by C. D. Reiss
Jenn bounced up and the two of them headed right for us. They were five steps away when I realized why I needed Cara there.
To prove I wasn’t sleeping with either of them.
I’d been five minutes from having both of them at once. Just normal shit. But something about me changed between the agreement to take our threesome out to the van and seeing Josh with Cara. As if the adrenaline dump had changed my cellular makeup, I felt weirdly, oddly, inexplicably . . . guilty.
They reached us, huffing and puffing as if they’d gone uphill instead of across a lawn. I glanced at Cara. She had her eyes on Nicole.
“Hey, Brad,” Jenn said, starting a give-and-take between her and her cousin.
“. . . If you want to . . .”
“. . . We’re around . . .”
“. . . we can meet you . . .”
“. . . upstairs?”
Cara’s head snapped around to them. Now was my chance to prove I was better than she thought. Golden opportunity. So perfect I didn’t have a minute to ask myself why I cared.
“Nah,” I said. “We have to go.”
“Next time,” Jennifer said, elbowing Jenn.
Cara went to Nicole before they finished, and I followed at her heels.
“Hey, sweetheart, how’s it going?” I said when I got to Nicole. She was stacking her cards in a neat pile.
“Blue said I could have these.”
“Where is she?” Cara asked, scanning around the party. The breeze flicked her hair around her face. She looked like a warrior.
She’s not yours, Mr. Weird Impulse.
“She went to see the guy with the rabbit and the big hat.” She held her hand out to Cara. “You have Pony Pie?”
Cara crouched down and gave Nicole the doll. “Are you all right?”
She waited for an answer that didn’t come. Out of the corner of my eye, Jenn and Jennifer approached again.
“Let’s go,” I said, holding out my hand for my daughter.
“I want to stay for the sleepover.”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.” I sounded exactly like my father, for the love of fuck.
Nicole’s face got rock hard. Eyes squinched. Lips tight. Chin puckered. She wrapped her arms across her chest and locked them.
“I said,” Nicole stated as if I didn’t hear her the first fucking time, “I want to stay for the sleepover.” She even enunciated more slowly.
“Sweetheart,” Cara started but never finished. I didn’t have time for nicey-nice. Explaining shit to a five-year-old wasn’t on my to-do list. I picked my daughter up, slung her over my shoulder screaming, and carried her the fuck out.
Car and driver were close.
“Her overnight bag,” Cara said.
“Leave it. She has her pony.”
The driver closed the door and we were off. Nicole had tears on her cheeks. They were as big as golf balls and her lips were extra red and swollen as she wept. She wouldn’t even let Cara touch her.
I felt like a first-class asshole.
“Don’t do this on my account,” Cara said.
“Your account is my account.”
You’re mine.
Everything was confused and backward. I felt like someone else. Like the guy who wears a gray suit and a red tie with his shiny black shoes. A guy who drives a Buick to work every day and trades it in every two years for a new one. Eats dinner at the same time every night, fucks his wife twice a week, and drinks his rage with the football game on. It did not feel good to be that guy, but he was the only guy I could be in the back of that limo.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” I said to Cara as much as myself. “From now on, I’ll take her where I want. She’s mine, and I’m not hanging around these people. She’s going to have to live my life with me, not part of this crowd of idiots. Second, I’m not hiding Blakely. She’s coming where she needs to be. Third. If he touches you again, I’m going to break his face. Let’s see how Redfield stacks up against Encino in a fair fight.”
Cara patted her leg absently while she spoke. “I’m sure you could take him in a fight.” Her smile challenged me to make an ass of myself by getting into a fight at a kid’s birthday party. I was just about ready to see how that worked out.
But no.
I was a father. Fathers didn’t do shit like that.
Right? I wished someone would tell me.
Nicole was still mad, but had worked her way backward to a few sniffles and tear-dampened sleeves. She crawled onto Cara’s lap so she could get her sulking puss right in front of me. She crossed her arms tightly and scowled.
What did my father think when I looked at him like that? What did any father think? Was I supposed to discipline her or wait it out? Tell her what’s what? Who’s in charge? How it makes other people feel? Talk sense?
I didn’t know how I was supposed to do this, and Nicole didn’t make it easy to figure it out. She just curled up on Cara, who was pretty damned firm with her. All the times I’d seen them together, Cara was setting out rules, or correcting her or listening. I hadn’t done any of that.
In all the time I’d spent with . . .
Wait.
Not much time at all.
Dad didn’t take us anywhere, and he fell asleep in the green chair most nights. But he’d had us the first five years. Right? He’d had a chance to develop feelings where I hadn’t.
Maybe that would explain the thing I was most embarrassed about. I hadn’t had some lightning bolt of emotion when I met my daughter. Just a little voice that told me she was cute and another that said it would be fine. Another voice said she was my responsibility and another answered that meant I had to get the best staff on it.
But no little voice with a feeling.
My mother’s voice scolded me.
You never tell a soul you just had that thought, Bradley. Why, look at that little nugget! They’ll say you’re a sociopath.
I answered the voice in my head, sulking like a twelve-year-old.
I don’t care what people think.
That quieted my mother for half a second while Cara stroked Nicole’s hair, dividing it into strands for a new braid. Then she came back like a vaudevillian poking her head from stage right.
You zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket.
“You know what’s funny?” I said before I thought about it, “I have a staff and a house as big as a palace, but I never felt like the king of my castle. Not even with Nicole there.”
I felt like an asshole before I even finished the sentence. That was too much information. She was an employee. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the back of the limo with me. But I wanted her there. I wanted her to stroke Nicole’s hair when my daughter was mad at me, and I wanted to talk to her about . . .
What?
Nothing.
“You never had a proper coronation,” she said before I could finish the thought, snapping the rubber band off Nicole’s braid. “Most men get time to prepare mentally. Pregnancy or the adoption process. You were kind of thrust onto the throne.” She unraveled the braid. “And the little princess too.”
She surprised me. I thought she was going to tell me I wasn’t the king of anything. I had no business using old-fashioned terms. I was backward. Stupid. A caveman.
But she didn’t. She got what I was saying.
In an oversize white polo and beige chinos, she was the least regal person I’d ever seen, and maybe I wasn’t much of a king in sandals and shorts, but we understood the kingdom and how fucked up it was.
I was glad I’d gotten her for a month, and I knew I was going to lean on her more than I should. And I was glad I’d gotten away from Jenn and Jennifer before I made an even bigger ass out of myself.
Nicole made me want to do better and Cara made me want to prove it.
“I’m going to the SAG thing tomorrow night. Nicole’s coming.”
Cara looked at me darkly. “Her bedtime’s e
ight.”
“Yeah. I know. But people want to see her, I have to go, and life goes on. I’m not like those people. I’m not my parents. I’m not those parents back there either. I’m me. This is the hand we’re dealt. We gotta play it.”
“I’ll go then. I have a dress.”
CHAPTER 16
CARA
When you see pictures of celebrities at events with their children, you can bet there’s a nanny for each kid hanging around the sidelines. We exist on the fringes, just outside the camera’s field. We wear simple black clothes, easy shoes, and a little makeup so we don’t stand out. We know where to take the kids when they act out and how to manage a room full of power hitters without being seen.
No one wanted to see us. We prove that Hollywood is full of people who aren’t magical or perfect, but human beings who need help juggling twelve-hour days and family responsibilities. I liked it on the fringes. I liked my anonymity.
Blakely didn’t have that luxury. She’d be seen and photographed. The entire episode with Josh Trudeau would be dredged up and she’d be unemployable all over again.
Blakely sprawled over my bed, swiping her iPad. I needed to tell her about the incident with Josh, but I was too nervous. I considered putting it in a note, an e-mail, anything but face-to-face.
“I’m not saying I mind getting the night off,” she said. “But this sucks.”
“Are you on Tinder again?”
“See this guy here?” She flipped the screen so I could see a guy holding his phone up to a mirror.
“I don’t understand the picture-in-the-bathroom-mirror thing. Don’t these people have friends?”
“Here’s what he wrote me. ‘Hey. You’re pretty hot. You look like that nanny that slept with Josh Trudeau. LOL.’”
“Swipe left on him. Or right. Whichever.” I pulled a simple black dress out of the closet and threw it on the bed.
“Why didn’t I know he was a player?”
“Because you didn’t know and you respected him enough to keep it a secret. So none of us warned you.”
“Wrong. Because my mother supported me by sleeping with married men so I have it in my head that it’s normal, which it’s not. Ever.” She knocked her head with her knuckle as if she could tap the right way of thinking into it.
I got my shoes out. Black. Low heel. Unobtrusive. Easy to run after a kid from the dressing rooms. It was the perfect moment to tell her, but I didn’t.
“Look.” She tapped on the screen and showed it to me again. I recognized her headshot but she looked off. “Higher cheekbones. A little pouf in the lips. Brown contacts.”
“What happened to the huge nose?”
“I found out that’s harder than making it smaller.”
I took a deep breath and spit it out.
“He made a play for me,” I said. “At the party yesterday. In the side drive. I’m sorry.”
She fell back on the mattress and covered her face with my pillow.
“I’m so ashamed.” Her voice was muffled.
“Don’t be. I get it. He’s not my thing—but I get it.”
She threw the pillow at me. I caught it.
“Stop saying that. If you forgive me, I have to forgive my mother, which I don’t.”
“Brad says Josh is hot for women who take care of kids.” I tossed the pillow on the bed. “He’s a dick. He should get that hard-on for his wife.”
Blakely shot up to a sitting position. “You told Brad?”
“He saw it.” I snapped the dress up. “Josh is an asshole. End of.”
“Wait. He didn’t fire you?”
“No. He got . . .” What was the word? It wasn’t simply angry. “. . . protective.”
I realized I was staring into the middle distance with the dress draped over my arm, remembering my boss with a fire in his eyes. Like he wanted to rip Josh Trudeau’s face off with his bare hands.
Over me.
Me.
I was important.
“And?” Blakely asked.
And I liked it. Which is wrong. Everything about how it felt is wrong.
“And what?”
“And are you all right?”
Blakely knew how wrong it was. She’d been dragged through the mud for months.
“I’m fine,” I said, looking at my watch. “If you could get Nicole ready, I think we’re leaving at seven.”
She bounced up.
“Yes. Okay. Man, I like our boss.”
She kissed me on the cheek and dashed to the front house to get Nicole ready.
I had to admit, I liked our boss too.
Shit.
I didn’t move for too long. I didn’t even know what I was staring at. The way he’d protected me, left those two girls behind, slung his daughter over his shoulder, and took charge? I could see him as something more. Something real and stable.
All of it sent warmth from my heart to the fold between my legs. The twisted logic of dreams had clicked together unrelated ideas. Sex. Brad Sinclair. Security. Stability.
In the real world, nothing said instability like Brad Sinclair. He and security didn’t occupy the same room comfortably. He was less stable than my parents. More likely to move. Less emotionally accessible. But in dreamland, when I was bent over the pool table working up to an orgasm so strong I woke up, all those puzzle pieces clicked together and made perfect sense.
In the real world, I could dismiss dream logic, until he nearly broke Josh Trudeau’s face. Then it came together. It became real, and it was more arousing than just about anything I’d ever felt.
You’ve lost your mind.
Truly, I had. I peeled off my jeans and shirt and headed for the shower, arguing that I needed one anyway, then arguing that I only had to soap up, rinse off, and get out fast, then that I wouldn’t be able to function with a constant throb between my legs, then that I should take the shower cold.
Nah. I put the temperature all the way up. I wanted to feel every drop. I got in and was engulfed in the water’s soothing heat.
I wanted a real home. A stable person to spend my life with, and they were in short supply. I hadn’t given up; I’d just stopped looking for a man.
In my fantasy he said—
Spread your legs, baby. I’m going to lick you.
Pretending he was someone completely different when he bent down and put his face between my legs. When I put my hands on my body, I felt his hands. When I touched my nipples, I did it the way I thought he’d do it. The way I wanted him to.
Take me take me take me . . .
I wasn’t supposed to think of Brad Sinclair. I’d had an excuse that morning. I was half asleep and coming off a dream. In the shower, I made that tiny tiled room a safe place where it was acceptable to put one hand on the wall, one hand between my legs and tease my clit until I thought I’d explode. Just this one time. Make it last.
Are you close? I’m going to come in you.
In that voice. That magic voice. Not too high or low. The rhythms of it. He’d spread my legs while his hips thrust, looking down at me. His eyes on me while he ripped me apart with his dick. Fast then slow. Pushing in all the way to the root. He’d tell me not to come. He’d ask me to wait for him. He’d demand I wait for him. I slowed the motions of my fingers as I got closer.
Imagining his orgasm. His gasp. His groan. Losing control because of me.
That did it. I came so hard I had to lean on the wall.
CHAPTER 17
BRAD
My father made fun of me when I bought my first tux. Called me a fancy-ass.
“I think you need an update come fall,” Paula said, straightening my tie. “I’ll call Max and have him come for a fitting.”
“They all look the same.”
I stood in front of the mirror. I looked like a clown. I yanked the tie off. Nicole appeared in the doorway.
“Can I wear the sparkle-toe sneakers?”
“Sure.”
She called down the hall. “Daddy said yes.�
��
Blakely stepped into the frame and addressed me.
“They won’t fit in at a black-tie event,” she said. “But your call.”
“Whatever she wants,” I said. “I don’t care what people think.”
Paula put her hands on her hips.
“Stars! You’re bringing the bombshell?” she asked. The nickname was funny the first fifteen times.
“My daughter? Yeah.”
“Brad, honey. No one’s bringing their kids to this. Now I’m not trying to tell you how to be the father—”
“Hell you aren’t.”
“Bring her to the . . . what’s it called? The associated event.”
“She’s coming. Let them get their pictures. I want to hang out with her and if I can’t get downtime to do it, she can come to work with me.”
Paula made the face where she tightened her lips and raised her eyebrows. Disapproval. She was the gauge for when I went over the line, but ever since Nicole, the dial on my barometer had changed.
And I was in charge. No one ever told my father how to raise us.
“I’m going. I’m taking Nicole, and you know what else?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I leaned out the door and called down the hall.
“Blakely!”
Her disembodied voice called back.
“Yeah?”
“Get dressed to come with us.”
“What?”
I didn’t repeat, but turned to Paula.
“I don’t care if people talk. My daughter can wear whatever she wants. This is my house. This is my business. I’ll tell Cara to stay home.”
I left because I didn’t want Paula to talk sense into me. Everyone in the business could kiss my ass. I went to the pool house with all the righteous anger of a man doing what he wanted without asking permission for a damn thing.
A neighborhood where you didn’t have to lock the doors was a cliché. Small-town nostalgia. Small towns sucked. You couldn’t dream in a small town. But the unlocked door thing was real. I never knocked to go anywhere. I walked in and out of every house on my street because that was what we did.
The pool house was on my property. I owned it. Sure it was a private space, but I was a product of my childhood. The glass doors in the back were wide open, so I just went in to tell Cara she had the night off.
