truck eagerly, with a need for an explanation of Charlotte’s accusations.
I hop back into the truck where Charlotte is patiently waiting, scrolling through her messages on her phone. “You’re late for work,” I tell her, “but I want to talk if you have time.”
“Yeah, we need to talk,” she says, placing her phone down on her lap. “How about we start with the letters....and the woman in the garden.” Oh shit. Olive...my little blabbermouth. Now I’m beginning to understand where Charlotte’s anger is coming from.
A groaning noise rumbles in the back of my throat, a habit I have when I can’t think of a proper response. I scratch at my head for a minute as I sink back into the driver’s seat. “Those letters have been a secret for a very long time, and not just from you, but from my entire family, as well. It’s something between Ellie and me, I guess. There really isn’t any other explanation for me hiding it, other than it’s just something I’ve chosen to keep private.”
“A woman is writing letters to you every week or so. I can’t help but wonder if there was something more going on.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t even know her. They’re just letters and it’s not something I wanted to share with anyone, I guess.”
“I should have just asked you last night instead of assuming the worst,” she says, fingering a loose thread on the tear in her jeans.
Only a slight tinge of guilt finds me when I think about the way I was looking at Ari in the gardens, but I might not have looked at her that way if I wasn’t angry at Charlotte for what I assumed she did with AJ. “Should I remind you of the secret you kept from me about AJ?” I end my question with a cunning grin, trying to call a truce to the argument.
“Fair enough,” she says, releasing a relieving sigh.
“I’m not seeing anyone else, or sleeping with anyone else for that matter,” I confirm.
“And I probably never would have come to that conclusion if Olive hadn’t told me about your rendezvous with a ‘Disney Princess,’” she air quotes, “at the gardens.”
This one is a little tougher to explain since I don’t know much about Ari other than the fact that we share a common interest in a place we both visit. Olive has dug me a nice little hole here.
“There is a woman who I ran into a couple times at the gardens when I was visiting Ellie. She seemed like she was going through something and I chatted with her for a few minutes. I don’t know much about her.” I feel like I’m on the defense, trying to justify my actions when in reality, I haven’t done anything wrong besides notice an attractive woman. It’s not a crime—even happily married men do that.
“I understand,” Charlotte says. “I do. But I’m sure you can understand my sudden concern, or questions, rather.”
“I do. If this all bothers you, I understand, but there are certain things I need to remain constant in my life, for my own sanity—like the letters, and I can’t bend on that. I don’t want to tell you that you have to be okay with it, but this is just the baggage that comes along with me.”
“I get that. And I still want this,” she says, placing her hand over mine. “I got angry last night because I really, really want this. You. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page and I second guessed that.”
I look over at her, turning my hand over and squeezing her fingers. “I want this too.”
She unhinges her seatbelt and drops her phone into the cup holder. I don’t know how she’s managing to maneuver herself the way she is, but she’s climbing over the middle console, resting one knee on each side of me. Before I have a second to interject, her lips are on mine. Her hands are slipping up the front of my shirt, and shit, we’re still sitting in the middle of the school parking lot. I pull away. “Are you out of your mind?” I laugh. “We could probably get put away for like, pedophilia or something, for making out here.”
She laughs and removes her hand from the inside of my shirt. Burying her head into my shoulder she mutters, “Crap, you’re right. How fast can you get home?”
“Fast enough,” I say.
We’re halfway home when her hand crawls up my leg. “Charlotte, I’m going to get us killed if you keep going.” She doesn’t stop, though. Her hand continues up until she reaches my cock. With a gentle squeeze, she slowly starts moving her hand back and forth over my suddenly insane hardness. I’m going to bust through my goddamn pants in a minute. Guess it’s not dead.
By the time we peel into her driveway, I feel like my pitched tent is seconds from blowing away. She runs ahead of me, unlocking her door and pushing her way inside. Her shirt is off before I even cross the threshold. Christ, those things cannot be real. Her pants go next and then she’s standing before me in a black thong and a black lacy bra that leaves nothing to the imagination. I lift her up and her legs tangle around my body as I carry her up the stairs and into her bedroom—a room I have yet to step foot into since I’ve known her. I place her down onto the bed and pull my shirt off as she works on my belt, my fly, my button. Pants are gone. Boxers are gone. Her bra is now gone and her panties are hanging off the corner of the bedpost.
I climb onto her bed, hovering over her, leaning down and taking one of her dusty-rose colored nipples between my teeth. It’s all it takes for her to start moaning and for my need to grow more intense. My hand travels down the length of her body, reaching between her legs where I’m pleasantly welcomed with wetness. I guess foreplay isn’t needed by the feel of her readiness, but I’m not done exploring. I slip two fingers inside of her, feeling her tighten around me, making my poor not-so-dead cock jealous. Her moans grow louder as her movements become greater. Without wanting her to finish before me, I pull my fingers out, giving her the freedom to reach over and pull out a condom from her nightstand.
After unrolling it over my throbbing hardness, she wraps her fingers around me and guides me into her. My thoughts go blurry; becoming lost within the sensations my body is gratefully experiencing. I close my eyes and thrust into her, finding that she likes it hard and rough according to her shouting words. I pin her arms above her head as I ride her like I realize I’ve wanted to for quite a while. Her legs tighten around me—everything tightens around me as she screams louder than I’ve ever imagined a chick yelling. Her tremors tell me she’s finished, but I think she knows I’m not there yet.
She grips hers hands around my biceps and pulls me down to the bed where she climbs on top of me, giving me the most unbelievable view of her large bouncing tits. I squeeze my hands around her hips, enjoying the way her ass grazes tersely against my palms. With another wave of moans finding her lips, I’m guessing she’s about to finish again. This time, I’m with her. The pressure and heat builds within me and as if she knew the exact second to grind down on top of me with all of her weight, I release into her. It’s like all of my stress has melted away and liquefied into the bed beneath me. I don’t think I can move now. I don’t think I want to.
She flops down on top of me, bringing her lips to my neck, leaving them there as a placeholder for whatever else is supposed to happen this second. “You’re amazing,” she whispers against my skin. “I have never had anything remotely close to what you just gave me.”
Her words are a turn on and a compliment. I wasn’t sure what I’d measure up to, especially after being nearly dead below the waist for so long, but I’ll take this as a nice pat on the back. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I mutter. “Actually, you’re fucking incredible.” A grin stretches across my lips as I fold my hands behind my head. I really do feel like a million bucks right now.
“No, I don’t think you get it,” she says. “No one has ever been able to make me...you know. Never mind once, but twice?” Her words and soft laughter are like a dessert wine—the perfect ending to an amazing meal.
Married for however long and no man has ever made her finish? I don’t know whether to be surprised or really proud of my efforts. I’ll just assume I’m incredible—easier that way. “Wow, careful not to stroke my ego too much there,” I tell her.
“I won’t stroke your ego, but—“ her words trail off as she climbs down the length of my body, taking my still very stiff cock into her mouth.
I’m never moving again. This is it. I’m done for...whatever.