by L. B. Dunbar
“I’ll clean up,” he says standing briskly to the point we almost collide in my small kitchen. His hands grip my upper arms to catch me.
“I can’t leave you here with Sadie.” My brows lift, emphasizing my concern.
“Nothing’s going to happen. I’ll keep to the kitchen, hide the knives, and make sure she doesn’t ignite the stove to set me on fire.”
I shouldn’t laugh, and I don’t, actually. It’s more of a nervous chuckle.
“Do you even know how to wash dishes?” I snort.
“Barkeep, remember? Glassware is my specialty. I take care of delicate things.” His eyes meet mine, and I hesitantly scoff again.
“I’ll be downstairs. Just let Sadie be, okay?”
“Scout’s honor,” he swears, holding up four fingers, and I know right then he’s a liar because the Boy Scouts only use three.
8
A date
[Billy]
My mother would have never let us stew after she cooked a meal. Cleanup was on those who didn’t cook, and if I am Sadie’s father, the same rules will apply in my house, so I help myself to wander Roxie’s apartment until I find a door marked with a wooden cutout of Sadie’s name painted yellow and hanging on the doorknob.
“Sadie, Roxie had to go down to the bookstore. We need to do the dishes.”
Silence.
“Look, house rules. If you didn’t cook, you clean up. Roxie made us a nice dinner, and we repay her by cleaning the kitchen.”
More silence.
Man, this kid is tough, but then again, I don’t know what I expected.
“And I’m sorry I raised my voice,” I say softly to the door and then turn back for the kitchen. I’m not known for my apologies, but I’m trying here. As I walk back down the hallway, my eyes wander for Roxie’s bedroom, but I don’t have the energy to snoop. Instead, I veer left for the kitchen and stopper the sink to wash the dishes. The basin fills with suds and water while I scrape the plates, and then I scrub the silverware and set it on a dish towel. Suddenly, the utensils move, and I peer over my shoulder with my hands deep in dishwater. Sadie stands next to me with another dish towel, wiping the forks dry. We work quietly in tandem for a while before she speaks.
“What do we need to do for the test?”
I’ve read up on a few possibilities, but I’d come to the consensus it is rather simple. “We each swab the inside of our cheeks, and a lab analyzes the results to see if we match.”
“Like ancestry dot com?”
“Something like that.”
A question still lingers between us—what happens after?—but neither of us asks.
“It takes about three days for the results,” I add. She nods, and I take this as acceptance. “So, it’s a date?” I tease, handing her the bowls I’ve cleaned.
“Do you want to date my aunt?” she blurts out, and I slowly grin.
“What? No. Ew. Dating is just yucky.” I wiggle my entire body as though I’m repulsed by the idea, which isn’t a total lie. I don’t date. I’m more a pick-up man. Pick-her-up and another word which comes close to rhyming. I keep things casual, up front, and no commitment, and none of this is information I’ll be sharing with a sixteen-year-old.
“No one says yucky,” she snarks, glaring at me with those eyes that match the shape of her aunt and must have matched her mother’s. I don’t see a single trace of myself in her.
“Okay, well, dating is gross, like I want to hurl.” I’m definitely pulling out vocabulary from a past era and showing my age here, but I don’t know what the kids say. “And you shouldn’t do it until you’re thirty...five.”
“This isn’t the eighties,” she states, shaking her head like I’m an idiot, but when I laugh, I catch the corner of her mouth curling upward—just a teeny bit—but it’s more than the straight-line frown she’s been wearing in that deep, dark lipstick. Her clothing ensemble matches the jet-black hair that’s obviously a dye job. I wonder what her natural coloring is. Does she have brown hair like me, or lion-red like my sister, or is it blonde like I remember her mother having?
“Besides, I’ve already been on dates.”
“What?” The pot I’m scouring slips from my hands and suds splash up on my shirt. “You’re only sixteen.”
“Exactly. I’m sixteen, and I’ve been on dates.”
What the…? I can’t be a father. I won’t be able to handle these things.
“So spaghetti is your favorite, huh?” I ask, attempting to shift the conversation. I normally don’t struggle with things to talk about. I’m good with women as long as they are over thirty, but teens, not so much my speed, and I don’t want to discuss her dating history.
“Not really but Aunt Roxie makes salads all the time, and I don’t love vegetables.”
Huh, maybe we do have something in common.
“Right, who needs foods that are good for you?” Of course, I should talk. I’m more of a protein man. “Can I tell you a secret?”
She shrugs.
“I don’t like vegetables much either, but I don’t like spaghetti at all. Those noodles look like worms, and just ew.” I force a full-body tremble and leave out the part where I was hungover once as a teen and my mother made pasta. My dad knew I wasn’t feeling great, and he knew why, and he made me eat the entire plate. Scarred for life from revisiting that dinner shortly after eating it.
“Then why’d you eat it?” Sadie asks, taking a pot off the soaked towel on the counter.
“I didn’t want to hurt Roxanne’s feelings, and I was trying to impress you.”
“Maybe you just wanted to impress Aunt Roxie?” What is this kid getting at? Sadie tweaks up a brow at me, giving me a knowing look, but she knows nothing. There’s nothing to know.
“Think it worked?” I tease. I mean Sadie, not Roxanne. I don’t care what Roxanne thinks of me.
Lying liar who lies…
“No.” Sadie snorts like only a teenager can pull off.
“I meant with you.” I try to keep my tone light, but my voice catches on the seriousness of what I’m asking. I want to impress this girl. I want her to like me.
“The jury is still out on that,” she states, sounding wise beyond her years, but I have to agree with her.
The jury is still out on a lot of things, kid.
+ + +
The next day, I meet Roxanne and Sadie at the clinic for the swab test. True to his word, Jordan hasn’t said anything to my brother, and I am relieved even though I really need someone to speak with about the next step, and I’m not only thinking legally.
What am I going to do with a teenage daughter?
“Are you nervous?” I ask Sadie as she sits next to me in the orange plastic seats of the waiting room. I rub my hands down my jeans-covered thighs.
“Are you?” Sadie sits with her hands under her upper legs, dragging the toe of her black Converse absentmindedly back and forth over the tile floor. Roxanne sits on the other side of Sadie, acting like she’s interested in some magazine, but her hand shoots out and covers Sadie’s knee, halting her from the slide of her feet.
“Yes,” I admit. “But it isn’t the test that’s making me nervous.”
“If you aren’t my dad, you’re off the hook, you know?” I turn my head to look over at her, but her eyes remain on her now still feet. Roxanne peers at me over Sadie’s head. Her eyes soften. The silver sparkles like well-polished candlesticks, and my chest does that strange clenching thing.
“Maybe I don’t want to be off the hook,” I say, keeping my eyes on Roxanne who quickly looks away. I glance down at Sadie to find her peering over at me. “But if I am your dad, you’re stuck with me.” I bump her shoulder to lighten the mood, but she reacts like my touch electrifies her. She covers her shoulder with a hand and shifts away from me.
“Yeah, that would be yucky,” she mutters but another hint of a smile like the one from the other evening appears. I’ll take it.
+ + +
The three-day waiting per
iod might end up being the longest three days of my life. I’m still on edge about Roxanne putting in for a permit for the same weekend as our Oktoberfest, and I’m ready to explode.
“What is the meaning of this?” I snap, holding up a printed email from the permit office telling me there’s another permit request for the same street for the same weekend. My wrist flicks in the direction of Roxanne who calmly sits behind her desk in her office.
“I want to have a book sale. I’m calling it Booktober. Cute, right?”
“Cute?” Is she kidding me? “That’s the same weekend as our Oktoberfest. We need the street.”
“So? I need the sidewalk.” She stares up at me, blinking from behind a set of reading glasses which make her look teacher-y, and I suddenly want to take a ruler and spank her perfect backside.
“You can’t have the sidewalk. We need the street,” I repeat.
She continues to look up at me, and my arms wave for visual emphasis. “Big tent. Lots of tables. Beer. Entertainment.” I pause as my arms flail out to my sides. “Loud music,” I growl, warning her. Don’t you dare report me again for a noise violation.
Roxanne stands and rounds her desk, which is piled with books and stacks of papers. She stalks toward me like a predator, and strangely, I feel preyed upon. I’m frozen as those silvery eyes narrow on mine, and she stops toe-to-toe with me.
“Did you hear something?”
I’m so worked up over the permits I don’t catch her meaning.
“I heard you’re trying to sabotage my party,” I bark. Roxanne’s eyes flick back and forth between mine, and then her damn hand reaches for the scruff on my jaw. Why is she touching me again? And why do I like it when she does this?
“Did you hear about Sadie?”
Anger washes out of me, and my shoulders sag, but my heart rate skyrockets, misinterpreting again. “Did something happen to her? Is she okay?” Concern laces my questions.
The change in my tone startles Roxie, who removes her hand, holding it away from my cheek as if she might slap me. Instead, she examines her palm, almost contemplating why she touched me. Quickly, she lowers her hand to her side.
“Sadie is fine. I meant the results.”
“Oh.” I let out another breath, calming at the explanation. “No, nothing yet.”
Roxie weakly smiles, her eyes expressing almost…understanding. As if she understands I’m on edge and possibly overreacting about the permit because everything is setting me off while we wait out the paternity results. That look in her eyes does something to me, and I can’t help myself. I reach for her cheeks, paper still in my grasp, and draw her closer to me until we are almost nose to nose.
This is the second time I’ve been this close to her, and she smells divine. Like fresh rain and springtime and a naked roll in a meadow.
Dammit, don’t think of such things.
“Why are you so damn infuriating?” I hiss, my voice without my previous irritation as my eyes drop to her mouth where her lips have parted. A slight wisp of her breath crosses my own. It’s as if she’s kissed me by air, and I suck in the invisible heat. She rolls her lips together and then the tip of her tongue peeks out to lick the seam.
“Roxie,” I groan, straining in more ways than one as her lips beg me to kiss her, and my dick leaps to life.
“William,” she exhales, breathy and sultry. I’m a hair’s breadth away from doing something that will change everything.
“Roxanne, honey. I don’t mean to interrupt…” Grace’s voice restores my senses, and I release Roxie’s face. Taking a giant step back, I exaggerate the distance between us, making us look guilty of something that didn’t happen.
“But you did,” I think I hear Roxie say under her breath as she turns to give Grace a full-wattage smile. “What did you need?”
“The supplier is on line one.”
“Thank you,” she states before turning back to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the broad smile of Grace before she steps back for the main store.
“More books for your Booktober thingy?” I snark, recalling my earlier agitation.
“Just more books to read. I even upped my stock on parenting books, especially fatherhood.”
My back straightens. Does she think I’d make a poor father? Admittedly, the past forty-eight hours have been stressful while we wait, and I don’t know how to proceed with Sadie. Do I call her? Do I encourage more communication? Do I come to see her? It’s not like I haven’t thought of these things, like a father might think, but I don’t know what to do. And I won’t admit that to Roxanne, not after she blasted me the last time I asked for help.
“I don’t need help parenting,” I snip. Not to mention, reading some damn book about it when I told her the other evening reading takes effort for me.
“We all need help, William.” Her tone in that name restores my negative energy toward her.
“Not me,” I assure her, standing taller and crossing my arms, crushing the email against my chest. “I’m a one-man show.”
“You’re all show, that’s for sure,” she says, a chuckle lilting with her words.
“Meaning?”
“Oh.” Roxie holds her fingers up to her throat. “Don’t ask me for help explaining. You’re the one who’s got it all figured out, Mr. One-Man Show. More like a one-hit wonder,” she mutters.
“I am not a one-hit wonder.”
“I…” Roxanne closes those lips I wanted to savor moments ago but now want to vanquish in my anger. “I have no interest in discussing your sex life.”
I stare at her a second, slow to interpret what I think she’s saying. “Are you implying I’m a one-hit wonder in bed?” My voice rises an octave or two and practically cracks on the last words.
“Given your track record of women, and the misfortunate way Sadie came to be, I’d say one hit might be your thing.”
“And what else do you think you know about me and my sex life?”
“I know you like to pound into women up against the alley wall outside your pub.”
I stare at her. What in tarnation? “What the hell?”
“Exactly, it was hell watching your bare ass and you doing…” She points her finger at my zipper region. “…with whoever she was.”
“I…” I have no fucking idea what she’s talking about.
“In my limited sexpertise, as you call it, most women like more than one showing, William, more than a one-night stand, but since you know everything, I guess you don’t need me to mansplain these things.”
I’m so startled by her words, I’m tongue-tied, but I don’t get the chance to think, to speak. Roxanne steps back and reaches for her landline, pressing a button and answering the call waiting for her. It’s clear she’s dismissing me, no explanation needed.
9
Close calls aren’t close enough
[Roxanne]
“Roxanne?” A familiar voice carries through the line when I pick up the handset. I’m visibly shaking from the near miss—near kiss—with Billy Harrington. I watch him leave before I speak into the phone.
“Grace?” I question as her voice registers.
“It sounded pretty heated in there, and I thought I’d rescue you.”
My shoulders relax as I realize Grace did rescue me.
Then why do I feel deflated about being saved?
“Thanks, Grace,” I say. “Everything’s okay back here.”
I can’t believe I admitted to seeing him. His I know what I’m doing attitude, and I just blurted out what I saw because he had to act all uppity about his sex life.
I hate that he has a sex life.
And I hate that I feel like he was about to kiss me.
I shouldn’t want him to kiss me. I’m the last person Billy wants to kiss, and that’s the crux. He’s probably kissed most of the eligible women in this town and, I don’t doubt a handful of women before they were ineligible, but not me. It’s like I’m the only woman he hasn’t kissed, and I should be grateful, but some d
ays, I wonder what’s wrong with me. He flirts. He teases. I don’t understand why I’m not good enough.
But maybe that’s the crossroad. I don’t want to just flirt and tease and to be some one-time wonder to Billy. I’d want a little more—like all of him—which would mean Billy being monogamous, for one thing, and that’s definitely not one of his character traits.
I’ve heard the rumors about his marriage. What he did and how it ended.
The other night, I heard Kristy Moseley was hot on his trail, and I can only assume he’s been on her trail a time or two to warrant her chase. She’s the former wife of Denton Chance, a famous rock star from Blue Ridge who left before I was a teenager. Denton’s older sister, Dolores, owns the diner down the street. She’s a good source of gossip although she doesn’t spread it; she simply knows it all.
I heard she’s after Billy Harrington in hopes to make Denton jealous, one nosy Nelly stated.
Heard she’s going to be the future Mrs. Harrington if she has her way, another replied.
One look from Dolores stopped both women from talking, but the rumors had been cast. If Billy did take a wife, that woman would be Sadie’s stepmother, and where would that leave me? What will Billy do once he finds out the truth? Once he knows from a scientific test that he’s the sperm donor, as Sadie called him. I will not be squeezed out of Sadie’s life. She is practically my child for all the raising I did of her before she was thirteen. Leaving her behind had been difficult for me, but the reality is: she wasn’t my child. She was my sister’s. I am the only living relative on her mother’s side, minus some distant cousins, and I wouldn’t let anyone take Sadie from me, including Billy Harrington.
+ + +
Within another day, we receive the results we already knew. As I read through the chart, analyzing numbers that make no sense to me, I find the only percentages we need. Billy needed a combined parent index of over one hundred percent with a probability of paternity over ninety-nine point zero. Billy has passed with both a one hundred and fifty-two and a ninety-nine point three. There wasn’t any doubt, but this confirms everything. I stare at the numbers, uncertain what they mean. Well, I know what they mean, but I’m waiting for emotion to hit me. Should I be relieved, appeased, or something between? I don’t know how to feel about these results, and I believe I should feel something. Instead, I’m numb as my mind races.
