by Kira Blakely
Chet turned me in for swearing when we were in the fourth grade. Can you believe that shit?
When we were freshmen, it was for smoking behind the school.
He hated me, and I hated him. An elementary hatred born from our cores. We hated each other without needing to know anything about anything, the distant and ideological rivalry between leather jackets and letterman jackets. I loved how every girlfriend he ever had loudly accused him of being a clingy, dickless psychopath, and he loved sending me to juvenile hall for six fucking months senior year.
But his days of busting me were long over. I hadn’t broken the law since that bullshit grand theft auto charge. I stole his car and parked it in the middle of the rival school’s football field. I pranked the quarterback from my own school. That was how much I hated Chet Browntooth.
I hadn’t had a single exchange with Chet for the past several years, and that was the way I liked it. We were probably both better men if the other stayed out of our universe.
Ah, fantastic. I was up.
I turned off Blue October and rolled the window down. “Evening, Deputy Browntooth,” I greeted Chet knowingly. He felt safe and snug behind that uniform, but he and I both knew the truth. He told the truth again every time we made eye contact. His brown eyes were beady little turds.
“Hey there, grease monkey,” he retorted. “Out at Baja’s tonight?”
Baja’s was the most boring, conventional bar in town. Always filled with girls who couldn’t rub two brain cells together, and a halo of sweaty, hopeful men waving their dicks around like cavemen with clubs. I’d been choosing to avoid the rigmarole and Netflix and chill by myself for the past three years.
Holy shit, or was it five years? What year was this?
“Out at Lola’s, actually,” I answered. “Just as much drinking and annoying-me per capita, though.”
“Ah, drinking with the ex. That’s nice. You and Lola always were a better couple than you and no one.”
I smirked. “I suppose I should try to convince the entire female population of Pelham like you did.”
“Good luck with that. Hey, you going to Grant’s wedding? He’s locking down that dark girl with the tits, ain’t he?”
I smirked. “Yeah, man. Her name is Lisa. And she’s Dominican.” Not only was she one of my oldest friends, but so was Grant. In high school, we’d been in the same clique of pouty punk kids. The thought that I wouldn’t attend their wedding was laughable and perplexing. “Don’t go to that wedding calling her the dark girl, ‘kay?”
“I’ll probably head over that way,” Chet volunteered, feeling for something between his teeth with his tongue. “So, how much did y’all get to drinking tonight?”
“Wasn’t drinking, Deputy Browntooth. While I’m clarifying the obvious, Lola and I are not back together. I was just there to visit with Connie until she got home.”
“Ahhh. You mean you were babysitting. I’m familiar with the term, Ace, no need to dress it up for me.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” I seethed. “Connie is my daughter.”
“All right, Ace, stay calm now,” Chet chuckled. “We could argue about the definition of the word ‘daughter’ all night if we wanted to.”
“You don’t think she’s got my genes?”
Chet snorted. “She don’t look just a little bit like Mike Shemp?”
“What?”
“I said sure.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“All right, Ace. All right. How about you move along? If you weren’t sober before, you sure as hell are now, ain’t ya?”
“You can tell me what the fuck ‘sure’ is supposed to mean, Browntooth.”
Chet’s countenance changed, stiffening. “I’ll tell you what ‘spread ‘em means, how about.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Are you threatening me or hitting on me?”
“I’m ordering you to get out of the vehicle.”
“For what?”
“For obstruction of justice, asswipe.”
I was in the middle of saying, “Are you serious?” when Chet pulled the door open and grabbed a fistful of my shirt, dragging me out of my seat. I instinctively yanked away from him, and he took obvious relish in clocking me with his elbow—once, twice—and driving my chest down onto the car.
I still could have driven my head back into his, but I knew what was happening here now. It had taken me a minute to realize this bullshit was real.
Face pressed into my hood, I glared into the row of headlights still behind me. Great. All of Pelham had a front row seat.
“You’re preventing me from assessing the checkpoint,” Chet declared. “And now? You’re resisting arrest, grease monkey.” He read the Miranda rights as handcuffs tightened around my wrists.
I took advantage of my right to remain silent as I was led away to his cruiser.
* * *
“Of course she’s your real daughter,” Lola Haynes reassured me two days later, pushing her pedicured feet into red strappy sandals. Connie was in the backyard, swimming laps in the pool. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. “She looks just like you.”
“No,” I corrected her, “she looks just like you. Not that I would wish this jawbone on anybody.”
“Oh, my god, Ace.” Lola rolled her eyes and made a dramatic show of slumping forward, her bleached blond hair falling into her face, then sitting up straight and flipping it back. She wore a strapless sundress and cherry lip gloss, ready to run the gauntlet with some random Tinder match yet again. I didn’t get it, but then again, I’d never really gotten Lola. Our casual status turned serious solely because she got pregnant early on—and I hung in there as long as I possibly could.
“When have you ever let Chet bring you down?” Lola pointed out.
“Never.” I hated to admit when Lola had a point, but this time, Chet’s barb rang true. I knew Lola could lie like a professional actress if it suited her needs; that was how my dumb ass stayed with her for three whole years, trusting every “work conference” and every “family reunion” she supposedly had. I shook my head to clear the web of her deception from my brain. “But you and I both know I wasn’t the only man in your life when you got pregnant with her, Lo. Chet mentioned something about that fucking stump, Shemp.”
Lola sucked in her cheeks and pouted her lips, a duck-faced expression she often made when she was under pressure. If she was bluffing, this was her tell. I never mentioned that to her.
“Look, Lo... I want a paternity test.”
“Oh, come on!” Lola cried, throwing her hands up and standing from the couch, striding into the kitchen. Was she trying to avoid me? Did she feel guilty? “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Come on yourself,” I sneered, thanking God that we weren’t together for the millionth time in the past five years. I followed her into the kitchen and she busied herself with pouring a cup of water at the sink. “You’d understand if it was possible that Connie might not be yours.”
“And don’t you know how traumatic that would be for Connie?” Lola dumped the water out of the cup and absently scrubbed at it with a rag from the sink. “How am I supposed to tell her that her dad might not be her dad?”
“Lola.” I kept my voice measured and calm. “All you need to do is pluck a hair from her brush. That’s all. Please don’t tell her we’re doing this.”
“We’re not doing this!” Lola cried, throwing her cup into the sink and running the faucet over it. “I’m not giving Connie a goddamn paternity test!” She pulled the same cup from the sink and began scrubbing at it again.
“Yes, you are!” I grabbed the cup out of Lola’s hands and pitched it into the sink. She was going to look at me, damn it.
“No, I’m not!”
“Why?”
“Because!” Lola huffed out a breath and wrenched free from me, bracing a hand on the sink and her other hand on her hip. She shook her head and fixed her gaze on her French-tippe
d toenails. “Because she’s not,” the whispered answer finally came struggling out.
In that instant, my breath whooshed out of my lungs and the floor disappeared beneath my feet. I felt every cell in my body deflate, flatten and drain completely. My daughter wasn’t my daughter. Connie wasn’t my daughter. I was the one who mopped her spit-up from her chin. I was the one who scooped her up when her bicycle toppled sideways in the driveway. But she wasn’t my flesh and blood. She wasn’t my DNA. She never had been.
The birth certificate was a lie. The past eight years were a lie.
“What?” I said, even though I knew exactly what she had said. It sounded so faint and impossible to my ears. Maybe I was just having a stroke. “What did you just say?”
Lola’s shoulders rounded, and she shook her head. “She’s not your daughter.” Lola twisted to face me, eyes shimmering with tears. That shit meant nothing to me now. “I—Mike Shemp is a fucking stump, you’re right,” she rushed to explain herself.
My hands clenched into fists, and I told myself that I would never hit a woman. I told myself those words again and again, boiling where I stood.
“I couldn’t—couldn’t let that guy be a part of my life forever!” Lola pressed her hand to her forehead and pursed her lips, gazing at me with such thick self-pity. This bitch was a one-woman show. I had to give her that much. Never a dull moment... if it was a show that you wanted to actually watch. “And you were so nice,” she finished weakly.
I stalked to the sliding glass door and opened it, yelling out at Connie. If I stayed here another minute, I might destroy this kitchen. But it wasn’t just Lola’s lying, piece-of-shit kitchen. It was Connie’s kitchen, too, and she was the only thing in my life worth preserving, worth fighting for. “Come on in, baby!” I bellowed. “Daddy’s here!”
I glared pointedly at Lola as I said the words.
She pressed her shiny lips together, eyes still gleaming up at me. I shook my head.
“I’m glad you did it,” I confessed. I loved Connie as much as life itself, and I would never wish her out of my life. “But I can’t look at you right now, woman.”
I shook my head again as my eyes turned to Connie, my knobby-kneed eight-year-old, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, jogging barefoot across the backyard. I had to focus on her. She was the only good thing left.
* * *
Six weeks later, I shuffled up to the judge and pled not guilty to one charge of obstruction of justice and one charge of resisting arrest. I refused to hire a lawyer and was told that the court would force representation on me. I remembered my last court-appointed attorney with crystal clarity; I got sent to juvenile hall because he cared so little about defending me. No one was hurt and it was a completely victimless crime, but it was enough to trash my chances of graduating.
M. Harper. I hoped this guy wouldn’t be incompetent. I had to waste gas driving to meet him at his stupid office in the middle of historic downtown Pelham.
Mr. Harper’s building was a Victorian-era home with the typical foyer and a narrow wooden staircase sweeping down into it. Off to the left was a small sitting room—seriously, people in the 19th century could have fit in my pocket—with a large desk and a bell sitting on it, one small loveseat wedged across from the desk. It was all that could fit in this crackerjack box.
I ducked my head and strode into the room, almost smacking my head on the slowly spinning ceiling fan.
I tapped the bell and waited, scrutinizing my surroundings.
The place was decorated like a psychiatrist and somebody’s grandmother merged and got into interior design together. There were leather-bound books and doilies everywhere.
“Sorry,” a musical female voice floated to me from upstairs. “I can’t actually afford a secretary! I’ll be right down!”
I settled onto a faded loveseat and stretched out my legs, consuming what little remained of this square footage. I rolled my neck back and forth and waited for this appointment to be over. The entire charge was a joke and now it was making me waste hours of my precious, shitty life.
I perked slightly at the sound of high heels drifting through the air around me and cracked open an eyelid to investigate the pair of voluptuous legs unveiling themselves inch by inch as they traveled down the stairwell, capped with a pair of pearl gray heels. Sexy. The matching wiggle skirt adhered to two thick thighs, shifting with her motion as her hips swished from side to side. Mama, have mercy. The seam on the skirt ran all the way up to the small of her back.
That round, juicy ass kind of reminded me of the ass on the woman from January—Michelle. I closed my eyes and reminisced to that chilly evening more often than I cared to admit.
A sheer, cream-colored blouse billowed around her torso, disguising the obvious curvature there. I detected the slightest hint of a slip beneath.
Call me a freak, but this body was familiar. Those tits had burned themselves into my memory. I still masturbated thinking about her nipples under my tongue, thinking about how tight she squeezed my member when she came.
I stood and adjusted my member to hide the erection blossoming in my pants at the mere memory.
My throat clenched as M. Harper took another step and revealed her face.
I fucking knew it.
M. Harper was Miss Michelle, the woman from that frantic, bizarrely satisfying quickie back in January. She descended the staircase with a polite smile of welcome frozen to her heart-shaped lips, one hand already in mid-air to shake mine.
As soon as her eyes connected with mine, one of her ankles bent and she staggered, tumbling the remaining four steps.
I lunged forward and caught her, invigorated by the weight of her breasts against my chest yet again, her sex pressed to mine. I didn’t know if it was her heart I could feel pounding like that, or if it was mine.
Her hair was pulled as tight as a drum and pinned perfectly at the top of her head, with the exception of a few wisps that had struggled free. Don’t, I told my hand, itching to tuck them behind her ears.
She blinked up at me in apoplectic shock with those haunting chestnut eyes, framed by a pair of clear-rimmed glasses. Her lips hung slightly open. Don’t, I commanded my fingers. Don’t touch her.
“Miss Michelle,” I breathed. Electricity danced in the space between us and my cock surged against my will. I could almost smell her all over again. Being inside this woman was impossible to forget. It was the story I was going to tell my priest on my deathbed, not as a sin, but as my truest accomplishment. I’d thought I’d never see her again when she slipped away in that rickety Volvo. Now here she was.
My attorney.
Michelle gazed back at me with her goddamn doe eyes, then shoved lightly on my chest, as if stung, and straightened herself. She squared her shoulders. I could see every ounce of effort she put into herself, her movements, her words. Wow. She must’ve been ready to blow when I slid into her last January.
“Mr. Bogart,” she announced in a tight, overly cheerful voice. “I didn’t realize you were also—um—”
“The guy who—?”
“Fixed my car,” Michelle supplied firmly. She broke eye contact and strode to the desk, putting it between us like we were playing some game of strategy. Like I was going to pounce on her.
“Definitely fixed something,” I agreed. “Your coil still running hot?”
Chapter 2
Michelle
The little bell gave out its chime while I was writhing and panting underneath my own fingers upstairs, stretched out over a fluffy daybed, my high heels dangling loosely from my flexing toes.
I had completely forgotten about my appointment with the guy from Deputy Browntooth’s checkpoint.
“Damn it. Fuck.” I puffed a hard breath, stirring the random wisps that writhing against the pillow had loosened from my bun. The taut muscles of my torso all slumped, no longer chasing the ghost of an orgasm. I slid my fingers out of my silk panties, fragrant with the warm aroma of pussy, and I sat upright with a frow
n. Downstairs was the office, and upstairs, I’d shoved this daybed under a window in case I needed it sometime. Normally, I didn’t masturbate while I was here, but my pussy had been wet all day for no particular reason. My breasts tingled, and I kept needing to fan my blouse out. I was probably ovulating. I got restless and feverish like this every damn time.
“Sorry! I couldn’t actually afford a secretary!” I called down to Mr. Bogart, sliding heels onto my stocking feet again. I shook out my hands, swimming in my scent, and scampered to the bathroom. “I’ll be right down!”
I assessed my wild eyes and pouty lips as I rinsed my fingers in the sink. No one would be able to tell they had caught me masturbating. No one. I quickly dried my hands and headed toward the stairs, hoping I wasn’t wreathed in the fragrance of my own juices.
As I traveled down the narrow, steep stairwell, Mr. Bogart came slowly into view: leather boots and snug blue jeans and a crisp white t-shirt stretched over a broad chest. I pressed my lips into a polite smile and stuck my hand out, eschewing the coincidence that this man was built a lot like that mechanic I had—met in January. He had a hard, square jaw and a five o’clock shadow, too, but it still couldn’t be him. I must have fallen asleep while I was touching myself.
Warm gray eyes, dappled green, reverberating with every ounce of shock that I felt as they came slowly into view.
My ankle bent, and I lurched. The ceiling swung over me, and just as I thought that I was going to break a leg, I was suspended against a wide expanse of rock-hard white cotton. My eyes flicked up to his, and my lips cracked apart.
“Miss Michelle.” The rich baritone and that honeyed Texan twang made my pussy literally clench around nothing at all. Just the sound of his voice made me feel a little drunk.
“Mr. Bogart.” I was going to pass out, but at the same time, I had to get out of his embrace as quickly as possible. I couldn’t stand being pressed against him, feeling his shaft thicken up right between my thighs, right through the denim. It was too hot in here. I pushed him away and took a breath. Shit, I was dizzy. How could I have thought that I’d never see that damn mechanic again? How could I have been so stupid to think it was as simple as avoiding that one garage?