The Parent Trap

by Jasinda Wilder

  “Okay, well…I just wanted to….” I laugh, unable to find the right words. “I don’t even know. Tell you you’re crazy for the purse alone, let alone everything else. And thank you.”

  “I…” A pause. “Today was…” Another pause; Thai is never tongue-tied, but he is now. “Thank you for spending today with me.”

  “I had a lot of fun. Which for someone as prickly and uptight as me, that’s saying a lot.”

  He groans. “It was a joke, Dee, god.”

  He’s calling me Dee, and I…don’t hate it.

  “I know.” I laugh. “But also, you weren’t. Because I am—was…am. I don’t know. I don’t really unwind and let myself have fun pretty much ever, and that’s the truth, so the fact that I was able to with you says a lot.” My throat is tight, and I cough, trying to clear the lump from it. “Especially since, um…” I let out a harsh breath, force myself to say it, despite the sharp lance of pain the words bring. “Especially since Daddy died, having fun has just seemed…impossible. If not wrong. Enjoying anything. Doing anything but work has been…impossible and wrong.”

  “I can’t say I knew your dad super well, but I have a hard time believing he’d want you to be a workaholic monk with no life, never enjoying yourself, never doing anything for you. He loved you. He was proud of you, I know he was. And he’d want you to…live. Not just…exist. Not just wallow along and be miserable.”

  “Goddammit, Thai,” I croak, throat tight and clogged. “How is it you can make me cry so damn easily?”

  “Delia, I…shit. I’m sorry.” A swallow, audible across the line. “I’m sorry.”

  “No! I…in this case it’s…well, not a good cry, like crying from happiness. But—I dunno. I guess because I know you’re right, about what Daddy would have wanted for me. He said as much, before he passed.”

  I remember some of the last words he said to me:

  “Have fun. You work too much…and get laid.”

  His voice echoes in my head, gruff, but faint. Loving.

  I’m not sure anything I’ve done with Thai counts as getting laid, per se, but…I think it means I’m trying.

  I hear him, again—still:

  “For your next trick, try being…just a girl.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You’ll meet a man who can show you. Let him.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “That’s a promise you’re making me on my deathbed, Delia. You break it, I’ll haunt you.”

  I’m trying, Daddy. I swear, I’m trying. But it’s hard—so hard.

  “Lost you, I think,” he says.

  “Sorry,” I say, trying to sound like my voice is more solid than it is. “I just…I was remembering some things Daddy said to me, before he passed. Advice a lot along the same lines as you’re saying he’d want for me. Don’t work so much. Don’t forget to have a life.”

  “Is that what he said? Or is that a paraphrase?”

  I laugh. “It’s a paraphrase.” I don’t believe my own ears, that I’m saying what comes out of my mouth. “What he actually said was—” I make my voice as deep and gruff as it will go, in my best impression of him, “‘Have fun. You work too much. And get laid.’” I break into something that’s equal parts laughter and tears.

  “Your father, on his deathbed, told you to get laid?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Sounds like classic Mr. McKenna. He was an irreverent old bastard.” A clearing of his throat. “Coming from me, that’s high praise.”

  “I know. And he was.” I swallow hard. “The rest of what he said is…well, it’s pretty private, I guess. But you aren’t wrong in that he’d approve of today—of me taking the day off to have fun with you.” I laugh. “He’d approve of everything we did, if it meant I was doing something that made me happy, that I enjoyed. He just wouldn’t want to know the details.”

  “Did it?” he asks, his voice quiet. “Make you happy? Did you enjoy it?”

  “You know I enjoyed it,” I whisper, too embarrassed to speak any louder. “And…yeah, I think it did make me happy.”

  “Which part?”

  “Both.” I’m red in the face, squirming on the couch. “For different reasons.”

  “If you had to pick only one part do all over again, which would you choose? The first part, or the second?”

  “Not a fair question,” I answer.

  “Maybe not. But still. Which one?”

  I try to pick, but it’s impossible. “I can’t pick, Thai.” I can barely hear my own voice. “I liked both. I…I want to do both again.” I try to speak louder, more confidently. “I want to do more of both with you, Thai. A lot more.”

  I try to summon the uninhibited wildness I felt in the ocean, touching him and being touched by him. Heat unfurls in my belly, and my voice loosens, just a little, and I manage to bring a tiny fraction of the fire and desire I feel for him into my words.

  “I want to do more than what we did today,” I continue. “You make me want things, Thai. You make me…you make me want things I didn’t know I could ever want, make me comfortable doing things I never imagined I’d feel comfortable doing.”

  “God, Delia.” His voice is tight and thick, now. Heavy. “You have no idea what it means to hear that. I was worried you’d…I dunno. Wise up. Decide I’m no good after all. Decide it was all a mistake.” A huff, a rough clearing of his throat. “I want you to feel comfortable with me. Safe. I want you…well, full stop, there. I want you. But I want you to feel safe exploring…I don’t know how to say it. Yourself?” He pauses, and I wait through the silence, dearly wanting to know what else he’s going to say. “You are so beautiful, Delia. And I hate that I’m responsible for making you feel shitty about yourself, in your body. In your, um…in your sexuality. I want you to be…free. Safe. Comfortable. In your body, and your sexuality.” He sounds embarrassed, and I can’t manage words to reassure him, because I’m too fraught and choked up to speak. “And—um. If…if I can be the one to help you explore all that, to open up and do whatever makes you happy and makes you feel good and makes you feel like…like a powerful woman in tune with yourself, then…then I think that would be the most…unexpected but incredible kind of redemption I could imagine.”

  “Wow,” I breathe. “You really have a way with words, Thai.”

  “I’m not just saying that.” I hear the tab of a can crack open with a hiss, and he takes an audible sip. “This is just water, by the way. I don’t really drink to get drunk much anymore.”

  “You don’t have to explain that to me, Thai.”

  “I guess I kind of feel like I do. I want you to…believe in me. Trust me.” Another sip, and I hear a sliding door open, close. “Anyway. I wasn’t just saying that to sound good. I meant every word with every fiber of my being.”

  “I know you did. I can tell.” I laugh, but it’s an awkward, weird laugh. “Here’s the weird thing, that I’m kind of struggling with in all this—I have a hell of a bullshit detector. I can smell a fake a mile away. There’s nothing so obvious or noxious to me as someone who isn’t genuine, and a liar is the absolute worst thing you could be, to me.” I speak my truth to him, because at this point, I want it all out there. “Aside from being just plain mean, that is. Mean people really suck.”

  “Oof,” he huffs. “Bullseye.”

  “I don’t say that to hurt you.”

  “Don’t hold back, Delia. I’d rather know you’re being honest and truthful with me.”

  “It’s kind of where I’m at, too, honestly. I’d rather say what I really mean. So there’s a clean and open slate between us.” I stand up, move outside onto my front porch and sit on my rocking chair and listen to the frogs and crickets. “What I was getting at was that I can tell you’re being genuine. If you were to say something just because you think it sounds good or it’ll…I dunno, win me over somehow, I’d know.”

  There’s an oddly companionable
silence between us. Thai breaks it, after a moment or two. “Delia…I want you to know that you are, without a doubt, the most amazing person I know. I truly cannot think of another person who could go through what I put you through, all the mockery and pranks and cruelty and all that, and—and turn around, even a decade later, and give me the time of day. Let alone…trust me, much less…the other stuff. Trusting me with your business, your time…your body.”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” I admit.

  “Tell me.”

  “Really? You want to hear this?”

  “Absolutely.” A pause. “If you can talk about it.”

  “No, I think I can, now.” I rock in the chair a moment and think. “Work was easier, once I just accepted that I couldn’t get rid of you. And then you started proving that you really were here to work, to contribute, to be a real member of a team, and that you really did have something to contribute. That was the first hurdle.” He’s quiet, waiting for me to continue. “Then, I had to admit—or start to admit, try to admit—that you really have changed, and that you really aren’t such a bad guy. Hurdle two, and a much bigger hurdle. I’m mostly over that one. It’s just still an odd thing mentally to accept that you, Thai Bristow, whom I’ve spent my whole life hating and whom I long considered to be the evilest, shittiest, douchiest human being I’ve ever personally known—you…are a decent guy.”

  “A decent guy.” He laughs.

  “I just mean—”

  He cuts me off. “No, for real, coming from you, that’s a lot. Two months ago, I would never have imagined you would ever call me even that, a decent guy.”

  I swallow hard. “Admitting to myself that you’re more than just a decent guy is another hurdle, and I’m still working on that one. But honestly, you’re making it easy. You really are more than just a merely decent guy, Thai. I’m…slowly, maybe—and this might be more on me than you—but I’m slowly starting to see that…that you’re actually…” I almost laugh as I hear myself say it. “A good man.”

  He’s stunned, I can tell.

  More than stunned.

  His voice, when he speaks, is thick. “No one…no one’s ever accused me of that, before.”

  I laugh, to lighten it. “Well, now you stand accused of being a good man, Thai Bristow. How do you plead?”

  “Trying,” he whispers. “Trying like hell.”

  “You don’t have to…make anything up to me. I hope you understand that.”

  “I realized that myself, actually. Although, it was more that I realized I never could. Since I can’t change the past, can’t take back words or actions, I also can’t make up for it. I have to just stand on my feet and accept the reality that I did what I did, and how it affected you.” A pause, and I hear him swallow. “I can’t make up for it. I just have to…be better. Be different. Do the right thing, and be honest, and be real. Show you who I…I want to say who I am, but I think it’d be closer to the truth if I said who I’m trying to be.”

  “Who you are, Thai.” I repeat it. “Who you are.”

  It’s kind of freeing, in a weird, almost disorienting way, to not have the burden of hatred for him that I’ve carried for so long. And I’m realizing in this moment as I talk through all this with him, that the burden of hate was…it was fucking exhausting. It was a huge weight, an acidic lump inside me, eating at me, holding me back.

  “If I could offer you a piece of advice I’ve learned from my own journey,” I say, “it’d be that you have to not just admit your faults, but you also have to speak into yourself the solution. You have to say that you are who you want to be. For me, I had to—still have to—repeat to myself that I’m…healthy. Strong. That I am a runner. I am an attractive person. Worthy of accepting myself. Worthy of…being wanted. That my body is mine, and I like it. I have to tell myself that I like my hips. I like my butt. I like my waist. I even like the stretch marks. I like my thighs.” I swallow, realizing I’m talking to myself, now, more than him. “I have to look at myself in the mirror—some days this is harder than others—and I have to look at the parts of me that I don’t like that day, that I’m self-conscious about, and I have to say that I like them. That they’re beautiful—that I’m beautiful. That I’m sexy. That I’m rockin’ it in the miniskirt, with my chub-rub thighs and all. Even if it feels like a lie, I say it. Out loud. Because if I can’t convince myself of it, if I don’t believe it…who will?”

  “That takes a hell of a lot of strength,” he says.

  “Yeah, it does.” I smile, and I figure he can probably hear it. “But it’s worth it.”

  A brief silence, which I break.

  “Thai, there’s one more hurdle that I’m working on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Admitting to myself and accepting…and even maybe learning to embrace that…that I’m really, really attracted to you. That the things we’ve done aren’t wrong. That I have no reason to be embarrassed by anything. That I want more with you.”

  “Sounds like a pretty big hurdle,” he says.

  “The biggest of all,” I admit.

  “There’s no hurry, Delia. You don’t have to jump over that hurdle all in one day. The horny part of me is crazy fucking impatient to get you naked again and…to do a lot of very bad things to you. But I can wait. I want it to be right. I want you to feel comfortable and ready and…yeah—I want you to be ready.”

  I bite my lip, closing my eyes in anticipation of mortification and embarrassment. “If I was more fully over that hurdle,” I whisper, “I’d ask you what kinds of things.”

  His laugh is low and amused and wicked. “Strip you naked and bend you over my bed—or yours, I’m not picky—and lick you until you scream. Or…beg you to wrap those sexy, sassy, smart lips around my cock. Put you on your hands and knees and fuck you from behind, so hard your beautiful ass shakes. Maybe even spank you until that ass is nice and pink.” He groans, a tortured sound. “And more than anything? You, on top. Riding me. Sinking down on me, those big lush tits swinging in my face.” Another pause, a harsh sigh. “Fuck, now I’m hard as a goddamn rock.”

  I moan. “Holy shit, Thai,” I whisper.

  “Too much?”

  “Hell no,” is my immediate answer. “Not enough.” I blow out a breath, taut with new and nascent desire. “I want that. All of that.”

  “I’ve…let’s just say I’ve dreamed about that. A lot.”

  “You have?”

  He groans, a gruff grunt. “Yeah, Dee, I have.” A muffled sound, as of him shifting the phone to the other hand. “Want the truth?”

  “Always.”

  “When I say I’ve dreamed of it, what I mean is I’ve fantasized about it. All of that and so much more.”

  “I’m your fantasy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had no idea.” I force out the question I’m really thinking. “What do you do…when you have these fantasies about doing that stuff to me?”

  “You know damn well what I do,” he growls. “I picture you, doing what you did to me today. I do that to myself, only it’s not anywhere even close to as good as how it felt when it was actually you, actually your hands on me instead of my own.”

  “I think about you, too,” I whisper, face burning but voice confident, bold. “I touch myself. I think about you, and I make myself come.” A fraught silence. “And Thai?”

  “Yeah, babe.”

  Babe? From Thai.

  I don’t hate it.

  “The orgasms are way better. Even just thinking about you and touching myself, the orgasms are so much better than I ever imagined they could be.” Say it, I order myself. Be bold. “And when it’s really you? When you touch me? When it’s…your mouth? Your fingers? It’s like dying and going to heaven.”

  “Do it,” he commands. “Right now.”

  “What?” I sound slightly frantic.

  “Touch yourself.”

  “Thai…”

  “Touch yourself. Make yourself come.”

  I groa
n. I’ve never done anything so daring. Never obeyed when a man gave me a command. “I’m still wearing my skirt and underwear.”

  “Take ’em off. Just the panties. Take ’em off, right now.”

  “Okay,” I whisper. “Hold on.”

  I set the phone aside, on the table beside my rocking chair—after a moment of considering, I put it on speaker. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on my porch. Sitting on my rocking chair. It’s almost totally dark, except the light from the window behind me. You’re on speakerphone. Obviously, I’m alone.”

  “Keep talking. I love hearing your voice, Dee. Keep telling me what you’re doing.”

  “You too,” I say, sounding hesitant.

  “Me too, what?”

  I embolden my voice. “You do it too. Touch yourself. Right where you are.”

  He laughs, a low growl. “Okay. I’m putting you on speaker.”

  “There’s no one around you?”

  “Nope, not that I know of. Don’t really care if there is, though. This is fucking hot.”

  I laugh, and swallow hard. “I’m…uh…I’m going to take off my underwear.”

  “I didn’t actually see them, earlier. What do they look like?”

  “It’s, um, a thong. Yellow, and ahh, really kind of small. Barely there. My skirt is tight, so I had to wear a thong, because there’s no way I was going commando under a skirt this short.”

  “Try it, next time. Wear it when I take you on a date, and don’t wear anything under it. And don’t tell me.”

  “Don’t tell you?”

  “Nope. I’ll find out for myself.”

  I huff in arousal. Suit action to words, reaching up under my skirt and wiggling my thong off. Set it on the table near my phone. “My thong is off.”

  I hear rustling. “Pants are unzipped…I’m pulling them down, around my knees.” An awkward laugh. “You know what? Fuck it. Just take them off.” Another pause, a rustle. “Now I’m not wearing a damn thing from the waist down—just my tank top. Which is kind of stupid. So…off with that too. And now…I’m buck naked on my balcony. It faces the woods, and I’m top floor, on a corner. So, as private as it gets, in a condo building.”