Runaway Girl

by Bailey, Tessa

  “They’re not like…penises.” I almost propose marriage to her when her blush deepens even more, her full lips tipping up at either side. “If our two body parts were exactly alike, you’d get an erection every time you walked into an air-conditioned room.”

  “That would get pretty interesting in Florida.” She laughs and my smile grows. “I can’t believe you said erection and penises to me in the space of a minute.”

  She looks down at her still-hard nipples and sighs, crossing her arms over the offenders. I already miss them. “It’s safe to say you’ve corrupted me, Mr. Bristow.”

  “Not nearly enough,” I growl, leaning in and bringing our mouths together, making contact with just the tips of our tongues. “And you’ll be calling me Mr. Bristow tonight when I get you alone. Just sealed your fate.”

  “If you’re trying to render me useless for the rest of the afternoon…” Her hips cinch forward, her belly pressing lightly against the snap of my jeans. Too lightly. “Two can play at that game, you know.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say, hoarsely, knowing I shouldn’t. Naomi making the most basic attempt to seduce me would bring me to my knees. Does she even realize that?

  “Mmmhmm.” She slips on that sweet, Southern belle expression. Delicate but composed. Anticipation hums in my veins as I try to figure out what’s coming. “I have some repairs that need seeing to in my apartment. Could you be a dear and come by with your toolbox later, Mr. Bristow?” Cool eyes run from the notch of my throat down to the snap of my jeans, her accent even more of a drawl than usual. “I’d be very grateful.”

  Heat rushes to my groin like water through a busted dam. “Ohh, beauty queen. You’re in deep trouble with me now.”

  “Why, I don’t know what you mean.”

  We’re in public, so I can’t do what I need to do to Naomi. I tickle her instead, digging my fingers into her ribs. With a yelp, she twists and I pick her up off the ground, blowing a raspberry into the side of her neck.

  “Jason!”

  I’m laughing when I set her down, her look of outrage setting me off even more. Naomi joins in, springing forward to tickle me back. I’ve never been tickled in my life, so I’m not prepared when it gets to me, a weird, goosey sensation making me yelp. Me. I yelp. Loudly. Naomi stares back stunned and dissolves into stiches. I can only watch as she doubles over, laughing louder than I’ve ever seen her, tears glazing her eyes. Across the room, Birdie falls to the floor, holding her sides and rolling around. Even Mister Toes—Turner, I’ve learned is his actual name—is battling a smile.

  “Oh my goodness,” Naomi says, pausing for another giggle snort. “I’ve completely lost control of this rehearsal and we only have one more day.” She shoos me back to my corner of the room with an exhilarated smile, giving me a nice view of her ass when she faces the stereo. “From the top?”

  The instructor sends her a nod, prompting Birdie to get off the floor and into position. They create a frame with their arms and take deep breaths as the familiar melody fills the room. He pushes forward and Birdie retreats, signaling the start. I lean back against the wall and count off the steps, noting the determined set to my sister’s chin this time. Tension builds in my shoulders the closer they come to the end. That damn turn into a dip, it’s—

  Birdie nails it.

  The notes of the song jangle to a stop and the song cuts off. All of us stand frozen in the stillness of the church basement, the couple still posed in that final position. Pride rips up my throat and erupts in a shout, colliding with Naomi’s victorious cry of hallelujah. We both move toward Birdie—who basically just looks stunned—and smash her between us in a hug.

  “You did it,” Naomi squeals. “It was beautiful. You did it.”

  “I’m proud of you, kid,” I say, smacking a kiss down on top of her head. “Congratulations, you made me give a shit about waltzing.”

  She lets out a watery laugh into my chest. “I had to get it right. I got sick of watching you guys moon over each other across the room.” A beat passes. “I didn’t mean that. It’s actually pretty cute.”

  “Cute? Jesus.” I ruffle her hair one more time and step back. “I better do something manly for the sake of balance.”

  Naomi is still beaming at Birdie when I throw her over my shoulder and head for the exit. “How’s this?”

  The gorgeous blonde draped over my shoulder makes a sound of protest, but I can tell her heart isn’t really in it. Especially when she pinches my ass. Hard.

  For the second time this afternoon I yelp and we walk home laughing, Birdie performing dance steps on the sidewalk, Naomi’s hand tucking into mine when I finally set her back down. I want to stop a million times to kiss her, but I know I need to focus on what’s ahead. Funny enough, my little sister getting that final turn right has given me that final boost to ask Naomi to be with me. Permanently. Always. There will be a lot of compromises and obstacles to jump over if she says yes, but there’s nothing more worthy of an effort than this woman.

  I just have to hope and pray she believes the same is true about me.

  We round the corner into the driveway, still debating what to make for dinner when I feel Naomi’s hand turn to an icicle in mine. And when she tugs it away, the action tears the breath out of me. My attention flies to her face and finds her pale, staring at something in the driveway. An older man. A rich man—not a distinction I would normally feel compelled to make, except this man is pocket-square, winking-cufflinks, shiny-black-Mercedes-parked-along-the-sidewalk rich. There’s no way around it.

  One of my most vivid memories of battle is kicking to the surface after completing a mission to plant explosives on the border of ally and enemy territory. Looking up through the dark glass and seeing the telltale flares of a firefight in progress. Knowing my waning oxygen gives me no choice but to breach the surface and enter the fray immediately. That early morning of my memories is all I can compare this moment to. It feels like I’m about to come out of the calm into a fight and there’s nothing I can do about it. No way to control the outcome. And somehow, I already know I’m at a distinct disadvantage.

  “Daddy?” Naomi whispers. “What are you doing here?”

  Naomi’s father. Here, at my home. I’ve barely wrapped my head around asking Naomi to stay and what that would entail. Meeting her parents isn’t something I’ve even allowed myself to imagine. But I’m damn certain this isn’t what I’d want. Naomi being caught off-guard. Me in an old-ass T-shirt and faded jeans. No preparation. No clear plans on how I’ll keep his daughter and make her happy for the rest of her life.

  The man’s sharp gaze zips to me, down to the hand he clearly saw his daughter holding. She didn’t want him to see her holding it, did she?

  Christ. Have I lost already?

  “I have a better question, Naomi,” he returns, culture rolling off him like expensive fog. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EndoftheWeb.net

  Username: BlueHairedBirdie

  She’s in Florida working as a pageant coach.

  Username: IGotAnswerz9

  Worst theory I’ve heard yet.

  Naomi

  I feel like a child being sent to their room. What is it about fathers that can reduce their daughters to infancy in a matter of seconds? I can argue with my mother until I’m blue in the face, but the second my father chimes in to disagree with me, it’s like being slapped, hot humiliation burning behind my eyes. I’ve only been disciplined a handful of times throughout my life by my father, but they are easily more memorable than any of my mother’s punishments.

  As we turn from the stilted introductions my Southern manners compelled me to make between Jason, Birdie and my father, I think back to the last time my father expressed his disappointment in me. It was after yet another debate between my parents that escalated into an argument about The Affair while having after-dinner drinks on the back patio. I was sixteen and—looking back—in the midst of a hormonal know-it-all phase. Ha
ving listened to my mother use the indiscretion against him countless times since I was a child, I’d lost my composure and suggested she have an affair to even the odds.

  I can still remember the regret of those words leaving my mouth, the sick, heavy feeling that invaded my stomach at their horrified expressions. After spinning from the patio and hiding in my room, I’d waited for the eventual footsteps, thinking it would be my mother who came to deliver my sentence. No cell phone for a week. No parties. No shopping.

  Instead, my father had knocked and entered, without waiting for permission. He’d sat ramrod straight at the very corner of my bed, not looking at me.

  Naomi, he’d said. Don’t behave like trash.

  That was all. Five words had sent me sobbing into my pillow for hours. I can still taste the salt of those tears and hear the irrational vows I made to myself that I would never go downstairs again. That I would live in my room forever.

  My thoughts are in that same drastic category as I climb the stairs to my apartment, my dad following at a sedate pace behind me. Jason’s gaze is like twin brands burning into my back, but I can’t turn around and look at him. I’ll have the need to reassure him that I’m fine, but I don’t know if I am. This is the end of the road. I knew it as soon as I saw my father standing in the driveway, so out of place among the greasy boat parts and modest house. I’ve rarely seen him without a newspaper partially covering his face, a drink in his hand or glad-handing at a community function. Being the focus of his attention is polarizing. I’m caked in dread.

  I wait until my father joins me in the chalet, catching just the barest hint of the intensity Jason is projecting from below, before I shut the door. Silence falls hard and I observe the small space from his point of view. Tiny kitchen with crooked cabinets, a twin bed in the corner, the vases of flowers sitting on various surfaces like lipstick on a pig.

  The spark of embarrassment is what changes everything. It makes me angry at myself. I have nothing to be ashamed about. My spine fills with lead as I think back to how helpless I was when I arrived. How I barely knew how to cook my own meals. How little I knew about the cost of lodgings and toiletries. Since that time, I’ve learned how to be a pageant coach. After today, I’m a successful one. I think. I hope. I’ve participated in a parade wearing nothing but paint. I scuba dived with a shark. I’ve…I’ve had the most insanely satisfying orgasms of my life, not that I’m going to impart that information to my father, but the fact remains. They were so, so satisfying. And the man who gave them to me…navigating the way he makes me feel has quite possibly been the greatest feat of all. We’ve become friends, confidants. Lovers. I’ve become important to Jason and he’s become important to me and this apartment is part of him, so I will not be embarrassed. I’ll be proud of it, along with myself.

  Oh God. I’m thinking of this sabbatical in Florida in the past tense already and panic spirals in my stomach, forcing me to brace a hand on the wall. My father catches the action and frowns. He’s not going to speak first, is he? He’s still waiting for me to answer the question he posed in the driveway. What are you doing here?

  I don’t know how to answer that in a way he would appreciate.

  I’ve been living.

  “How did you find me?” I ask.

  His lips pinch together. “Your car.” He dusts off the kitchen counter before leaning against it. “When you called your mother from the payphone, we knew the area code. I called in a favor with Charleston PD, who asked the department here to keep an eye out for your license plate. I’ve known for a couple weeks, actually.” He tilts his head. “I was giving you a chance to do the right thing.”

  Pressure catches me around the throat, but I clear it. I’m a grown woman who has amazing orgasms and paints her boobs with butterflies. I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl who falls apart over criticism, veiled or otherwise. “I was planning on coming home tomorrow night.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.” He blinks. “Who is that man?”

  “Jason,” I rasp. “Jason and Birdie. I rent this room from them, but they’ve…I’ve become close with them.”

  His stare is hard. “Your fiancé is in the midst of a dalliance that has captured the public attention and it’s proving quite problematic for your mother. I’ve come to bring you home. This has gone on long enough.”

  I want to ask about Addison and Elijah. Are they together? Are they happy? But I’m stuck on the way he sneered through the latter half of his statement. “What exactly do you think this is?”

  Surprise registers on his only lightly lined face. I’ve never spoken to him with anything but deference. “The truth?” I’m already regretting it when I nod. “I think you’ve been overindulged. You had only to repeat some simple vows and you’d have lived in comfort the rest of your life. Comfort and respectability. You’ve known nothing but those things from birth and they lost their value. You have no idea of your own luck.”

  “I do, though,” I breathe, coming off the wall. “I do know I’m lucky. But I didn’t want to live my life in a holding pattern. Wake up, look pretty, entertain, express tasteful opinions over lunch, repeat. I didn’t know how to do or be anything else. Or…or if I was meant to repeat that pattern over and over. Comfortable or not, it’s like living someone else’s life. I couldn’t. I couldn’t start another chapter of the same without knowing what I’m capable of. Or knowing that my husband thought me capable of anything but being arm candy.”

  Time ticks past. “Do you have any idea how selfish you sound?”

  A weight slams into my stomach and I lose steam. A lot of it. I can actually feel it leaving my fingertips. “I know I have amends to make. I think about it all the time—”

  “Oh do you, really? Do you think about the humiliation you’ve caused your family? Hiding for almost two months while we endure the questions from our friends and the media says otherwise. How about your fiancé’s embarrassment? Do you honestly care about that? Because holding hands with this tattooed fellow seems to prove otherwise.”

  “Yes, I…” I’m being violently shaken awake from a dream. It was all a dream. I’ve been living in this fantasy world while others dealt with the consequences of my actions. How could I have done this? “We—this wasn’t supposed to happen. With Jason.” I know I shouldn’t voice my next question, but it escapes me before I can prevent it I’m so desperate to appeal to my father. “Of all people, you must understand, right? I tried to help how I feel about him, but—”

  “Do not throw my past indiscretions in my face, young lady,” he snaps, the lines in his face growing more prominent. “Well, well, well. How like your mother you are, Naomi. You will not turn this around on me.”

  “That’s not what I was trying to do—”

  “I’ve had to answer for my actions for decades. Decades. Now the woman’s illegitimate child is being pictured all over Charleston with Elijah. Speculation about her parentage is rampant. Your absence has made it seem like the past happened yesterday.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, meaning the apology for my father as well as Addison. To know so little about who fathered her and having the press throw it in her face must be terrible. “I couldn’t have known she would come to the church. I haven’t seen her in so long…and who knew she’d form this relationship with Elijah—”

  “Call it what it is. A transgression with someone completely unsuitable.” He scrubs an agitated hand against the back of his neck. “It seems you’re both dead set on ruining your family names.”

  “It doesn’t sound like Elijah to create a stir or bring negative attention to his family unless it was unavoidable. Maybe he loves her.” Is it crazy that I feel nothing but hope for them, if the rumors are true? There’s no jealousy or sense of loss. Just…bittersweet hope.

  My comment makes my father livid, though, the sunshine coming through the windows highlighting the spittle flying from his mouth. “You would love that, wouldn’t you? It would excuse everything you’ve done and you could continue y
our affair with some muscle head—”

  “Don’t you dare say another word about him. Don’t you dare.” If I had a baseball bat handy in this moment, I would bash the kitchen cabinets to smithereens. “He’s the most honorable man I’ve ever met. He’s been serving overseas while we all sat in air-conditioned parlors and wore stupid hats to parties.” I almost laugh when my hat comment brings an affronted expression to his face. “Jason came home to raise his sister and feels guilty that he’s not off somewhere almost dying every day. He’s honest and heroic and protective of the people he loves. He pays attention to the small things and likes my battle stories…and…”

  And I’m in love with him.

  Deep, deep, inescapable love.

  That realization must be showing on my face, because my father doesn’t speak for a long time, his expression turning weary. For a split second, I think I even glimpse some understanding, and it makes me wonder if he was in this kind of love with Addison’s mother. All of his compassion vanishes in a big sweep, though, and he advances toward me.

  “Listen to me, Naomi. This little rebellion has gone on long enough.” He jabs a finger in my direction. “If you’re not home by tomorrow, you will be disowned and disinherited. Your mother and I took great pains making this decision and we’ve agreed. I wouldn’t suggest testing how serious I am about this.”

  That threat…no, that promise hits me like a ton of bricks. Disowned. I’ve heard of families turning their backs on black sheep. My own family did it to Addison. Her mother and grandmother. But this sounds formal. Jarringly real. His eyes tell me he means it, too. They would absolutely disown me for causing them this humiliation. Needles pound down like typewriter keys in my chest, the pain reverberating in outward waves, turning my limbs to jelly. My parents would refuse to see me ever again. We’ve had a difficult relationship, but I love them. They love me, too, don’t they?