He was right about everything. Though, I was thankful that he didn’t know about what Lexi really gave me hell about. “But, with her dying that put a lot of stress on you.”
He looked over at me with a sad smile on his face. “Yeah, but I got you out of it.”
My eyes dropped to the coffee table, and my brain frantically tried to figure out what he meant. “I would have been there to help even if Lexi was still here.” For the two weeks after Mason was born and Lexi was still alive my mom and I had been the ones to take care of Mason most of the time.
Tor reached his hand out to me. “Stella.”
I looked at him then down at his hand.
“Give me your hand, Babe.”
I hesitantly put my hand in his. His long fingers wrapped around my hand, and he tugged me close. “Come here.”
What was going on? Who was he talking to? It surely couldn’t be me. “Tor, I…”
“Shut up, Stella. I know you hate me, but for maybe two minutes could you act like you actually can stand me?”
“I don’t hate you. Not at all,” I whispered. It was the complete opposite. I loved him, and I didn’t know how to function around him so I just become a bitch because it’s easier to be a bitch than to admit my feelings. Being a chick was so confusing.
“Really? Because you had me thinking you only liked Mason, and not me.”
I shook my head. “I like you both.”
“That’s good to know, Babe.” He again gave my hand a tug. “You wanna come closer, or are you gonna stay down there all night?”
“Uh…”
He took over, realizing my brain had died as soon as he touched me. He shifted toward me, his hand still holding mine, and his arm wrapped around my waist. He lifted me off the couch, and onto his lap. “So this is what you feel like in my arms. Way better than I ever imagined.”
I rested my hands on his shoulders and tried to get a grasp on what was happening. I was straddling his waist, his body between my legs, and I was trying not to pass out. Breath, Stella.
“Breathing would be a good idea, Babe.”
“Shit,” I gasped. I had said that out loud.
“You know, that is the first time I have ever heard you cuss.” His eyes lit with amusement.
“I try not to do it since Mason is around all of the time. The last thing I need is for you to pick him up and he goes home saying shit.”
Tor chuckled and shook his head. “If he ever does say it I wouldn’t even think it came from you.”
Well, that was a relief. “I guess I’ll let the cuss words rip the next time Mason is here.”
“You do that, Babe, but make sure you take a video cause I wanna see it.” He rested his hands on my waist and leaned in. His forehead rested against mine and he sighed. “Are you really in my lap right now?”
“Yeah, though I don’t know how it happened.”
“You mad it happened?” he whispered.
“Uh, not in the least.” I closed my eyes and didn’t fight the next words that came out. “I’ve been wanting this for the past year and a half.” I heard his breath catch, and I opened my eyes.
His piercing gaze connected with mine. “You felt it that first time we met, too?”
“I… I don’t…” I knew exactly what he was talking about. The second my eyes had landed on Tor, it was like my breath was knocked out of me, and he was the only thing in the room that could make me breathe again.
“You felt it, Babe,” he whispered. “I walked into Lexi’s house thinking I was going to meet her stepmom and mousey stepsister she complained about, and instead I fall head over heels with you without you even speaking a word.”
“Eh… How… That…” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a word out. Tor had rendered me speechless again.
“Just nod your head if you feel the same damn thing, Stella,” he growled.
I bit my lip and nodded my head.
“Thank fuck,” he sighed. “I’m gonna kiss you now because it has been too damn long.”
“Too long fo-.” His lips connected with mine, cutting off my words, and all thoughts again.
His lips moved against mine and my hands inched up his neck and into his hair. His right hand stayed on my hip while the left one spanned my back and pulled me closer. “You see me,” I whispered against his lips.
“I’ve always seen you, Stella. It was hard not to.”
“But wh-.” Mason’s wail cuts between us, and I instantly feel Tor pull back from me.
“Christ, I love that kid, but he totally just killed the vibe.” I shifted off of Tor, and he stood up. “I’ll grab him,” he sighed.
I nod dumbly unsure of what to say. I was just in his lap wishing for time to freeze so I would never have to lose his touch, and now Mason was crying and I crashed back to reality.
Tor waited a beat for me to say something, anything really, but all I did was sit there. “Look at me, Stella.”
I tipped my head back and took a deep breath.
“You good?”
Such a simple question, yet I didn’t know the answer. “Uh, I think so.” Not only had the man rendered me speechless, he had also rendered me dumb.
Mason cried out again, and Tor took off down the hallway to him.
I listened to him talking to him, asking what his problem was, and I laughed. “It’s cause I’m not Stella, isn’t it?” he asked loudly.
I grabbed the pillow next to me and buried my face in it. Everything was changing. The one person I always wanted to see me finally saw me.
Except I didn’t know if he was seeing the right thing.
*
Chapter Five
Tor
“Dude, you couldn’t have given me like ten more minutes? Daddy is in the dry spells to end all dry spells,” I muttered.
Mason wrapped his arms around me and laid his head on my shoulder. “Dada.”
“Yeah, total dada.” I patted his butt, feeling the full diaper. “And I see you have a nice present for me too.” I spotted the makeshift changing station Stella had next to her bed, and laid Mason down.
Mason babbled while I changed his diaper and pulled his pants back on. I set him on the ground and held onto his hand. “Wanna try the whole walking thing, Bud?” Every night I did the same thing with him, but he never took more than a few steps before he plopped down on his butt.
“Everything okay?” Stella stood in the doorway to the room. “It got kinda quiet.”
Mason squealed when he saw her and took off but kept a death grip on my hand. “Holy shit,” I whispered. Mason walked across the room, then let go of my hand when he was still a few feet away from Stella.
He made the last five steps on his own then raised his hands up to Stella. “Dada.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped. She scooped him up into her arms and clutched him to her chest.
“He just walked on his own,” I said, flabbergasted.
“He did,” Stella laughed. “I knew it was just going to happen.” Mason wrapped his arms around her neck and buried his face in her hair.
Damn, my kid loved Stella as much as I did. “He’s got good taste. Gotta say I’m a bit jealous of the kid right now.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Dada is a dork.”
“Hey, don’t be teaching him that. I’m trying to be one of those cool dads.”
“Well, you’ve definitely got the look of a cool dad.”
I cocked my head to the side. “I think that was a compliment.”
She shook her head. “No, because you get plenty of those.”
I looked around. “From who?”
She turned on her foot and headed down the hallway. “Daddy thinks I was born yesterday,” she mumbled loudly.
“Dada!” Mason shouted.
I turned off the bedroom light and followed Stella into the kitchen. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”
Stella set Mason in his highchair next to the kitchen table. “Hungry?” she asked him. He ba
nged his hand on the tray. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Stella, you can’t ignore me. Especially not after what just happened ten minutes ago.”
She grabbed a banana from the counter and peeled back the peel. “I’m not ignoring you.”
“Then why aren’t you answering my question.”
She tossed the peel into the garbage and grabbed a cutting board from the drawer. “What was the question again?” She sliced the banana and set a few slices in front of Mason.
“What did you mean by I think you were born yesterday?”
She went into the fridge and grabbed a yogurt and a small container. “You okay with meatballs for him?”
“As long as you cut them up.”
She nodded her head and turned back to the cutting board. “I mean I know what kind of guy you are, Tor.”
I pulled out the chair next to Mason and sat down. “I’m not following, Stella.”
“Do we really have to talk about this right now?”
I looked around. “Not sure why this isn’t a good time to talk.”
She sighed and rinsed off the knife and cutting board she had used on the banana. “I just mean I know you date. I know you have girls.”
“Girls?” I looked at Mason. “She makes it sound like we have girls caged in the basement, dude.” Mason chomped on his banana slices and held one out to me. I leaned in with my mouth open and he dropped it in my mouth. “Thanks, dude.”
“You date, Tor. You date a lot. That’s what I mean.”
I sat back in my chair. “Says who?” The only time Stella saw me was when I was either picking up or dropping off Mason. I didn’t even think she knew where I worked, let alone who I dated.
She worked on cutting up two meatballs and set them on a plate. “Tor, can you please not play this game with me?”
“You’re gonna have to tell me what the hell you mean because I don’t have a clue what game I’m playing.”
She picked up the knife, set it back down, then turned around. “I’m not the type of girl you date. I know it, you know it. But please don’t act like I don’t know just exactly what your type is.”
What in the ever living hell was she talking about? “Uh, just what is my type?”
“Pretty. Blonde. Tall. Lexi.”
Well, that was fucking wrong. “Lexi is dead, Stella.”
“Yeah, but there are fifty gazillion other Lexi’s out there for you.” She grabbed the plate of chopped up meatballs and set them in the microwave. “It’s only a matter of time until you find one to replace me.”
I didn’t even have her yet and she was already having me replace her. “Did I miss something? Why would I replace you?”
“Because I’m Stella. Boring. Brunette. Boring. Short. Oh, and boring.” She slammed the door shut to the microwave and jabbed her finger on the numbers. “I’m easily replaced. It happened often,” she mumbled.
“Dada, dada,” Mason chanted. He pointed to the container of yogurt Stella had grabbed. I got up, grabbed the yogurt and a spoon, then sat back down.
“I can feed him.”
“I can handle it.” I peeled back the foil, and stuck the spoon in. “I know you’ve only ever seen me carry him, but I do know how to take care of him when you aren’t around.” That came out harsher than I had wanted it too, but damn if it didn’t piss me off that Stella thought she needed to take care of Mason and I was sitting right there.
“That’s not what I meant. I just mean…” She threw her hands up in the air. “Hell if I know what I meant.”
Mason threw his hands up and laughed.
I feed him a couple spoonfuls of yogurt, then he went back to picking the slices of banana off his tray. “You wanna tell me what just happened between you and I?” I asked quietly.
Stella grabbed the plate of meatballs from the microwave and set it down in front of me. “I don’t know. I was just trying to somehow protect myself, and instead I just sounded like a bitch. It’s much easier to be bitchy than to figure out what I’m feeling or thinking.”
She stood close to me, and I wrapped my arm around her. “Stella, babe, you don’t need to protect yourself from me. I’ve been yours since the day we met.”
“You were Lexi’s,” she whispered.
I shot up, the chair skidded out from under me, and I wrapped her in my arms. “I was never Lexi’s. The only good things that came out of knowing her were meeting you, and Mason.”
“She never would have let you have me.”
“You really think Lexi was gonna stop me from doing anything? She may have thought she had some sort of power or control over me, but she didn’t. I never should have ended up with her that night, but I’ll never wish to take it back because then I never would have you or Mason.”
“She knew I liked you,” she whispered. “She told me you would never be interested in a geek like me.”
“A geek like you? A geek is the last thing I see when I look at you. Lexi was so far up her own ass she had to talk shit about people just to make herself feel better. She was jealous of you, Stella. Before I met you, she called you the wicked stepsister and made you out to be horrible. The second I saw you I knew everything she had spewed about you was a complete lie.”
“I wish I could see me the way you see me.”
I brushed her hair back and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You will, Babe. One day soon you’re going to see exactly what I see.”
“A dork who has her nose in a book?”
“You do have your nose in a book often, but you aren’t a dork.” My hand traveled down her back and cupped her ass. “You’re my sexy little school girl.”
Her cheeks turned red, and she buried her face in my neck. “You can’t say that in front of Mason,” she scolded.
“Dada,” Mason yelled.
“I think he’s just fine with me saying that.”
She hit me on the shoulder. “This is going to confuse him.”
“Stella, he’s one.”
“And he’s not used to seeing you and me together. We shouldn’t be doing this in front of him.” She pulled out of my arms and ran her hands down her shirt to straighten it.
“Stella, are you gonna argue with me again?”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.
She sure as shit was. She wasn’t kidding when she said it was easier for her to be bitchy to me than accept whatever was going on between us. “What are you trying not to feel right now, Stella?”
“Dada,” Mason called. I looked over my shoulder, and he was pointing at the plate of meatballs.
“Hold that thought, Babe.” I reached for the plate and slid it onto his tray. “Eat up, Bub. I gotta convince Stella she likes me again.”
Mason ignored me as soon as the plate touched his tray.
“Back to us,” I muttered.
Stella rested her hands on my shoulders and sighed. “I’m not trying to not feel anything.”
“Then what?” I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do with Stella. She wanted me. She had said it before. But something was still holding her back.
“I just don’t know. I don’t know anything other than I want you to kiss me and never stop.”
A huge smile spread across my lips. “Was that so hard to say?”
She ducked her head. “Yes,” she laughed. “It was extremely hard, but you kept badgering me to say it,” she grumbled.
“You wanna go out on a date with me tomorrow night?” I looked over at Mason. “Uh, well, us?” Stella was the only person I ever had watch Mason.
She looked over at Mason. “I’ve never been asked out on a date with two boys before.”
“First time for everything, Babe.”
*
Chapter Six
Stella
“Tor Kestrel is sleeping on our couch.”
I kept my eyes on my book in front of me. “Is he?”
“You don’t know anything about that?” Mom set her bag on the table next to me with
a thud. “You have ten minutes to spill the beans before either him or that baby wakes up.” She sat down next to me and pulled the book away.
“I was studying.” I made a lame grab for the book even though I knew she wasn’t going to give it back to me.
“Stella,” she said sternly. “Tor is sleeping on my couch.”
As if I didn’t know. “Yes.”
“Can we elaborate on that yes?”
I slumped into my chair and sighed. “Tor came over to pick up Mason last night. Mason was still asleep so Tor stayed till he woke up. By the time Mason woke up he decided to eat dinner here, uh, then we put a movie in. Mason and I played for a bit and Tor ended up falling asleep. I decided to just let him sleep. That’s that.”
Mom sat back and laughed. “I may be tired as hell, girlie, but there is so much more to that story you aren’t telling me.”
“I’m going out on a date tonight with Tor and Mason.” She wasn’t going to stop the grilling. It was best for me to just jump straight to the good part.
She threw her hands up in the air and shouted, “It’s about fucking time!”
“Mom,” I hissed. “You’re going to wake up Tor or Mason.”
“Too late.” I jumped up in my chair and twisted around to see Tor in the doorway running his fingers through his hair. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“Pots on, hun. Grab a cup and you can tell me just when you decided to pull your head out of your ass and fall for the right girl.”
“Good morning, Grace.” Tor walked to the coffeepot and grabbed a cup from off one of the hooks under the cabinet. “And, I’ve wanted her since I laid eyes on her, but things were a bit complicated.”
“But now they’re not?” Mom asked.
“Now I don’t care if they are complicated or not.” He filled his mug and sat down next to me. “Mason still sleeping?”
I nodded my head and bit my lip. Having to sit at the same table as your mom when the guy who just spent the night woke up was a bit awkward. It wasn’t like Tor and I had slept in the same bed, but it was still awkward.
Daddin' Ain't Easy: A DILF Mania Collaboration Page 3
