by Mae Wood
“I may or may not have had a little fantasy of you on some tennis court in short shorts, bending over to pick up a ball.”
“What does that have to do with me being a stay at home dad?”
“Nothing. But you’re a DILF. You know, like MILF. But the dad version.”
“I’m glad you think I’m a DILF. But I’d rather be a DIGF. ‘Dad I’m Gonna Fuck.’”
Before I knew what was going on, my back was pressed into the cold bark of a bare hickory tree and he was devouring my mouth. His hands tugging at my dress, shoving it past my shoulders with one hand while the other hand rustled through the long skirt to plunge into my pussy. “Gonna fuck me right now, Drennan. Like you mean it.”
The word indubitably swam to the surface of my brain before being melted away as my brain ceased all higher function. I struggled to keep my balance, feeling woozy and disoriented and just so damn hot for him. A firm pinch on my nipple, alternating with a lighter pinch to my clit and I screamed. In my brain or into the sunny afternoon air, I couldn’t tell. But the tenderness I’d grown to expect with him was gone.
“Fucking claiming this, Drennan.” A thrust and he was inside me. Deep and unmercifully. “Drennan.” Another thrust. “Drennan.” Yet another. “All of this.” And quickly I came, clinging to him with my legs cinched around his waist and my hands digging into his solid shoulders. “Drennan. Drennan. Drennan. Oh, Christ. Drennan.” My name spilled from him, each syllable drawn out into a longer moan until we were in a heap at the base of the tree, my legs twisted around his torso with my ass perched on his bent knees.
He nuzzled my neck with his bushy face, the scratches shooting tingles through my limbs and down to my still pulsing pussy.
“So, now that Flannery O’Connor and bourbon have gotten us this far, what’s next?” I asked, unfurling from our little ball and attempting to right my dress.
With a hand, he stopped me, and pulled us both to the ground where we laid on our sides, facing each other, exposed to the world and not giving a damn. “Faulkner and whiskey?” he asked with a kiss to my forehead.
“Fitzgerald and gin?” I replied with a kiss to his nose.
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to stop seeing you,” he said softly, looking into my eyes with a tenderness that pierced my heart.
“Me, too.” It came out as a whisper, the weight of the words bringing the ache of the time apart from him to the surface. “This makes my head hurt. And my heart, too,” I confessed.
“So, are you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“To come to California.”
“But you can’t. Grady. Pig and Barley.”
“I can. At least if you invite me, I can come.”
“You can definitely come.”
“See, there you go again with the double entendres.”
“They are intentional,” I admitted, a naughty grin on my lips.
“I knew it!” He pumped a fist in victory. “I knew it.”
“Shh. Don’t give away all of my secrets.”
“Oh, Drennan, you don’t have any secrets from me.”
Lolling on the dry grass in the orchard, my dress twisted around my body as I rested on his chest. The richness of the orchard in fall mixing in with the smells of sweat and sex.
I began to hum before softly singing the words. “Maybe it’s too early in the game, oh, but I thought I’d ask you just the same, what are you doing New Year’s Eve?”
“You.”
I laughed. “Seriously, that’s so corny. Let’s do New Year’s. San Francisco. Or skiing. Taos, maybe? Or some beach in Mexico.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“Really? That was surprisingly easy.” I wasn’t expecting him to say yes like that. Like he didn’t have a care in the world much less a son and a business.
“Yeah, well, Grady is going skiing with Amy and her boyfriend and his family, so I’m free and easy. Correction. I’m not free. I’m yours. But I’m still easy.”
“No doubt,” I said, as I rolled off of him to sit up and tucked my boobs back away in my dress.
“I think you mean, ‘indubitably.’ Also, there’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. Would be a pity to hide those,” he said, tugging my dress back down.
I slapped my hand over his to stop its progress. “Hey, I’ve got a question. It’s ‘inconceivable’ not ‘indubitably’ that’s the quote from The Princess Bride. So what’s the ‘indubitably’ joke from?”
“At this moment, you have to know I really like you. Like really like you.” He pushed up to his elbows and began to straighten his own clothes.
“Okay, well, I wasn’t sure,” I replied, looking skyward and twirling a piece of hair around my index finger, adopting a dumb blonde persona.
His fingers ran through my hair, ruffling it on my scalp. And I giggled with joy. Our ease together made me feel weightless but also powerful. Like I could take on the world while being held safe.
With a kiss to the crown of my head, he spoke. “Remember the movie Mary Poppins?”
“Yeah?” I said, struggling to even make a guess as to where the conversation was headed.
“Well, seriously, try not to laugh too hard.” I felt the words reverberate from his chest as he pulled our bodies tightly together.
“No such thing as ‘too hard’?”
“Really, Drennan.”
“What can I say, innuendo is a gift. My gift.”
“Do you want to hear the most embarrassing story of my life or not?”
“It’s embarrassing? Excellent,” I replied, drumming my fingers on his chest.
“Settle down, Mr. Burns. It’s not that bad. Until you see the video.”
“There is video?” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, I kinda owe Fischer for not pulling it out at Thanksgiving.”
“No, you owe Fischer for not outing us for fucking in the restaurant’s office that night.”
“She wasn’t working that night. Do you really think I’m such a horndog that I’d do that if my sister was there?”
“Have we met? Because I’m pretty sure you are a horndog. But back to the incredibly embarrassing story,” I prompted.
“Okay, so it’s really not that bad now that I’m a grown up, but Rosemary is a dancer. Well, at least she was before she hurt her hip and got into floral design. At one of her recitals they did a tap dance to ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.’”
“Yeah, so what does that have to do with you?”
“Well, I was in charge of taking her to the rehearsals. Part of the deal with me getting a car at sixteen was that I’d take Molly to swim practice with me and help get Rosemary to some of her dance things. So, do you remember the Dick Van Dyke character?”
“I mean, kinda,” I said, searching my memory.
“Remember what his character’s name was?”
“No,” I said, trying to recall anything I could about the chimneysweep.
“Bert. His character was Bert and at one part in the Super-song, his character says ‘Indubitably.’ Rosemary thought it was funny and so I started saying it to her to be silly and it kinda spread from there. So, that’s the story with indubitably.”
“Where’s the embarrassing part? I was promised embarrassment, not just the back story on an inside joke,” I said, pushing back from him to admire his face.
“So, I may have gone to enough of the practices and rehearsals to somewhat learn the dance. Remember. This was in the days before smartphones and tablets, so there wasn’t much for me to do during her dance lessons but actually watch her dance. And when Mom found out, she may have recorded it.”
“There is a video?” I couldn’t contain my delight at the revelation.
“Yeah. And she had a video montage made for my high school graduation party—you know, baby pictures and the like. But at the end, she had the ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ dance video. So in front of a ton of my friends, my whole family, my swim coac
hes, and my parents’ friends, basically everyone I knew, there I was, dancing and singing the song. You know the phrase ‘crawl under a rock and die’? Well, I wanted to hide behind the sofa and die. I was eighteen. Proud of being a man, excited about being a D-1 swimmer, and then the entire room was laughing at me. It was awesome.”
“That isn’t so bad,” I said, thinking of the video Kenzie has of me trying to bring sexy back all by my own seventeen-year-old self. JT has nothing on Bert.
“It was awful at the time. Trust me.”
“Think I can get the video?” I asked, knowing that Fischer would be an easy sell on forking it over.
“You’re killing me, Dren. And now you owe me an embarrassing story.”
“What, like mutually insured destruction?”
“No, fair is fair. I can’t have you humming ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ for the rest of my life without something to tease you back with.”
My heartbeat caught. Did I hear that right? The rest of his life?
I felt him shift as the breath from his close whisper warmed my ear. “I love you.”
I picked my head up off his chest and turned to look him in the face. “I love you, too. Indubitably.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You can’t give me shit about that forever without me having some ammo in return.”
“Feel free to ask my dad or cousin McKenzie when you come out for Christmas.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let’s make this real.”
“It’s already real. We just have to make it happen.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Bert
“What’s up? She send you packing?” Trip asked as he pulled off his helmet and slung it across the handlebars of his green mountain bike. The sun’s low angle cast long shadows across the dry grass and a deep chill was beginning to creep into the bright day.
“Nah,” I replied. I was standing on the porch of the farmhouse with my backpack in hand. Coming or going, I guess he wasn’t sure which one. But I didn’t doubt my direction. “Headed back over there now.”
“Well, wheels up at nine in the morning. Meet me here at eight, so we can get there on time.”
“I’m not going back with you,” I said, slinging the pack over one shoulder.
“What? Going to follow Wine Girl to California?” he teased.
“And if I said yes?”
“Are you shitting me?” Trip’s voice rang out and a few of the other guys turned their heads in our direction.
“No worries. Just a little trouble in paradise,” I told them before turning to directly face my best friend. “Yeah, I think so. Definitely for the holidays.”
“Hold up. You’re going to bug out during the holiday season. The only quarter that the restaurant reliably gets into the black in order to chase after Jessica Sweet?”
“It’s not Jessica Sweet. It’s Sweet Valley.” Why am I even correcting him about this?
“She’s a child,” he continued.
“She’s not a child,” I replied with a steel to my voice. I couldn’t recall fighting with Trip ever. Maybe about who had to be Luigi on Mario 2 or something, but not a fight about something real. Something that meant way more than being a lousy character in a video game.
“Holy fuck, please tell me that she’s not pregnant,” he replied, dropping his voice so low that I wasn’t confident I’d heard him right.
Drennan. Pregnant. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until that moment. I knew she wasn’t. But the vision of her flat belly round and her face bright with joy. The image entranced me more than it should for any guy approaching forty with a nearly grown kid.
“Man, really? Once is just bad luck, twice is like . . . Oh hell, I don’t know, but what the fuck are you thinking?” His blue eyes bored into me and if he were Medusa I’d have been turned to stone.
“She’s not,” I spoke, finding my voice. “She’s not a child and she’s not pregnant and you need to back the fuck off.”
“So you can chase another girl around as she does her thing? I don’t know what’s gotten into you other than being completely pussywhipped, but, to remind you, you did this already. The following the girl to another state so she could do her thing and you could what? Go learn to make cakes? What are you going to do this time? Masters in theme park management? Don’t be Fischer.”
“Shut up about Fischer.”
“Fischer is great,” he replied with a dismissive hand wave. “It’s you who’s got the problem,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “So, are you shitting me about moving to California or do I have to remind you about your son who lives in Memphis as well as your fucking restaurant?”
The words he spat at me landed hard. Yeah. This was insane. I had no clue how it was going to work. But the only thing I knew was that I was going to try to make it happen. To work my ass off. I wanted a life with her and Grady and Pig and Barley, and I’d make it happen.
“My son,” I roared. “The one who is about to shake the dust off his shoes and leave Memphis for good? That one? And our restaurant? Yeah, I’m familiar with them,” I ground out, my temper barely contained.
“I’ve got a lot in that restaurant, you know,” his reply came out clipped, and I knew it wasn’t only because of the money, but because it was the only business he’d ever ventured into without his family company’s backing and he was proud of it like I was.
“And you think I don’t? It’s my baby. And if you want out, fine. I will fucking contact my trustee the day I turn forty and write you a check. Capisce? You want out, well, you’ve got an easy out in a few months.” My voice rose as I strained to keep from lashing out at him.
“You’re serious,” he replied, his anger evaporating and confusion taking its place, his blue eyes growing wide.
“Yeah, I am.” It was that simple.
“Do you love her?” he asked.
“Yeah, I do.” It was that simple.
“Like forever?”
“Did I not just say I love her?” Eros, ludos, philia—I couldn’t define it. Were we split by Zeus? One single man-woman being at the beginning of time who happened to find each other across a bar in Memphis, Tennessee? Shiva building from new out of the wreckage of my marriage?
But the how and why didn’t matter. That was the past. The present and future were the only things that held any meaning.
“Well, go on, son. With my blessing, let’s set the restaurant on fire and get you on your way.”
My two extra days at Blackberry existed in their own universe. I’d texted Grady and Amy and they’d assured me that Grady would do fine on his finals without me being “a mother hen,” as Amy said.
And I was free. Free for long strolls hand-in-hand while our breath fogged out in front of our mouths, free for down duvets in front of the fireplace in our room, free to sit from lunchtime to dinner at a table playing footsie while ordering everything on the resort’s menu to taste, even free to break Frank’s champagne room rule.
And like all good things, it ended far too soon.
On my flight home, I pulled out my phone and began tapping away. Plans. Ideas. Ways to make my vision a reality. Not too different than my flight from London six years ago when I’d been hunched over a pad of paper scratching out my dream restaurant.
But at the top of this list, stood the most important item.
One I could never forget.
When Trip accused me of forgetting Grady, it was a sucker punch. But now, as my flight descended into Memphis, my stomach felt tight again. The first love of my life and I wasn’t sure how he’d take any of this.
“Grady, you home?” I called into the house as I stepped through the backdoor. His car was parked in the driveway, but that still wasn’t a guarantee he was here.
And then on the threshold of my bedroom, I heard it. Oh, fuck. I’d heard about panic attacks but I was damn sure having one now. “Grady!” I called again, my voice cracking as I drew his name out. I’d never
wanted so badly to find my son masturbating as I wanted to right at that moment.
“Yeah, Dad. You’re home,” came his voice down the narrow hallway. It didn’t go unnoticed that his bedroom door remained firmly shut.
“Yeah, I’m home. Going to clean up. Let’s go out for dinner. Be ready in thirty.” I closed my bedroom door behind me with a loud thud, but didn’t go anywhere. With my ear against the door, I listened. Listened as two pairs of feet tiptoed down the hall past me, the creaky wooden floor and panicked whispers giving them away.
I sat on my bed and didn’t know what to do. Elbows on my knees, I took deep uneven breaths, trying not to hyperventilate and puke all over the rug. I didn’t know what the fuck to do, so I did the only thing I knew.
Fishing my phone from my pocket, I called the last person I wanted to talk to today.
“Amy, we’ve got a problem.”
“What’s up? He okay?”
“Um, well, I just got home and I’m pretty sure that he was having sex when I got here.”
Her screech nearly deafened me.
“Yeah, so what do we do?” I asked.
“What do we do? Deal we made eighteen years ago stands. I cover vaginas. You’ve got penises. I don’t care what after-school special you’ve got to show him. Find a urologist to scare him straight. Google image search syphilis. You get that shit under control.”
“Okay,” I sighed, not liking that I was on my own for this. “But I’m pretty sure there was a penis and a vagina involved, so you’re on deck.”
“I do not want to be a grandmother before I’m forty, you got that, Bert?”
We hung up and after a round of Googling “teenage son sex talk,” I threw my phone on my bed and laid back to stare at the ceiling, wallowing in my anxiety, and came up with some action plans that I’m pretty sure I could at least get Trip behind.
Wasn’t there some guys’ only engineering college in Colorado? Indiana, maybe? Could I convince our trustee that having round the clock surveillance was a reasonable educational expense for Grady?
“Dad, ready to go?” His voice dragged me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, just a second.”