Trash Daddy

15. Honesty Carries More Weight Than Lies

The kitchen is empty, much to my relief, when I shuffle in at eight thirty am. My early morning ritual of dragging my stuff off the show floor and getting ready for the day is chipping into my nine am beauty sleep. I just want to pass out for a small eternity and give my body the rest it’s demanding. The longer I’m with Luke, the more relaxed I become, and the more exhausted I am.

A soreness between my legs reminds me I’m not recovered from being so… stretched or the hours of orgasms after my shower. My face flushes at the memories of Luke’s complete hand nearly disappearing inside of my greedy pussy. I need a mental holiday before I see him.

A conversation with my elementary school counselor floats at the edges of my mind. What did she say again? It’s been so long. Something about resting and being kind to myself… Seems like weird advice to give to a young kid. But she wasn’t wrong. School and bouncing between homes took their toll. She talked about how always being in a survival state can cause depression and exhaustion. Stress can make you take risky choices, act out, do things outside of your character. I stare ruefully into my coffee. How right she was.

I don’t regret last night, but there are “concerns.” Chief among them are Luke’s expectations now and what I’m going to tell Tommy. Fresh, hot coffee steams from the pot. The mug I use every morning sits clean and ready for me at the little coffee station. Pouring myself a cup, I try to think back to when I drank from it last. I definitely didn’t wash this.

“Good morning, hot stuff,” Luke’s sultry voice says behind me, and my head snaps up.

Knots tie in my stomach while things down low get a little heated. Quickly bringing the black coffee to my lips, I take a huge gulp and choke. Bitter acid blasts across my tastebuds and I nearly gag. I rip open a pink packet of sugar and the granules fly everywhere.

“Having problems?” He chuckles. “I had fun last night with you. We could have a lot of fun, don’t you think? I got ideas.”

I swear I can feel his eyes on my ass. I’ve got to get out of this kitchen.Taking a deep breath, I brace myself and turn around.

“Good morning, Luk…”

Nope. I’m not prepared.Luke leans in the doorway, shirtless, wearing loose burgundy sleep pants slung low on his hips and the smuggest grin. His gaze roams over my body before landing on my tits. Glancing down, I can see just a hint of my nipples through my black work polo. Why don’t I own any padded bras?I’m going to need a fucking parka to work around this man today. My immediate reaction is to cross my arms, but he’s already seen everything.

“I’m gonna go get ready for the day. Just… got to do my makeup,” I say. He doesn’t move to let me pass as I approach the door, nor does that shit-eating grin he’s wearing falter.

“Um. Can I get by?” I ask.

“Sure.” He steps slightly to the side, giving me just enough room to get by him.

I attempt to slip past, but he crowds me in the doorway. Slapping my hand out to block him, I feel the hair on his naked chest tickle my palm, sending blistering heat into my pussy. I jerk back and slam my elbow into the doorframe. The force of it rocks me and hot coffee splashes out all over my hand.

“Ow, shit. Double shit.”

“Carmella!” Luke feigns astonishment. “Such a dirty mouth. Come here and let me clean it up.” A dark light sparks in his eyes. He spins me, yanking my ass into his hard dick. More coffee splashes. “I’m going to have fucking burns, Luke.”

He murmurs a satisfied sound into my curls and I’m fairly certain he didn’t hear me at all as he grinds himself into my ass. Fingers brush the bare skin of my stomach and scorch a path to my clit as Luke’s hands shove into my pants and cup my pussy. Oh fuck.

Abandoning all pretense that he and I are cool, I untangle myself from his arms that seem to have tripled. I don’t know how he did it, but my pants are around my thighs and my bra is unclasped. Yanking up my jeans, I race down the hallway to the bathroom. Only a few sips of my morning brew are left in the bottom of my cup.

Once inside the bathroom, I lean against the door, button my pants, and heave a breath. My heart races and a sharp ache lingers between my legs. Bent over, I hang my head and squeeze my pussy through the jean material in a silent plea for us to get our shit together. So much for last night only existing inside Oasis.

I yelp as the door pushes open an inch and thuds closed with my weight against it. A rapid banging makes me flinch as Luke hammers on the other side.

It stops.

“You can’t run from me forever, caramel drop. And you certainly can’t hide all day. Come out and I’ll behave myself.” Luke’s tone is a bit too charming for my peace of mind.

“I’ve got to do my makeup and you have to get dressed!” I sing-song back to him like I’m not currently barring his entrance.

He huffs on the other side of the door. “Fine, but this isn’t over, Carmella.”

Wavy blonde hair lies gently around me and stands out against the black work polo. I wrap a few strands around my fingers, enjoying the silkiness courtesy of the shampoo that Luke bought me.

After applying some lipstick and a few finishing touches to my makeup, I’m ready to talk. Luke will have to understand that this thing between us can’t happen. I’m leaving eventually. Never did I have the intention of making the city of White Cove a home. It was always a pit stop I got stuck at. I’m going to tell him that while last night was fun, it was a one-time thing, and then pray he doesn’t kick me out.

And what if he does?I stare at myself in the mirror. Tired eyes look back at me. My face is flushed and fuller than it was a month ago. Then, I guess I take the money I earned and leave.

The bathroom door creaks loudly and swings open, startling me. My heart jackhammers when Luke walks in—wearing full black with silver chains and rings—not a drop of good humor on his face. We stare at each other in the mirror. Those uncomfortable intense eyes of his are back and make my skin crawl.

“This is the ladies’ restroom, you know,” I snip.

“This is my fucking business, you know. I don’t appreciate your personal affairs taking up work hours.”

My brows pull down. “I was just coming out there to help you open. What is your deal?”

“There are multiple missed calls and voicemails from some guy named Tommy. He keeps calling. For you. He’s tying up my landline during business hours. That is my deal.”

I flush. “Oh.”

The grin he gives me is twisted, like he wants to rip off my head, but is also enjoying watching me squirm in this fucked-up game of my own design. His smile is all clenched teeth. “He seems nice. We chatted. He’s waiting for you on the phone. I told him I’d get you,” Luke spits out.

My lungs stutter and stop working. “I see, and what did this chat consist of?”

His smile is unpleasant as he holds the door open for me and waves for me to go ahead of him. After tucking my stuff away under the bathroom sink, I head to the open floor, Luke trailing behind me.

Luke settles down beside me in the black rolly chair as I pick up the phone and press the flashing button. “Hello.”

“You stood me up last night.” Tommy’s annoyed voice cuts out of the speaker. He’s annoyed but not angry.

“I know. I’m sorry… Something came up.”

Luke snorts beside me while he clicks around on the computer. He notices me staring and raises his eyebrows, as if daring me to contradict the fact that something had, in fact, come up.

“You couldn’t have called? I waited like an hour,” Tommy says. So, he can be annoyed over being made to wait an hour, yet can ignore my calls for weeks. Now I’m annoyed.

I sigh, wracking my brain for a good excuse. “You know I don’t have a phone, Tommy. And I wasn’t exactly in a position to call you last night.” I glance around, hoping a good excuse is hidden amongst the furniture. “An opportunity to take care of a few things came up, so I had to jump on it,” I say and immediately regret my word choice.

“You were in a position to have jumped on it. But you just weren’t brave enough. I could have made you scream.” Luke’s voice is a whisper next to my ear, and his hand slips between my legs.

Fire ants eat up my chest as anger seizes me. Motherfucker. I feel positively possessed as my head slowly swivels and I pin him with my best red, fiery glare. My mouth forms the word “stop.”

That twisted smile is back, and I want nothing more than to wipe it from his face. He may have paid for me last night, as fucking cringe as it is, but he doesn’t own me. And Luke isn’t going to ruin five years of friendship with the one person I have left from my old life because he feels threatened.

“Is that your boss?” Tommy asks.

“Sorry, we are trying to open the store. Give me a second.”

Putting my hand over the receiver end, I cradle it to my chest. “Don’t you have a door to open?” I hiss lowly.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend whose heart you have to break when you tell him you found a bigger, more useful dick?” he hisses back.

My nails dig into the palms of my hands. I suck in a breath. Rage eats at my common sense. Luke folds his arms over his chest, sits down, leans back into the rolly chair, and props his legs on the counter, crossing them at the ankles. “It’s my door. I’ll open it when I’m good and ready.”

“What about the business hours you were so worried about?”

He says nothing and continues to stare. Exasperated, I give up. Putting the phone back to my ear, I apologize to Tommy.

“Hey, I get it. Shit is bad for you right now. I just wish I’d known you weren’t coming.”

Warm shame splashes me. I could have called him before we left yesterday. Luke and the demands of the shop make me feel so insulated sometimes, it’s like a different life. My whole life, actually. In my defense, I was told I’d be home in time. My eyes cut to Luke in a glare and an idea strikes me. “Hey, how about you let me make it up to you? I’m free this evening.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. You want me to pick you up?”

I nearly agree when common sense kicks in. Tommy could easily be followed.

“How about I meet you at that Chinese place off Jay Street?” I say.

“You sure you don’t want a ride?”

“I’ll be fine.” And if there is a cop car anywhere near there, I will split before they even know.

Carefully choosing my next words, I ask, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask: has my aunt or any of her partners been by since we talked last?”

My eyes cut to Luke once again, who hasn’t moved an inch and glares at my head. Guilt lashes me harder, not because I messed up but because I don’t regret playing prostitute and sucking Luke’s dick. I am trash.

Tommy is saying something, and I startle, guilty for tuning him out. He sighs. “Yeah, but I didn’t talk. But I’ll give you the full deets later.”

“Okay, yeah, sure. I’ll see you tonight at seven. Be careful driving over. You never know who is on the road. Crazy drivers.” My laugh is a bit forced.

“I’m always careful, babe. I’ll see you at seven.”

“Bye.”

He hangs up, and I set the phone down.

Luke’s expression is sour. His nose wrinkles as he squints at me. “What, no ‘I love you, honey’? Not even a miss you? Aww, he called you babe. How fucking cute! I can’t wait to meet him.”

Hurt flashes through me, but I accept the verbal dragging. I’ve earned it. Whatever minor victory I had getting Luke to back off is gone along with his playful banter and quick smiles. “Where’s your grand confessions of feelings and apologies, Carmella? Thought you were going to crack and confess how you found a bigger, better, more useful dick to suck.”

Okay, snide, bitter Luke is definitely not my favorite.Part of me wants to reassure him, but of what, I’m not sure. Tommy is the only person who knows what the hell is going on with Gloria and won’t immediately rat me out to her. If I’m going to stay two steps ahead of her, then I need to talk with Tommy, find out what—if anything—has been going on. So, I’m definitely going tonight. No more distractions.

Luke has been wonderful, but it doesn’t change the fact that my aunt hates me, wants me home, and the cops have probably been looking for me. Maybe.

Anxiety coils around me about meeting Tommy. Someone could definitely follow him. I refuse to go back to Gloria. I’d rather die.

“That was the least spicy conversation between a couple I’ve ever heard. What is he, eighteen? Twenty? Can he even get you into a bar without getting carded himself? He sounds like a dumbass kid.” Luke’s rantings finally break through my thoughts.

“Luke, honestly, I just can’t deal with this right now. Whatever this is,” I point between the two of us, “is not the center of everything in my life. Okay? I have to talk to Tommy at some point.”

Luke’s jaw snaps shut with an audible clack of his teeth. He levels a glare at me so severe, it makes me wither on the spot before he turns back to his computer screen, clicking around.

The store keys lie on the desk between us. Sighing, I scoop them up and walk to the front door. I don’t understand why he’s so upset, anyway. He knows I’m not staying. A navy-blue SUV drives by the store slowly, probably seeing if we are open yet. I click on the neon open sign, and the blue flickering strip lighting that I’m scared to remind Luke is still broken, crackles to life. It’s going to be a long day.

Agood, steady flow of customers keeps me from worrying too much about my aunt, or Tommy, for that matter. What downtime I have is taken up by an extremely disgruntled Luke.

In fact, the closer it gets to closing time, the grumpier he is. I’m torn between wanting to smooth things over in order to guarantee I still have a bed here at the end of the night and letting him suck it so he knows I’m not cool with him acting like a crazy, jealous boyfriend. Another piece, a much smaller piece, is thrilled he is acting like this, and that my going out has wrecked his whole day. Maybe I’m a little petty.

And then I have to remind myself that I’m not staying and the entire process starts all over again.

I assess the Tommy/Luke/housing situation from a thousand different angles before getting exhausted and settling on one. Truthfully, I don’t want to deal with this at all. It would be so much easier to just slip out and deal with the ramifications later. Dust billows up as I run a feather duster over one table.

I know I’ve been tight-lipped with Luke about a lot of things, choosing to live in the moment with him and avoid the unavoidable. Just for a little while. All I wanted was an opportunity to relax and feel free. And because Luke has given me all that, he’s also probably earned some honesty from me.

Putting the duster down, I decide it has to be now or I’m sneaking out. He’s doing paperwork at the desk—like every evening. Walking around the large U-shaped counter, I heft myself up onto the work surface next to him.

“Hey, can we talk for a minute?”

He pauses in his paperwork, looks up at me, and quirks one eyebrow.

I fidget with my hands. Anxiety spikes, turning my stomach. “My aunt probably has the cops looking for me. I’m not sure, but probably,” I say.

Luke’s other eyebrow joins the first as they attempt to climb into his hairline. I pick my words carefully. Luke just needs to get the gist, not the fine details, of how fucked my life really is.

“Gloria is fucking insane, Luke. She called the police when I left and filed me as a missing person. I’m not missing. I just don’t want to be found, not by her. She has ruled my life since I was a kid, and she fucking hates me and wants me gone. But she also wants to have control over me. When I left, I had to leave behind my ID and… well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t leave behind much because I couldn’t keep anything with Gloria. Either she’d trash it or use it to manipulate me. I learned not to keep things so they didn’t become weapons against me.” Exhaustion swamps my body as I think about getting through this conversation.

I push through. “Gloria has chased off most of the people in my life by turning them against me or just being so fucking malicious they don’t want to hang out with me because they have to deal with her. But Tommy has always been there in his own dysfunctional way. He’s the only person left from my old life, and if I’m going to avoid Gloria, I have to know what she is doing.”

Luke pops his neck and stares back at the computer screen. Keys click and clack as he types. “I can’t stay here forever; it’s too close to home.” I finish.

His hand clenches and flexes open. From his side profile, I can see his mouth twist. “I don’t understand. You’re old enough that even if the police find you, they can’t make you go home. Right?” he snaps.

“That’s true. Legally, my age isn’t a factor.” But this is where it gets complicated, and this is the exact line of questioning I don’t want to deal with.

His eyebrows draw down, and he quietly assesses me. “I don’t get it then.”

“She wants control over my whole life and always has. And if that means she has to put me in jail to achieve it, then so be it.”

“She sounds like a fucking bitch,” Luke says. You don’t even know half of it.

“She is. I could never make her happy. In fact, I’ve never been able to make anyone happy with my company. I’m either fucking things up or being too combative.” I sigh. This conversation is a mess, and I don’t even feel like I’m making sense.

I make eye contact with him but quickly turn away. “I spent years trying to be the perfect kid so I could fit into someone else’s family in hopes they would want to keep me. Tiptoeing around people, always trying to read the room, say the right thing. As you would put it, I was always selling myself as a perfect little girl some pleasant couple would want to keep, and I buried all my rage and grief. Smothered by the disappointment and the unfairness of it all with smiles and being helpful. But it never happened. No one ever bought in. I could never pretend enough to convince someone to want me.

“And then Gloria came into the picture and I thought, here is family, someone who has to love me. And that was the biggest joke of my life. Gloria enjoys playing games and hurting me. The only person who stuck around through all of it is Tommy. I owe him something more than just dumping him over the phone, and he also lives by Gloria. She dropped by his place a bunch of times after I took off. He’s the only one who understands my past with her.”

Luke’s chest expands sharply, and he shuffles his papers unnecessarily before straightening his shirt. He clears his throat, and I accept this as a sign that maybe he is actually hearing me.

I continue, “I have a life outside of here. It’s not much, but there is at least one person in it, and I need to see them. You”re unhappy with me going out and that’s understandable, given what I’ve been allowing to happen between us. You’ve been great and kinder to me than anyone in your position probably would’ve been. I’m not dumb. You give me opportunities for my own money, you pay for everything, and you’ve never hurt me more than I ask for. I’m thankful for all of it, even if I don’t always act like it.”

Quiet, Luke stares at the computer screen and the documents under his hand. The warning he offered me on the first day on the job about how to be wary of him when he is silent surfaces in my mind and my spirits plummet.

Defeated, I ask what’s really bothering me. “If I leave tonight, do I need to pack my stuff and take it with me?”

Luke’s jaw tics and clenches as his head swivels around. Dark eyes pin me to the counter. His mouth works like he is trying to hold back a massive round of word vomit. “Why would you do that?” he grinds out.

“I know we hooked up, or you paid me for my company, or whatever that was. It happened, but I’m still my own person. And you’re not saying anything. That makes me think that if I leave, I won’t be welcome anymore.” I mumble the last part, and embarrassment trickles through me over how needy I sound.

If he kicks me out now, I’ll die, especially after spilling more of my sob story.

Roughly sticking his hand into his pocket, he yanks out the door keys. They jingle as he flips through them and slides one off the key ring, tossing it to me. “It opens the back, but be careful walking around out there at night. I’ve been jumped before, and it’s dark back there. Check the cameras before you leave.”

I stare at the key in my hand. It’s silly how much I want to cry over a stupid hunk of metal. Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I bend down to kiss him on the cheek. Luke turns his head slightly and presses his lips against mine. He bands his arm around my waist, pulling me into his lap. Heat licks up my body as gravity presses us together and fireworks blossom under his touch.

Nails scrap my scalp as he snaps my head back, angling me for a deeper kiss. As his tongue sweeps into my mouth, relief courses through my body. He still wants me, and I can come back tonight. Reassurance and desire make a heady cocktail on my tongue as Luke devours my mouth. Goosebumps break out along my body as he sucks at my neck. I groan at how good it feels. His hand tightens on my ass, and I can feel his cock growing harder through his pants. Pulling back, I give him a sly smile. “I should have known.”

He’s breathless, but answers me with his typically charming smile, one I’m starting to look forward to seeing. “You really should have. If there is an opening, I’m going to stick my dick in it.”

Closing my eyes, I nod. “Charming as ever, Luke.”

He gives me his flirty eyebrows and quirks up his lips, making that mustache move with them. I shake my head, but when I hop off his lap, that charming smile fades. “Barring all the other bullshit I think about this guy, he can’t really be your boyfriend unless he’s willing to follow you; you know that, right? Leaving you to the streets, not stepping up or stepping in… If he isn’t willing to help, then it’s over. It’s been over. Because you deserve better and you shouldn’t accept a half-assed love.”

I swallow thickly. “He’s my only friend.”

He nods quietly. “I see.” That tic in his jaw is back, and he swivels around to his computer.

Awkwardly, I drift away from Luke, stealing one last look before leaving him to his paperwork.