****
“Good morning sleepy head,” I heard Joseph’s voice as I walked into the kitchen. I wanted to yell at him and curse him out, but I decided against it. I was just as wrong as watching Theresa and him last night screw and not stopping them in their tracks. It was going to be hard, but I had to pretend that it hadn’t happened for now.
“Morning dad. Where’s Theresa?” I couldn’t have cared less where her disrespectful ass was, but Joseph would have found it odd if I hadn’t asked about her.
“Outside swimming,” I turned to see Joseph shaking his head in a disappointed way. “I don’t see how you two can wear swimsuits like that and expect a man not to have the wrong idea about what type of women you are.” I couldn’t believe my father had just said that. The way that he was pounding into Theresa last night, with a similar swimsuit on, he had absolutely no problem with how she looked then, so why the hell was he trying to act brand new now? I looked outside of the window and saw Theresa jogging along the beach before she ran back into the water. Her breasts jiggled as she ran and it brought the image of her bare breasts bouncing up and down as she rode Joseph. Shaking my head quickly to get that image out of my head, I grabbed some eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator.
“Be happy that she’s not your daughter too, dad,” I said preparing to make breakfast. Joseph and my mom never had kids, so I knew that he looked at me as being his daughter instead of his stepdaughter. Ignoring what I just said, he got up from his chair and walked behind me.
“Cooking breakfast? Good, I’m starving. Do you want any help?” he asked and for a moment I was unable to breathe. Feeling the warmth of his body so close to mine made me think about his impressive cock and the way he moved his body. I couldn’t understand why, but having him so close to me made me think about the way that he would feel inside of me. Blushing, I manoeuvred my face so that he wouldn’t see how flushed I had become.
“No, I don’t need any help. Besides, I feel sorry for making you carry my bags on the porch yesterday.” He was so close to me that I couldn’t help but smell the peppermint on his breath. At least, he hasn’t been drinking. It’s honestly too early for that; I thought to myself. Instead of taking the hint, Joseph moved closer to me.
“Look, I feel bad for my behavior yesterday,” he said taking the carton of eggs away from me and taking out a few eggs. “I know that I haven’t been myself lately, and I know that your mother has been talking about me to you.” I was shocked that he took the initiative and began opening up to me about it. “The past few weeks just been… a little too hard on me.” Forgetting about my past embarrassment, I turned my head and looked deeply into his eyes.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Sighing, he looked away from me apparently trying to find the right words.
“Kendall,” he began and took in a deep breath. “I’ve been just so bored lately; I wake up, go to work, and come back home to your mother every day without any change.” I watched his handsome features clenching and unclenching, and I knew that he was choosing his words carefully so that I wouldn’t get defensive.
“Then why not go out more often?” I asked. If he were honestly that bored with the monotony of his everyday routine, he should try to switch it up a little.
“I want to, but it doesn’t quite work out like that. I started having drinks with my coworkers after work occasionally, and your mom didn’t like that too much.” It sounded harmless enough so I wondered why mom didn’t want him to hang out with his coworkers. “I went a few times a week, to take some of the stress off of me, and your mother kept getting angrier and angrier. It got to the point where I said the hell with it all and just came home straight after work.”
“I don’t get why my mom would do that. She’s pretty trusting and laid back so I don’t get why she’s hounding you so much about it.” Joseph could be too serious sometimes so if he found some coworkers to lighten him up a little bit I thought that was good. I knew it had to be something more to it than that, but before I could ask him, Theresa came in.
“It’s about time you got up. When I woke up this morning, I thought you were dead the way you were lying on the bed.” Theresa started laughing and I couldn’t help but to frown. Not only was I pissed that she interrupted Joseph and me when he was about to tell me something important, but she also two-timed me by sleeping with him last night. I didn’t want them to know that I had seen them last night even though I wanted to yell at the both of them. You can do this, I thought and made my expression as unreadable as humanly possible.
“Funny, I don’t remember you even coming in the room last night.” Shit! I definitely didn’t want to say that. Guilt flashed across her face quickly and then she chuckled.
“That’s because you were dead, didn’t you hear me just say that?” Sucking my teeth quickly, I turned on the stove. I couldn’t stand the sight of her right now, especially how she was acting all nonchalant as if she and my dad didn’t do anything last night. Looking over to Joseph, I noticed that his expression didn’t change as he mixed the eggs in the measuring cup. Turning around quickly, Joseph faced Theresa.
“Can you get some onions, green pepper, and jalapenos out of the refrigerator? I’m going to make omelets.” Joseph said. I looked back at Theresa and I noticed that she looked awkwardly at Joseph for a minute, almost like she was surprised by his question. I thought to myself that either Joseph was an outstanding actor, or he didn’t remember what had transpired between them last night.
“Sure,” Theresa said quickly and walked over to the refrigerator. Joseph was acting rather strangely as if he didn’t think any more about Theresa after last night. I didn’t know what to make of the situation, but I felt in my heart that it was about to get more interesting.
Chapter Four
“Is everything alright?” Theresa asked me when I went back to our room after breakfast. The food that Joseph and I made was incredible, but I wanted to swim off some of the excess calories. I turned around and looked at Theresa blankly.
“Why do you ask?” In the back of my mind, I was screaming ‘Of course I’m not alright! You slept with my stepfather!’, but I managed to hold my tongue. I wasn’t going to mention it to either one of them because then they’d know that I was watching.
“You’ve been acting… strange ever since you woke up.”
“It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m just worried about Joseph. I want to call my mom and talk to her about it.” I saw that same quick sorrow wash over her face at the mention of my Joseph. I also saw a slither of hate go across her face when I brought up my mom. I honestly hope that she's not so stuck on Joseph that she thought he’d leave my mom for her because she’d be out of her damn mind to even believe that was possible.
“Is that what’s worrying you? I feel like… you’re angry with me.”
“Guilty conscious?” I asked. Somewhere deep inside of me I think that she knew that I saw them, but there was no way that she could have seen me. If she saw me standing there masturbating, she would have stopped. She hesitated for a moment before responding.
“What would I be guilty of, Kendall?” Oh, I saw what she was doing, she’s trying to see if I knew which is why she keeps asking me all of these questions. Deciding to bite the line she was throwing my way I looked her firmly in the eyes.
“Only you would know that Theresa, it’s not like I saw you do anything wrong.” I put as much emphasis on the word “saw” that I could and then grabbed my towel. “I’m going for a swim; I’ll chat with you later.” Walking out the room I could feel Theresa’s eyes on me, I could feel her contemplating her next move.
****
I swam for a long time only deciding to go back into the house because people began swarming the beach. I would have stayed out there, but it was young kids in their teens. I saw a few of the young boys looking at me, but I paid them no mind. Not only was I not interested in dating younger men, but what would I do with them? They were too young to get into clubs, too young to drink,
and what would we discuss? They probably had a small part time job paying them minimum wage while I was a supervisor in training at an advertising company. No thanks, I need a man in my life, not a young boy.
“Are you seriously going to lie like that, Joseph?” I heard Theresa’s voice after I walked through the door. I paused and strained my ears to listen.
“Lie about what, Theresa? I’ve never slept with you so how would Kendall know?” So I was right, Joseph was so drunk last night that he didn’t remember and Theresa did suspect that I knew.
“I can’t believe this! Are you that fucking stupid?” I heard Theresa walking out of the kitchen, so I opened the door again and slammed it so that she’d think that I just walked back into the house. “Oh, did you enjoy your swim?” Theresa asked visibly shaken up, and I had to admit, that I was pleased with that reaction. I was still pissed off at Joseph, but I’ll cut him a break since he was drunk at the time.
“Yeah, it was alright,” I said grinning from ear to ear. Theresa betrayed our friendship, so there was no point in my feeling sorry for the woman. “I would’ve stayed longer if the kids didn’t show up.” Behind Theresa I saw Joseph walking out of the kitchen, and it was apparent that he was pissed off.
“Back so soon?” he mumbled, and I raised my eyebrow in a questioning way. Even though I knew what happened, I still had to address his foul mood.
“Yeah, what’s wrong? Who’s pissed you off?” Theresa flinched, and I could see a scowl marring her beautiful features. Joseph straightened his body and ignored Theresa’s venomous glare and caught my eyes.
“I just got off of the phone with a client, and they told me something so stupid that I had to call them out on it.” Theresa’s shoulders stiffened, and I began laughing.
“You tell them! That’s what they get.” Without saying anything, Theresa made her way towards the stairs and marched up them. She had completely let her guard down and wasn’t even trying to pretend that she wasn’t angry.
“Yeah, but I’m going back to my room. Holler if you need me.” His broad back turned to me, and it was then that I saw another beer can in his hand. Sighing loudly, I hope that he’d cool it down today because we don’t need a repeat of last night. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water contemplating what I was going to do about Theresa. My lifelong best friend of fifteen years was not my best friend anymore, but I couldn’t let her know that right now. I could always pretend that I didn’t see her walk away agitated, but I was perceptive, and she knew it. Draining my bottle quickly, I went upstairs surprised to find her lying on the bed with her head on her pillow. I would be lying if I said that she didn’t deserve the way that she was feeling.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her sitting down at the edge of the bed.
“Nothing.”
“C’mon, there has to be something wrong for you to be up here crying,” I said. There wasn’t an inch of my being that felt sorry for her, but I had to make it seem like I was concerned. Sitting up on the bed quickly, she turned her red eyes to focus on my face.
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t sympathize with me,” She said barely able to get the words out.
“How do you know if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”
“Look, I’ve known you basically all of my life. You’d not only be unsympathetic to me but you’d also flat out try to hit me.” Well, I was glad that she was, at least, conscious of the fact that she was wrong as hell and did my family dirty. She was right and I wasn’t going to attempt to argue with her out of fear that I’d expose myself.
“Alright, I don’t know what you’re going through, but I hope that you feel better,” I said getting off of her bed. She turned back around and pushed her head into the pillow again.
“I doubt it,” I heard her say just before I closed the bedroom door. This year’s vacation I could honestly say was the worst vacation that I’ve been on. My initial happiness of bringing my best friend was gone and I wished that mom could have come instead. Going downstairs I had nothing else to do, but to watch TV.
Chapter Five
“Hey, how are you feeling?” I asked my mom. I felt sorry for not calling her when we first arrived at the beach house.
“I’m starting to feel a lot better.” Her voice was weak, but she did sound a lot better than how she did when we left. “Your grandmother’s been staying with me and keeping me on my feet.” I couldn’t help but to smile at this. It was no surprise that my grandmother rushed to my mom’s aid.
“I bet she’s mad at us for leaving you.” I knew my grandmother. She was more than likely furious that we still went on vacation when my mother was sick. It wasn’t like it was our fault, though, Joseph was going to reschedule, but she told him no. My mom wasn’t the type of woman who told us one thing but actually meant something else. If we had canceled our trip, mom would have been mad at herself.
“She was, but she’ll get over it.” My mother said nonchalantly. “I told her that I told you to go and have enough fun for me, but you know that she didn't want to hear that. She’s hot-headed just like you, Kendall.” Laughing at this, I couldn’t defend myself because she had hit the nail square on the mark. I was hot-headed, and I wasn’t ashamed of it. “How’s your father?” she asked me then hesitantly. I wasn’t going to tell her about Joseph’s infidelity; she already had enough on her plate to begin with, but I was going to be as honest as possible.
“He’s been drinking, a lot.” I said and she let out a long, sad sigh. “Mom, are you sure you don’t know why he’s drinking like this? I find it odd that he started doing this and didn’t offer you any form of explanation.” From what Joseph told me, she was an influential part of his new found love of drinking.
“He’s a man, I can’t tell you what’s going on in his mind.” My mom’s excuse sounded so stupid that I would be offended if she thought that I would believe that.
“Mom, I understand that you probably don’t want me in your business and I understand that your relationship has nothing to do with me and you’re right, it’s none of my business.” I paused preparing myself to say this next part that I knew she wouldn’t want to hear. “But I know that you’re lying to me, call it women’s intuition but I know if something's going on with someone’s husband, then the wife is the first one to know.”
“I taught you right.” My mom said laughing an awkward laugh. I knew that this was probably a difficult situation for her, especially in her current condition. But I think that if she just told me about it that she’d probably feel better. “He’s doing this because of something I did. He told me that he was growing bored with his life and wanted to do something different. I was alright with it, but then he started going out with his coworkers.” She paused then.
“I don’t see anything wrong with that mom,” I began, but she quickly cut me off.
“Female coworkers.”
“Oh,” I said dumbfounded. Joseph failed to let me in on that major piece of information. Now I could see why mom shut him down when it came to hanging out with his coworkers.
“Yeah, they got him into drinking heavily because they told him that he was too ‘serious.'” My mom paused then and I could tell that this conversation was hard for her. “One day my friends and I happened to be at a bar that they were at and he was flirting and kissing on one of them!” My mother raised her voice then and started coughing.
“Are you serious?” I asked my mom in disbelief.
“Yeah, I confronted them about it and dragged his sorry ass home, but the worst part of the whole situation was that he didn’t remember any of it the next day. So I told him no more hanging out and I guess he substituted hanging out and drinking with just drinking at home.” I couldn’t believe what my mom just told me.
“I can’t believe that you forgave him.” I said lowering my voice just in case Joseph or Theresa was around.
“I had no choice to because he legitimately did not remember. I’d prefer it if he didn’t drink, but I’d rather t
hat he drink at home and black out instead of him off at some bar with women.” This conversation was so crazy to me. I couldn’t believe that Joseph let this get that bad.
“I’m sorry, mom. I didn’t know that.”
“I know because I didn’t want you to know that, but you’re not a little girl anymore. You know that stuff like this happens every day.” She sounded so sad at that moment that I wanted to take Joseph’s car and drive to mom's house to comfort her. “But I got to go now, I can hear your grandmother yelling.” I laughed at this and told her that I loved her right before we got off the phone. Sitting back on the sofa, I thought about our conversation.
“That is crazy,” I said to myself. Stuff like that did not happen every day.
“What’s crazy?” I heard Joseph’s voice and turned in the direction of it.
“Dad!” I said in surprise with my face heating up. “How long have you been there?” I hope that he didn’t hear my phone conversation.
“I just walked in here when you got off the phone. Who was that? Your mother?” I stared at him for a few moment before answering.
“Yeah, she sounds a lot better.” I said and he walked all the way into the living room with a can in his hands.
“That’s good. I talked to her this morning, she told me that your grandmother is helping her out.” He took a long swig of his beer and sat down slowly on the couch. I looked at him from my peripheral vision and I noticed that I didn’t feel as uneasy around him. If anything, I felt sorry about all the problems he was going through even though he was the one who brought it upon himself.
Romance: Seducing The Quarterback Page 60