Chapter 18
Zoe
I barely slept. I’d tossed and turned all night, while Lennon’s words played in my head on repeat. Had I really not made it clear to him how deep my issues with alcohol went? I was sure I had, at the time, but I also hadn’t been thinking clearly. I’d seen that bottle on the table, then watched Lennon stumble as he greeted me, and I’d lost the plot almost immediately.
All of a sudden, he hadn’t been my patient, loving Daddy who was working hard to bring out the best in me, and help me find my way back to my true self. His image had been clouded by memories and experiences of things much darker.
It was almost like I’d been the one who was drunk for all the clarity I’d exhibited. I’d made a damn fool of myself, and of him too, in his own club, then screamed my insistence that I never wanted to see him again as I’d stormed out.
Once I’d gotten home and the fog had cleared and the tears had stopped falling, I’d realized that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Of course, it was too late. Were my actions a form of self-sabotage? I’d been known to do it in my youth, but I thought I’d long since outgrown it. As I lay in my bed in the jammies Daddy had picked out for me, hugging my tear-soaked pillow, it didn’t seem like I had.
I was certain now I hadn’t told him how strongly I felt about alcohol. I certainly hadn’t asked him not to drink. But I had made an absolute ass of myself.
A fresh wave of sobs racked my body. I wished for a time machine, a reset button, anything that would allow me to go back in time and handle last night differently. Anything that would keep me from pushing away the best thing that had happened to me in a long time.
I was pretty sure no reset button existed. There was nothing I could do to fix the things I’d said. Lennon, though over a decade younger than me and a former student, had been everything to me. Everything I needed, everything I wanted. Just… everything.
After doing nothing but merely existing for so many years, after staying in a passionless marriage, after losing myself…. In Lennon’s care, in only a few weeks, I’d been thriving. I felt like a young woman again, and more like myself than I ever remembered feeling. And the sexual awakening… with him I’d found a sensual, sexy side of myself I hadn’t known existed. He’d opened my eyes to so many new experiences, and I’d lapped them up like a newborn kitten laps up milk.
And now I had to find a way to keep being that person. Without my Daddy. I was pretty sure I could do it, simply because I couldn’t afford not to. I loved the person I’d become too much to go back to being a shell of myself.
I would keep the things he’d taught me, the self-care, the work-life balance… I’d continue to create, and eventually, I might even start dating. I would, I vowed. I had to. But not today. Today I wasn’t getting out of bed.
So I didn’t. I closed my eyes and cried myself back into a fitful sleep, because being awake meant feeling the pain, and sleep was my only escape, if and when I found it.
I didn’t know how long I slept, or even if I did. The scene from last night was still playing in my head on repeat, and every time I started to doze off my own cries woke me. I eventually came to the conclusion that sleep wasn’t going to happen. Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling. My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. My bladder ached, demanding I get up, and I stumbled out of bed to the bathroom, where I quickly relieved myself, then padded to the mirror.
My curls were matted. Dry and sticking up at all angles in some places, and wet, sweaty, and tear-soaked in others. My skin was sallow, streaked with tears, and I had dark circles under my eyes. I looked every one of my fifty-one years.
I felt them, too, and that was just depressing. With Lennon, I hadn’t. After getting over the initial shock of being with an ex-student, I’d allowed his youthfulness to rub off on me. I’d let myself remember what it was like to feel young, no matter what my birth certificate said.
And just look at you now.
Heaving a sigh, I flung the bathroom door open and shuffled out, pausing to look at my bed, wanting nothing more than to just fling myself on top of it and spend the day wallowing. But I needed to put something in my stomach, and I figured I should at least grab a bottle of water to have by the bed. Maybe some ibuprofen, too, I thought as my head started to pound behind my eyes.
Forcing myself to bypass the bed, I managed to cross my room, open the door, enter the hallway, walk down it, and turn into the living room—just in time to see the object of my misery step through the front door holding a bouquet of lilies and wheeling that damn blackboard he liked so much.
My stomach dropped. I’m sure I let out a strangled gasp as a myriad of emotions whirled through me. Relax, I told myself. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s probably just here to pick up his stuff. I’d forgotten to put it on the steps like I said I would.
But… flowers. My brain latched onto that minute detail and wouldn’t let it go. Did a man bring flowers to pick up his shit and tell you he never wanted to see you again?
“Lennon!” I finally managed. “I…”
He stopped me short, putting a hand up in front of him. “That’s Daddy to you.”
The universe tipped on its axis. My knees threatened to give out from under me. Was I hallucinating? Was I in worse shape than I thought?
I took a step closer. He looked real. The waves in his hair, the dimples in his cheeks, his uniquely expensive cologne. I could actually smell the lilies. “Daddy…” The word passed between my lips before I could stop it.
“Zoe, babygirl.” He closed the door behind him and handed me the flowers. “We need to talk.”
This was it. The part where he told me how awful I was. How stupid we’d both been to think we could be anything real or lasting. How he’d been wasting his time trying to fix me when he could have gone for a younger model, one not so set in her stupid ways or damaged by the mistakes she’d made in life. I opened my mouth to speak, to beg him to give me a chance, to tell him how much he meant to me, but nothing came out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Nothing could have shocked me more.
Finally, I found my words. “Sorry?” I croaked. “What… on earth… do you have to be sorry for? I’m the one who acted like an ass, who made a scene… Lennon… I slapped you, for god’s sake, in front of like a billion people!”
“Pretty sure it was only like a hundred,” he quipped.
Under any other circumstances I’d have rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t be coy or flippant. This was my chance, the one I thought I’d never get. “Lennon, I…”
“Shhh.” He quieted me with a finger over my lips. “You haven’t thrown anything, hit me again, or demanded I leave, so maybe… maybe we could talk? Could we just talk?”
Stunned, I managed to nod, allowing him to take my hand and guide me to the couch, where he sat and pulled me onto his lap. I sat there stiffly, but not because I wanted to. What I wanted to do was wrap my arms around his neck, bury my face in his chest, sniff his delicious scent, tell him the million things racing through my mind.
“Last night…” he started.
My stomach clenched and roiled. I felt like I might be sick, and swallowed to keep myself from losing whatever was left of last night”s dinner all over his linen shirt.
“Last night was intense. And I’m pretty sure it was mostly a giant misunderstanding.”
Breathlessly, I nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“It killed me to let you walk out of the club and not go after you.”
“You had to,” I whispered, thickly. I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It came out dry, raspy, broken.
“I had to,” Lennon agreed. “Even though it killed me. I hated thinking about you going home upset and alone, with no one to talk to.”
I offered a weak smile. “I’m not like you. I don’t have a close group of friends nearby. It’s not your problem. I’m glad you had them last night, and I… I was thankful for Archer.”
At least with Archer there I’d felt like I had someone watching out for me, even if the side he was on was Lennon’s.
“I did have them last night, and I’m glad I did, because you know what they helped me realize? Well, what Theo helped me realize, I should say?”
“Hmmm?”
“That I was not a good Daddy, or even a Daddy at all, if I let you walk away without a fight. If I let you blow shit up between us and stood by, licking my wounds. I was not a Daddy if I didn’t put it all on the line to get one last chance.”
That phrase—the one about having your breath stolen away? I knew what that felt like now. I pinched myself, still half certain this was a dream, or a figment of my desperate imagination. It hurt, and I could see two crescent shaped marks where my nails indented my skin.
And here Lennon was trying to fix my mistakes. Taking blame that belonged to me. Being a perfect Daddy once again. I couldn’t let him. “Lennon… Daddy…” I squeaked, clearing my throat in the hope that I could actually get words out.
He laid his hand on mine. “Let me finish, little girl.”
A thrill started in my belly and went lower, the way it always did when he called me that.
“When you said you didn”t drink and didn’t want alcohol around you, I should have pushed, asked for the full story, listened to your reasons. I should have realized how important it was to you.”
“I should have… told you. And I should not have gone crazy at the club.”
He laced his fingers with mine. “Maybe. And we will talk about that, but first… I need to apologize.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t let him do it. Couldn’t sit here and listen to him take blame when once again, I was the one at fault. “No!” This time, my voice rang out strong and clear, and much sharper than I’d intended. “No,” I repeated.
He arched one brow and cocked his head, looking at me with a frown.
“You don’t need to apologize.” Twisting myself to meet his gaze, I placed one hand on each side of his face. His cheeks were rough and unshaven, unusual for him. “I do.”
“I’m listening,” he said, placing his hands over mine.”
“I shouldn’t have made a scene. I shouldn’t have smacked you. I shouldn’t have lied and said I was done with you. I’m not. I should have told you about my past.”
“And I want to hear that, definitely.” He lifted our hands, still laced together, and pressed mine to his lips. “Thank you for your apology babygirl.”
“You’re welcome,” I breathed. Was it really that simple? Was it just… over? I didn’t feel like I deserved for it to be so easy.
Apparently, neither did Lennon. His ragged sigh hurt my heart. “I want to be the kind of man who would do anything for you, and I feel like an ass saying I don’t want to give up drinking. Like, it sounds ridiculous. But I can’t be the man who gives into ultimatums when I haven’t done anything wrong. I will never put drinking before you. You don’t want it in the house, fine. You don’t want me to drink when you’re around, also fine. You want me to cut my drinking to once a week, or even once a month, I can do that. But babe… whatever happened to you… whoever it was that caused you to have the relationship with alcohol that you have, that person isn’t me. I work hard, and yes, I also know how to play hard. I’ve lived behind the shadow of my party-boy persona for far too long, and honestly, I’m ready to put it behind me, but if I give up being able to relax at the club on a Friday night and have a drink with my friends, or being able to have a beer after a long day, eventually I think I’d resent you, and having been forced to make that choice to be with you.” He paused, his hard frown marring his face and hiding his dimples. “And like… I don’t even know what happened. Obviously something did, because your response was so intense, but I don’t know what. You never told me.” He tucked a tear-soaked strand of hair behind my ear and caressed my face. “What happened, babygirl?”
I sighed. I hated talking about it, but I knew I owed him at least that much. Drawing a deep breath and exhaling it sharply, I told my story, or at least as much of it as I was willing to tell. I never went into details. Too much time had passed, and doing so never put me in a good place, and I needed to move on.
“My father was a drunk, and not a nice one. He was abusive to both my mother and me. So alcohol was just something I kind of feared. Still, when I became of age, and I was married to my now ex-husband, we would drink occasionally. At work functions and stuff. It was fine at first. But pretty soon he started to drink too much, and a couple times he crossed lines he never would have crossed while sober.”
Lennon sucked in a breath, his expression murderous, and I put up a hand as if it could stop whatever was going through his mind.
“Of all the things I hold against my now ex-husband, that period in our marriage isn”t one of them. Because he quickly self-corrected. We got therapy, we stopped drinking, he promised to never make me feel that way again, and he kept that promise for all the years we were together. And I’m around alcohol sometimes, at work functions and such, but he never drank, and neither did I. Nobody I was close to or had any kind of relationship outside of work ever did, so I honestly had no idea the reaction I would have until I was having it.”
He nodded, but said nothing, and I continued.
“I’m really, really sorry for how I acted, and I’m really, really sorry for not telling you that before. I should have.”
Lennon leaned his head against mine. “It’s okay, I get it. I’m just thankful that you didn”t kick me out or call the cops when you saw me this morning. I’m thankful we’ve had a chance to talk and hopefully work things out.”
There was a lump in my throat as I nodded. My brain was lying to me, hearing things in his responses that I was pretty sure were not actually there. Tears pricked the corners of my eyelids, and I forced myself to change the subject. “Thank you for making me talk to you. And for the flowers… But uh… what were you doing with the blackboard?”
“Getting ahead of myself,” he answered with a scoff.
“No, really.” I nudged him with my elbow. “What were you doing?”
“You really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
He looked at me pensively for a few moments, then lifted me off his lap and stood. I watched as he crossed the room to the blackboard that already held so many sexy memories for the two of us, and blocked it with his body as he wrote. When he stepped aside there were five words written in bold block letters: Lesson Number Eight: No Ultimatums.
“Ah.”
“I had a little bit of a drunk chip on my shoulder last night still when I came up with my plan. I was going to bust in here like a Neanderthal, declare you mine, and then go into a whole ‘lesson’ about why we don’t give each other ultimatums.” He shrugged, looking sheepish. “I still think that’s important, but I realized I needed to change the delivery.”
“Did you, though?”
It was an easy question to pose now that the worst was behind us and we knew we were on the same page. When I’d woken up this morning, certain I’d lost him forever, I’d been devastated. Now that I knew that was not the case, I felt relieved, and insanely guilty. I could see what he was saying, that the problem had been too multi-faceted and delicate to deal with it in such a careless and demanding way, but now that it was dealt with, careless and demanding was what I craved. Well, demanding, anyway.
“Lennon…” I sighed softly.
“Yes?” He crossed the space between us in a second, as caring as attentive and always as he got down on his knees on the floor in front of the couch so he would be level with me. “What is it, baby?”
“I feel… guilty… and like… maybe like I could use the lesson.”
I saw his jaw tick as his brows raised, and I rushed to explain. “I don’t ever want to jump to those conclusions again or put my past issues on you, and I see what you’re saying about ultimatums. They aren’t good for our relationship, especially since you’re so reasonable and willing to compromise. And I know you forgive me, and I know we could put this behind us and forget it, but I don’t think I can. So, Daddy, will you please teach me a lesson, one last time?”
“Of course, babygirl.” His tone was gentle but stern as he helped me to my feet, closed the living room blinds, and undressed me until I was standing before him completely nude.
As he always did when we had our blackboard sessions, he positioned me over the arm of the couch, giving me a throw pillow to rest my head on. I always buried my face in it.
I could hear him moving around the room behind me, walking into the kitchen, then opening the hall closet, where he’d taken to keeping his implement bag. My chest got tight as I wondered what he was gathering, and how much of a ‘lesson’ I was in for. In my mind, it could never be enough.
But he gave no clues, and soon he was standing behind me, his large, smooth hands rubbing circles on my bare ass. “You sure about this baby girl?”
“Y-yes.” My voice faltered, not because I was uncertain or scared. I wasn’t. Something felt off. Something I couldn’t explain or understand.
“Alright, then. The lesson is ‘no ultimatums in this relationship’. I’m going to start with my hand.”
“Okay. I mean, yes, Sir.” I nodded.
His hand was hard as it cracked against my left cheek with a powerful smack that echoed through the room.
I gasped, welcoming the pain, but just as suddenly, I cried out without thinking. “Red!”
He stopped immediately and pulled me into his arms.