10. Addie
Chapter ten
Addie
Later that night, after I put Luna to sleep, I’m angrily brushing my teeth and thinking about what a jerk Hayden truly is.
He thinks he can just mention my grandfather’s name and my childhood dreams, and I’ll just become some giant puddle for him to stomp around in?
“Absolutely not!” I exclaim after spitting the toothpaste out into the porcelain sink. “Ugh!”
The memory of him already made me want to pull fistfuls of my hair out, but his resurgence in my life hasn’t exactly helped matters.
As I stew on that, I tug at the mop hanging from my head and stomp down the hallway into my room.
The only positive he has going for him right now is the fact that he didn’t bring up the paternity test again.
With all of that on my mind, I slip under the covers, lay my head on the pillow, and wiggle my toes into the perfect spot.
The events of the day have exhausted me. So after closing my eyes, it doesn’t take long to fall asleep.
And I dream of something I thought I wanted for years but now dread more than anything. A future with Hayden Cohen.
It’s early in the morning, and after lifting his head up to check that the door is still closed, he whispers, “Luna will be up soon.”
“Then we probably shouldn’t waste any time,” I murmur with a cheeky smile plastered across my face.
“Oooh!” The pupils inside his piercing green eyes dilate. Then, he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me close before kissing me deeply. “I love the way you think.”
From there, his hands are gentle yet sure as they inspect every inch of my body.
“Thank you for forgiving me,” he whispers against my neck after leaving a trail of kisses down it. To top things off, my shirt is off, and he’s meticulously massaging my naked breasts.
But after my eyes snap open to real life, horrified by what my mind cooked up.
“Ugh!”
Although it felt like mere seconds, I must’ve been asleep for hours. The sun is already rising, and beams are pouring past my new purple curtains and into the bedroom. There are also birds chirping happily outside.
Taking all of this in, I sit up, rub my eyes, and then hug my legs against my chest.
Really? Out of all the men I could have a naughty dream about, it just had to be him?! I’m mad and disgusted with myself.
“He does not deserve that,” I reason, but nevertheless, feel a wet feeling between my legs.
Dammit.
Even I have to admit that parts of the dream were hot. No, it was not just the thought of being with Hayden in bed. Instead, the thought of having any man in my bedroom was a nice change.
Before I can contemplate these feelings any more, I get up, grab my laptop on the desk, and take my Pebble, also known as “my best friend,” which is designed to target the most sensitive part of a woman’s anatomy.
That’s right, Hayden. Screw you. I don’t need you. I can pleasure my own damn self.
After getting back into bed, I slide my pajama shorts and underwear down, open the computer, and type “Ezra Thunderman” into the search bar with one hand.
Sure, I’ve wondered a time or two whether it is a coincidence that he has dark, coiffed hair and mossy-colored eyes—but he’s not just some random adult film performer. He’s one of the most popular actors in the world. So, yeah. It’s definitely just a coinky dink . . . Right?
Anyway, I bite down on my lower lip while scrolling until I find my favorite video titled, “Mystery Man.”
It starts with an unassuming woman sitting on the couch in a gray hoodie and black yoga pants.
She briefly pauses the television and orders a pizza.
Fast-forward a few minutes, the doorbell rings, and she gets up to answer the door for who she logically thinks is the delivery person.
But surprise, surprise, it’s Ezra in tight red shorts, an ill-fitting button-up shirt, and a baseball hat.
“Who—who are you?” she asks, and I mouth along.
He dips the brim of the cap and then looks up at her with nothing but lust on his mind.
“How about I’ll tell you that after, in lieu of the tip you were about to give me.”
She doesn’t say another word, and he drops the pizza box, grabs her by the underarms, and pushes her inside.
When he pushes her up against her own wall and causes graduation pictures of her nieces and nephews to fall all around them, she really gets revved up.
“Sorry about that.”
He pulls away, leaving her face all smudgy and red.
“I don’t care!” She pulls him in for another deep kiss.
Before long, she’s kicking out of her slippers, and he’s unbuttoning his shirt. Then, they meander over to her bedroom. She pushes him down onto it, and then she straddles him.
They continue to do some foreplay, but I fast-forward until the “good part” starts.
She’s lying on the mattress with her legs up in the air.
Suddenly, the camera angle shifts to her point of view. And Ezra, who is kneeling near the foot of the bed, is staring mesmerizingly down at her parts.
He grabs her thighs, brings her closer to him, and starts licking away.
It’s at that moment that I start my toy up, put it into the perfect position, close my eyes, and pretend as hard as I can that it’s the gorgeous porn star between my legs.
As the actress on the screen starts to moan, my own sounds of pleasure intensify. And I pinch my nipple in between my index finger and thumb for an even more delightful sensation.
“Yes, yes!” I’m getting closer, and my back is starting to arch.
From there, I keep going until my head flies back, and I let out an exaggerated gasp.
“Oh, Hayden!” I exclaim.
“I’m Derek, by the way,” Ezra says as the video keeps playing.
Wait, what? I’m shocked by the name that just escaped my lips, and I hurry to pause it.
My eyes fling open again, and my body freezes.
When I get my bearings back, my Pebble is still vibrating away on the comforter. And after fumbling to pick it up, I turn the switch off, sit up with my knees in the air, and push some hair back on my forehead.
Damn. It’s bad enough that my mind unconsciously cooked up steamy scenes between the two of us. But now his stupid, handsome face was now intruding in my personal love-making time.
In the end, I know that I can fantasize about my teenage crush all I want, but we’ll never get a second chance at happiness because I can’t trust him. He’s proven that to me time and time again.
Thankfully, my alarm goes off shortly after that, and my motherly tasks flood the rest of that out of my brain. Like muck being sprayed off the sidewalk by a pressure washer.
I get up, put my robe on, and walk over to Luna’s new room.
“Good morning, starshine!” It’s something I’ve said since she was a little girl.
I can tell she is already starting to wake up because after a brief stretch, she responds cheerfully with, “The world says hello!” If she was still dead asleep, I would’ve been met with a grumpy sigh instead.
Sitting down next to her on her bed, I ask, “How’d you sleep?”
“Good.” When she sits up, her waves are all over the place, and I try to calm them with my hands.
“That’s good. Have any interesting dreams?”
From there, she launches into a diatribe about these evil, wrinkly aliens who came to earth on a pink ship shaped like one of the donuts Homer Simpson eats.
I have to stop her there and ask how in the world she knows that, as The Simpsons is not something she’s allowed to watch.
After shrugging and mumbling something about one of her classmates going on about the show, she launches into more explanation about their guns being unicorn heads that fired laser beams out of their mouths.
“Well, did Princess Luna end up saving the day?”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course, Mom. I always do. Except I wasn’t a princess in that dream. I was a special agent. Agent Luna Flores.”
“Okay, baby.” I stand up and kiss her head. “That’s enough of that, it’s time to get up and get ready for school.”
“Okay.”
I help her to her feet and lightly smack her bum as she walks into the bathroom.
“Remember to floss, please!” I yell through the door.
Just like I did when I was around her age, she’s really been fighting me on that recently.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m serious, Luna Flores!” Then, I think about what she just said about being a special agent in her dream. We watch Criminal Minds together, but only the non-violent parts, and I’m sure that’s what stemmed the whole FBI thing. “I mean, do you think Emily Prentiss can hunt down America’s most wanted with stinky, smelling breath and periodontal disease? I think not!” I refer to one of the badass women on the show.
It’s quiet for a few seconds, but then I hear the floss being spun out of its squeaky cartridge and then subsequently ripped off the little metal nub.
Good girl.
***
“Goodbye, my love!” I call out from the back door before she closes it. “Have a great day. I love you so much.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you too!”
Okay. With her drop-off out of the way, my next mission is to pay Steven a visit.
After I stormed off of the site, he called me and asked me to come in and discuss things with him in private. I have no beef with him, so I agreed to hear him out.
When I walk into the building, which is a subsidiary of Flores Holdings, I’m instantly flooded with the aurora of my abuelo .
The Nicaraguan flag is hanging in the lobby, there’s folk music booming from the speakers, and there’s a faint aroma of gallapinto.
“Hello, Miss Flores,” Steven says after greeting me.
“Hello. Um. With all due respect, what is this place?”
He holds his hands out proudly. “Why it’s L a Miniatura Ivory Shores.”
It’s clear by how he struggles to say “miniature” in Spanish that it’s not a language he’s familiar with. But I still get the gist.
“This is—was,” he corrects himself, “his vision for the hotel.”
I spin around one more time to take it all in. “Seriously?”
“Indeed. He wanted to bring a little touch of his home to Los Angeles and eventually throughout the entire country.”
“Wow.” Just being in here makes me feel like I’m wrapped up in one of my grandpa’s signature hugs. “I—I had no idea.” But then something clicks. Ivory Shores. That’s exactly what he said the waves made the beach near his house look like when he was a kid.
However, this sweet moment is brief and ruined when Steven and I both hear a loud boom from the doorway and then see Hayden’s face emerge.
“We have a problem.” He’s breathing heavily out of his mouth.
“What is it?”
“Damn Errol changed his mind. Again. ”
“Who is—”
“The landowner,” Steven answers out of the side of his mouth.
Oh. This can’t be good.