“Old men can still deliver. I mean they were riding him out of bounds almost into the bench there in the third quarter and what did he do?”
“We all saw it,” I say. Where are all these basketball innuendos suddenly coming from?
“Watched him penetrate right up the middle and take it to the hole delivering a massive facial!”
“Massive,” I say. Oh my god, what’s happening right now?
“But then they start banging down low again? It’s like they forgot about the guy.”
I just want to forget I even started this conversation that’s quickly spiraling out of control.
“We all know he can take it to the rack, but what does he do instead? Shoots it right in the face of the defender.”
“Two coffees, black,” the waitress says.
I take mine and although it’s piping hot I cradle it in both hands and bring it up in front of my face as I try and sink down into my side of the booth.
“He tries to go all the way…take it straight to the rim, but he’s getting manhandled so he shoots and it’s in and out…in and out again!”
“In and out,” I repeat.
“It was like it could have lasted all night long and then finally it goes straight down the hole.”
I close my eyes thinking of anything else I can change the subject to.
“It was like he was getting whatever he wanted out there. Tip top conditioning for an older guy. Coach didn’t even need to take him out so he could get a blow.”
Oh no.
“I mean when his juices start flowing you can really see the excitement. Few years ago he would have gotten so amped up he would have penetrated and taken it right to the hole and delivered a facial. Guess with age comes experience. Plus when you’re prepared to penetrate like that the ball can always squirt out of your hand.
Then it hits me! “Isn’t there a big age difference in their relationship?”
“You mean Gabrielle Union? Yeah she was born like decade before him. He’s with an older woman. Another reason to love the guy.”
“Love the guy?”
“Yeah. Just think about what message he’s sending to society. I mean I’m sure he loves her and his intention isn’t to be sending message via his relationship, but how cool is that that he’s showing it’s cool for a guy to date older women?”
“You like older women?” I ask. I guess you can learn things about your friends even after you think you know everything about them.
“It’s not about me. It’s about the future for my daughter. It tells young women like Annabelle that they can go off and have their careers and be successful at that and still get a great guy later in life. She can be her own person and focus on herself and still get a great man that’s ten years younger…even when she’s forty plus! How cool is that?”
“That’s…great.”
“That’s what I’m saying! And it’s great for me as a dad too.” He reaches over and punches me in the shoulder. “That way she won’t even start dating until she’s what? Thirty-five? She’s going to be daddy’s little girl forever!”
“Forever?”
“Well, at least for the foreseeable future. That’s for sure.”
“Moons over my hammy?” the waitress asks.
“Right here!” Adam says.
“Yours will be right out, sir.”
“Thanks,” I say. But what I really want to say is to keep it. Send it back. Give it to a stray dog. Anything. I have absolutely no appetite now.
I thought I planned for the worst, but the worst was a lot worse than I could have ever expected.
CHAPTER 17
Annabelle
Two nights later
I hear the key in the door and immediately jump off the couch and run to greet him.
I want him so bad right now. My emotions are running so high after what happened earlier today.
Around three this afternoon I went to check up on Vivian only to find her in her room crying. My first thought was I did something wrong, or something to upset her. I felt terrible. And it was even worse to find her like that with no idea how long she’d been alone crying in the dark.
But then everything changed.
The minute I went to her she hugged me, making me feel a bit better. I don’t want to see her cry ever, but at least it felt good to know she’d reach out to me when she was feeling hurt. She may not have come to me, but it was a start.
The start of something much, much bigger.
When I asked her why she was crying she told me it’s because she loves her Uncle Braden so much. She realizes how he saved her from a potentially terrible life of foster homes and who knows what else. She also decided that it was time to start calling him dad, because that’s exactly what he was to her. I was taken back at such strong thoughts and words from a seven-year-old, but I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s a great kid and I know she’s a deep thinker. How deep I just didn’t really understand until then.
And her words made me understand something else, even more important. Something about myself.
I already knew I was head over heels for Braden but I hadn’t really materialized the complete thought of it all in my mind…until now.
I wasn’t just head over heels for him.
I wasn’t just inspired by the way he gives himself to our community and to his adopted daughter.
And I wasn’t just in awe of how everyone liked him, how well he kept his body in shape so he could be there to protect others, or how he’d treated me like a princess.
All of that matters, but that was the icing on the cake. The cake?
I love him.
I absolutely and completely love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.
This isn’t some young girl crushing on a hot cop next door. This is me realizing this is truly what I want with my life and who I want to spend it with.
Yes, I know his occupation is dangerous. But I also know I want to be the first one to be there the minute he walks through that door each and every night…or day.
Yes, I know he’s a single dad trying to raise a daughter. But I also know that together we can do it, and that we can have kids of our own.
Yes, I know he’s a lot older than me. But I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore. I only care about myself and what I want, which I feel is a sign of maturity. I know what I want and I’m going for it and what I want is him and only him.
And after everything that’s happened here at the house today I want him so bad.
He opens the door and I literally jump into his arms, grabbing him by the face and kissing him as he catches me.
He wastes no time kissing me back passionately and before the door is even shut he’s carrying me across the room and has me pressed against the wall.
We don’t need words to communicate tonight. I don’t need slow and tender. I need an emotional release from everything I have inside and the best way to do that is through a quick hot romp in the living room. I locked the door from Vivian’s room in advance so I can get from him exactly what I want.
All of him. Each and every last inch.
CHAPTER 18
Braden
The back of my hands hit the wall protecting her back from the impact as our lust drives us into the wall.
I hear a glass shatter and know a picture has fallen to the floor, but I don’t care. We continue kissing feverishly as our mouths can’t get enough of each other.
“Is everything okay in there?” I hear accompanied by a knock on the door. “What the fuck?”
I turn my head just in time to see Adam dash through the door making a beeline right for me. I quickly set Annabelle down and before she even catches a glimpse of him I’m stepping in between us, my hands still on her ass as I lower her to the ground. They’re unable to raise up quick enough and he gets a clear shot at me landing his fist squarely on my jaw.
I’m immediately rattled, but try and shake it off. No use. He immediately follows decking me wit
h a tackle this time sending me into the wall where his daughter had just been, but this time the drywall can’t support the impact.
I feel my back split right through the wall as Adam’s head is buried in my chest. I’m practically in a sitting position literally dazed and stuck in the wall when I see him lean off me and prepare to punch me again.
“Stop!” Annabelle yells, but it’s too late.
He swings, but luckily I bring up both hands to block it and turn and duck just in time as he swings and misses, his body weight carrying him into the hole and right onto my lap.
I explode forward sending us both rolling onto the floor.
It’s reminiscent of exactly how we met all those years ago on that baseball diamond. It was exactly thirty years ago, but this time there are no coaches to separate us. This time we’re not boys. We’re men and we’re a lot bigger and a lot stronger, and he’s clearly out for blood.
In between trying to leg lock each other, punch each other, and a whole bunch of other self-defense moves which probably don’t even have names we wind up rolling right out the front door and down the steps onto the lawn.
Finally I get on top of him and get him pinned.
“I knew you were fucking me over at that basketball game. I just didn’t know how, but now…oh, fuck you! Now I know you bastard.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say in-between panting and trying to keep him pinned.
“It’s exactly what it looks like,” he says. “And the problem is right here!” he yells as he delivers as swift knee toward my groin but I twist my hips just in time protecting my balls from the worst kind of pain imaginable. “And once I get up I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”
“I’m not letting you up until you calm down.”
“You’re damn right you’re not letting me up, because I’m going to get up on my own and when I do you’re finished.”
“Stop. Please,” Annabelle pleads from the top step. “Dad, I love him!”
“You don’t love anybody. He’s brainwashed you, don’t you see?”
I hold Adam down wondering how long this is really going to take. He’s just as passionate as I am in regards to everything we do. He goes all in or he doesn’t get involved at all. And right now he’s all in on giving me the whooping of my life. And I’m all in on not letting it happen.
And more importantly I’m all in on his daughter.
“She loves me and I love her.”
I turn back and look at her seeing the expression on her face.
“This isn’t the way I wanted this to happen, but it is what it is. We’re in love and we’re going to be together. You have to respect her and her decision, Adam.”
“Don’t you fucking tell me what I have to do. Damn it, Braden I swear I’m going to beat you to a pulp.”
“Dad, it’s true. We’re in love. Please, just respect that.”
The whole thing is almost surreal. We’re both pleading with him and I’m also trying to keep him pinned. Thankfully no neighbors have come out of their house yet, but when I look back at Annabelle again I see someone watching who I wish more than anybody didn’t have to see this.
Vivian’s up in her room looking out the window. My heart sinks.
“She’s going to live with me now, Adam.”
I look at Annabelle trying to speed this up and put an end to it as soon as possible.
Annabelle nods her head.
I quickly get a look up at Vivian and see the look on her face. This is killing me.
Annabelle tracks my eyes and comes running out onto the grass and looks up at the window for herself as if to confirm her fears.
“Oh my god.”
She takes off back toward the front step and then freezes. She looks down at both of us and then back up at Vivian. Then she turns and runs back to her own house. I hear the front door slam.
She wanted to comfort Vivian, but she also knew that going back in my house was only going to make things worse right now.
She’s right. I’m the one who needs to be with Vivian right now. I’m the one who needs to explain to her what’s just happened. She may only be seven, but you can’t pull the wool over a child’s eyes these days, not that I’d ever want to.
“I’m going to let you up, but if you swing at me I’m going to put you right back down on your back.”
I push off Adam’s body and quickly stand and assume a fighting stance.
He’s up and on his feet immediately, but he doesn’t come at me. He turns and marches back to his front door, never taking his eyes off me.
The last thing I see is him point his index finger at me as he’s nods his head, letting me know this isn’t over.
No, it’s not. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER 19
Annabelle
I roll over onto my back and squeeze one eye shut while opening the other.
That was pounding I heard. It wasn’t just a dream. And as a matter of fact it’s still going on.
I walk to the window hoping I’m not about to see Braden and my dad going at it again or maybe even one of them building a fence along our property lines.
But somehow it’s…worse.
There’s a man in the front yard pounding a Century21 sign into Braden’s front lawn.
Century21? As in the company that sells your house.
I scan his yard and don’t see anybody other than what looks like a real estate agent.
He’s selling his home? Just after what happened last night?
No way.
I call his phone and it immediately goes to voicemail.
I Google search the main number for the police station. When I call it the Desk Sergeant says he’s no longer employed by the city. What the…?
I went from deep asleep to completely awake in about two minutes. And two minutes is how long it seems like it took to entirely lose him just like that. But there’s no way. This can’t be happening.
I call the school and ask about Vivian. Luckily I’m on her approved contact list and the operator tells me she’s no longer enrolled, sounding a little concerned that I somehow didn’t know that.
I hang up without even saying thanks. I am completely in shock.
I sit down on my bed and wonder what in the world I’m going to do.
I jump up and run for my door opening it and then stopping. I need a minute to think first.
I walk back over to my bed and sit down again.
I want to punch my dad. I want to punch Braden. And I want to punch myself. And I’m not even a violent person.
What in the world is happening? He’s not the kind of guy who’d just walk out on me at the drop of a hat. There’s just no way.
“So you’re awake,” my dad says as he looks into my room. “Looks like your boyfriend dumped you,” he says. “Or maybe he just wasn’t man enough to stand up and fight for you. I told you it wasn’t real.”
“Out!” I say to my dad.
“This is my house. Don’t tell me what to do. And I’m the one who tried to warn you last night about him.”
“Warn me? He’s your best friend. And he didn’t dump me. He’ll be back.”
“Keep telling yourself that until you believe it.”
“Get out!” I yell, pointing to the door. But it’s not enough. I jump up and lean against my dad with all my weight trying to move him out of the way. It doesn't really budge him, but at least he leaves on his own.
I shut the door and go back to my bed falling face first onto the pillow.
The tears are running immediately, just like him. He ran away when I needed him the most.
Maybe my dad is right, but regardless I’m entirely wrong. Wrong for thinking this could work out and now I’m even further behind in my job search for a real job.
My life is falling apart with an unparalleled quickness since last night. I went from being on top of the world to immediately free falling into a downward spiral, and there seems to be no chance of stopping the descen
t. I am a complete disaster.
CHAPTER 20
Braden
The next day
I pull my car right in front of her house, get out, march right up to the door and knock.
Nanny for the Cop Next Door Page 6
