by Amie Knight
I smirked at her. She always referred to me in some endearing way like that. I was sweet Hazel, or beautiful Hazel, or lovely Hazel. I had to admit it made her all the more endearing.
“Sit down. I already made your plate.” She gestured to the plate next to Pops and I sat down, giving him a look.
“What? I didn’t want your breakfast to get cold.”
I felt my eye twitch. “Pops, you literally screamed my name over and over until you woke me up. Why didn’t you just come in the room and get me?”
“I’m not your keeper, Hazel. It’s not my job to wake you up.”
I literally felt like my eyeballs was going to pop out of my head.
“Okay, Pops.” I took a calming breath and reached for my cup of coffee and took a long sip, telling myself I should be thankful that Amor came over and made me breakfast today. She did that about once a week and it was the best thing ever.
I ate a bite of the most delicious eggs. Because Amor loaded them with peppers and onions and tomatoes. They were even better than Scarlett’s, but I’d never tell her that.
“It’s delicious, Amor. Thank you,” I said in between bites.
“You’re welcome, beautiful. You know I love to cook for you and Jack.” She sat down at the table with us and drank her coffee. She never ate breakfast. She was a creature of habit. She never ate anything before 11:00 a.m. besides drinking a cup of coffee. She went to get her jet-black hair colored and curled every Wednesday, and she worked on her man lingerie every afternoon at 2:00 p.m. whether she was at her place or ours. She had sewing machines at both homes.
“What are your plans today?” Pops asked, his mouth full of eggs because the man had zero fucks.
“Nothing really. I guess I’m hanging here with you.”
A slow, sneaky smile spread over his face that almost had me breaking out a smile of my own.
“You’re hanging with me today?” he asked again for clarification. Only now his smile almost took up the entirety of his old cute face.
I tried so hard not to grin back. I tried to remember he yelled my name like a damn banshee all morning instead of coming in my room to get me. But I couldn’t help it. He was being cute and I was a sucker for my cute pops. “Yes, I’m hanging with you today,” I said, like I was annoyed as shit when really I was a sucker.
“What are you smiling about over there, Pops?” I didn’t need to ask why he was smiling because I knew what his sneaky ass was up to. But he loved when I asked because he enjoyed hearing himself talk more than anything in the world.
He leaned back in his chair, his breakfast mostly gone, and clapped his hands one time before rubbing them together gleefully. “You know my favorite days are Hazey Days.”
That I did. And this time I did smile back at him. The man loved when I was home. And I knew that part of it was because we were going to spend the whole day together, but the other part of it was that he always had a project for us to do. One that was too big for him to do by himself and would wear me the hell out. But we always had a good time doing it.
“What are we doing today, Pops?” I asked, curious if I was going to be staining the deck, or planting some fall plants in the beds in the back since it was almost time.
“What do you think about helping me put up a small greenhouse in the backyard?”
With eyes bugging out of my head, I said, “A greenhouse?”
“Just a small one,” he said like he wasn’t asking me to help him build a place that people could actually walk in.
“And how the hell are we going to build a greenhouse?”
“I gotta guy.”
“You gotta guy? Like a greenhouse dealer?” I felt like my head was going to explode. “Did he make you an offer you couldn’t refuse?”
Pops chuckled before standing up. “Come on, I’ll show ya.”
I grabbed a piece of toast and put the rest of my eggs on top of it and followed Pops out into the backyard. Because I had to see this shit. Sure enough, lying in the middle of our yard was all the shit to build a small greenhouse. I looked at him and at it and then back at him.
“Fine. Let me go get my sunglasses on.”
There wasn’t anything in the world that my pops could ask me to do that I wouldn’t do and he fucking knew it.
Three hours later and we were about half done with his “small” greenhouse. Which was a crock of bullshit because there was nothing small about it. It would probably hold ten people easy when we finally got the bastard up.
I was sweating my ass off because, let’s face it, I was doing most of the heavy lifting and Pops was doing most of the bossing, but we were laughing a lot like we did through most of his crazy odd jobs. Amor was there for moral support and lemonade.
I was inside the half that was up, trying to get a pin in the ground with a hammer when I heard Amor call Pops’s and my names. I scrambled out from underneath the big greenish clear tent and stood in front of it, Pops beside me looking over at the deck Amor was on.
“There’s someone here to see y’all.” The way she was wringing her hands should have been a clue to who was at the door. I thought maybe Oliver or Scarlett had stopped by and I was actually giddy at the prospect of wrangling their butts in to helping us. I should have known better. Amor knew them. She would have just let them in. But the truth was that nothing could have prepared me for the person who was just on the other side of the front screen door.
I stood there staring at the middle-aged woman like I didn’t recognize her and I guess that part of me didn’t. It had been so long. She almost seemed like a stranger, but then again her face was as familiar as my own. It was such an odd sensation.
“Brenda.” I heard my pops say behind me before I felt his arm at my waist pulling me close, protecting me, sheltering me.
The woman’s eyes left mine and a nervous smile covered her face that reminded me of mine. “Hey, Daddy,” she said so softly, I almost didn’t hear it.
Her eyes darted back to mine and she gave me that same nervous smile. But I couldn’t seem to muster one of my own, no matter how I tried. It had been almost ten years since I’d seen this woman. She’d never made an effort to contact me before now. I didn’t understand. My mind couldn’t fathom one good damn reason for her to be standing on my pops’s porch. On my porch. This was my safe place. She didn’t get to come here.
“Hi, Hazel.” Her whisper of a voice seemed to contradict everything about my past with her. No, this woman had screamed and yelled and fought with my father. Been hurt by my father. And let them take me away from her and she’d never ever come back for me.
Thank fucking God for my pops because who the hell knew where I would have ended up without him. Not that she cared.
My chest ached. It burned with the betrayal only an abandoned and abused child could know. I stepped back from the door and out of Pops’s embrace and left the room as quickly as possible. I couldn’t look at her. She didn’t deserve my attention. For fuck’s sake, she hadn’t even checked on her aging father in years. What kind of person was she, my mother?
When I got to my room, I whipped off my sweaty hoodie, feeling like it was suffocating me, then my eyes ran up and down the lengths of my arms and I felt sick. It all came back to me, the helplessness, the fear. God, I thought I was going to throw up. I gulped in big glugs of air that did nothing to stop the panic that was crawling up my throat.
I paced the room, begging myself to calm down, to not let her affect me the way she was. She shouldn’t have this kind of power over me. I was a grown woman. I was safe. She couldn’t change that now.
A small knock at the door stopped me in my tracks. “Pops?”
“No, baby. It’s me, Amor.” She cracked the door open and peeked in. “Can I come in?”
I nodded and started pacing again while she came in and sat on my bed. “Why don’t you come sit down?” She patted the bed right next to her.
I ignored her. “Why is she here?”
Amor studied me before
answering. “Why do you think she’s here?”
Frustrated, I spat. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m fucking asking.”
I immediately felt bad about cussing at her and stopped in my tracks, horrified at how I’d treated her. But Amor only stood up and walked over to me, then pulled me in for a hug that all grandparents who were worth anything had mastered. She pulled my head to her chest and wrapped her arm around my body tight.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice more a quiver than a sound, but she still heard me.
“Shh. It’s okay, honey.”
I didn’t want to cry and so I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let that woman make me cry. But still I held on to Amor like she was a lifeline. And I said the words I hadn’t ever said to anyone in my life. “She picked him over me. Who picks someone over their child?”
There, I’d said it. He may have been her husband and my father, but who let someone hit their child, hit them. I didn’t understand it. And instead of protecting me, she let them take me away so she could stay with him. I couldn’t fathom it. How could any mother in the world give up her child for a man?
All of the broken parts of me threatened to spill over and ruin everything I’d built. All of the wonderful I’d made for myself because everything had been so fucking awful. I couldn’t let her steal it. I refused. All of this good was mine and I deserved it.
I pulled away from Amor and walked out of my room and into the living room, noticing the front door was closed. I charged toward the kitchen, thinking maybe Pops had invited her in and they were sitting at the table, but when I entered the room, Pops sat there alone, a bottle of whiskey, a can of Diet Coke, and a glass full of ice in front of him.
I walked over slowly and sat down in the chair across from him.
“She’s gone.” His voice was sad. It broke my heart.
I didn’t know what to say. We didn’t talk about my mother. How she’d abandoned me. Or how she never called or came to visit either of us. There wasn’t a reason to talk about it. You couldn’t make someone love you when they already should. I felt the burn of tears in my eyes thinking of how wonderful my pops was and how much he deserved a daughter who loved him. It broke my damn heart for him. Not for her. Fuck her. She didn’t want him. That was fine. It meant there was just more of Pops for me.
I leaned over and grabbed his hand that was sitting on the table, holding it in mine. “I’m sorry, Pops.”
He clutched mine back. “Don’t be sorry, Hazel. Have a drink with me instead.”
I smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” I got up and grabbed a glass from the cabinet before joining him back at the table and pouring us two healthy drinks.
I slouched down in my chair, feeling naked without my hoodie and just my tank on, but not really caring enough to go put it back on. “What did she want?”
He took a big pull of his whiskey and Diet Coke before answering, “She wants to see us. To get to know you. To come over sometime.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
“But why?”
“Who the hell knows. She seemed genuine. She said she’s missed you.”
That made me angry. If she missed me so fucking much why didn’t she make an effort before now? My blood boiled, so I took a long drink to squelch the fire.
“Where is he?”
Pops’s face got hard. It always did when I mentioned him. Like me, I think he felt my father had taken something precious from him, too. “Prison. For a couple of years now.”
I closed my eyes, trying to digest all the information I’d just been given. I would’ve liked to think I was a forgiving person. A good person. But how could I forgive and move on when I was still so angry, so messed up? That was the truth. I didn’t realize until the moment I saw her how truly not over everything I was. It was a brutal realization. It devastated me.
“It’s me and you, Hazey. You know that, right?”
That burn in my eyes was back. “I know, Pops. I know.”
“And we don’t owe nothing to nobody until we’re ready. Both of us. You hear me?”
I heard him. My pops had my back like always. I would have his. It was that simple. We were badasses as long as we stuck together. “I hear you.”
He nodded and went back to his drink and I did the same. A few seconds later Amor joined us in the kitchen with one of her romance books. This one had a hot man in a Scottish kilt and nothing else on the cover. The heat from the alcohol was getting to me and I giggled.
Amor looked over the top of her book at me. “You think my book is funny?”
“Mmmhmmm.” This time I laughed big and Pops joined me.
With the whiskey running through my veins, the day I’d just experienced seemed more manageable. We didn’t speak anymore about my mother or father. Instead, Pops spoke about the finishing of the greenhouse on his next Hazey Day. By the time evening rolled around, I was good and wasted. And I wanted to talk to a friend.
I headed to my room on wobbly feet and snagged my cell phone from the dresser before plopping down in my bed. I could think of three people off the top of my head I could text. But only one that I really wanted to.
Hazel: I bet you have an old man bod, huh, Gray Wolfe?
I laughed. Hazel had never been subtle and it turned out her online persona wasn’t either. She wanted to see me or at least see my body and that had me grinning like a fool. I rolled over in bed, not surprised that she had texted me at midnight. We did this almost every night, but I was surprised at her question. We hadn’t had any talks of seeing each other and there was definitely never a hint that she wanted a picture. It came as quite a surprise.
Me: Wouldn’t you like to know?
Hazel: Actually, I really would. How about a selfie?
She followed her text up with a set of praying hands that only made me grin harder.
Man, I would’ve loved to get on camera for her or take a picture. But I couldn’t because I wasn’t Gray Wolfe. I was Oliver. And this whole good thing I had where she talked to me every day would be done. And I couldn’t lose her. Not yet. I only just barely had her. But maybe if she just wanted to see my body I could swing it. After all, Hazel hadn’t seen me without a shirt since we were teenage kids.
I grinned as I typed out my text.
Me: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Hazel: Or you could just show me yours?
Shaking my head, I typed out another text.
Me: What do you want to see, Hazeyeyes?
Hazel: What are you willing to show me?
I looked around the room for anything that could give me away. I pushed my comforter to the floor so that all was visible were white sheets and my body. I was ninety-nine percent sure that Hazel had helped pick out that comforter with my sister. I gave my body a look over. I was freshly showered from training and only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs.
I think I surprised myself more than her when I hit the camera button at the top of the chat. The familiar ringing of a video call filled my room and my heart galloped in my chest as I made sure she could only see me from the neck down.
The phone stopped ringing as she accepted the call and I watched the screen, waiting to see her face, but only a black screen was where her face should have been.
“Hello, Gray.” Her voice surprised me. “I’d prefer just to see you tonight.”
I smiled at how sly she thought she was turning off her camera. She didn’t know I’d seen her plenty, but my eyes would never get their fill of her.
She was being a fucking tease. I could play that game, too. I knew my body looked good. I’d spent the better part of my life honing it. I angled my phone down more, giving her a good tour of my definitely not an old man bod. Slowly, I pulled the camera down my body all the way to my crossed ankles before bringing it back up to my chest again.
“Well,” she husked. “You sure do know how to prove a girl wrong.”
I grinned, enjoying too much that I affected her. I knew I coul
dn’t say anything or she’d definitely know who I was, so I gave her a thumbs-up right in front of my chest.
After a beat she asked, “Not going to let me hear your voice, then?”
Dropping my thumb, I waved my pointer finger back and forth in a no way kind of motion.
She giggled a little. “Well, I guess that’s fair since I don’t have my camera on,” she sighed. “Can you set the camera down low so I can see your whole body?”
I swallowed hard, my cock stirring. Fuck, she’d liked what she’d seen and she wanted to see more. It was such an incredible turn-on knowing she wanted to look at me.
Letting out a long breath to calm myself, I set it down in front of me on the bed, right where she could see me from the bottom of my neck, down my shirtless torso to the top of my black underwear covered thighs. I tightened my stomach muscles and released them, causing a ripple across my abs. I swore I heard a small moan from the phone that had my already hardening dick stand straight up.
I knew she could see it, thick and pushing at the fabric of my underwear. God, I wanted to touch it. I wanted to run my hand over the cotton harshly and pull on the head of it and I wanted her to watch every second of it.
But I didn’t dare move. No, I knew Hazel even if she thought I didn’t. Gray didn’t know her, but Ollie knew her through and through. And there wasn’t one doubt in my mind that she had to be completely in control in this moment.
I watched myself in the camera as my chest rose and fell with every deep breath I made. I never in my life thought the sight of myself would make me hot but knowing that she was listening and watching me nearly made me come right there on the spot.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it another second, her voice, thick with sex, murmured to me from the phone. “Touch yourself.”
Damn. Her voice alone had a small bead of precum forming on the tip of my cock and staining the fabric of my underwear. I couldn’t wait any longer. She was just in time. Using my right hand, I ran it along my chest and over my hard nipples, and slowly past my abs until I reached the top of my underwear. I was going to slide my hand under them and grip the base of my cock when her voice surprised me.