20. Twenty
TWENTY
“ D o you want to talk about it?”
Tallulah had been quiet since we left the parking garage. When I’d seen her there, falling apart at the seams as her mother tried to take over, I’d felt the need to step in and play white knight. It was probably not the smartest move, but I couldn’t stop myself.
She shrugged as we turned into the Triple Down, which boasted a low-key dive atmosphere that I figured she would approve of.
“Good choice,” she said dully as I led her toward a booth.
“I figured you would approve.”
She laughed, but there was no mirth to be found. “If you say so.”
I got us settled at a booth and ordered drinks. She didn’t seem interested in giving her own order, so I went with beer for both of us to make things easy. She downed the first beer in four long swigs and demanded another.
I watched her, my heart constricting, then sighed when she asked the server for another. “You might want to pace yourself,” I said drolly.
She gave me a dirty look. “You’re not my father.”
“No, but we’ve gotten ourselves in trouble more than once with alcohol involved.”
She balked. “Are you suggesting I’m going to get drunk and try to lick you?”
It was a crass comment, and yet it did something to my insides. “I wasn’t going there, but now I kind of want to.”
The words were out before I could think better of them.
She barked out a laugh. “I thought you wanted to be one and done.”
“I thought you wanted to be one and done,” I challenged.
She shrugged. “I don’t really know what I want.”
The statement wasn’t complex—pushback should have been necessary—but I understood where she was coming from. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”
She lifted her chin, her surprise evident. “You do?”
“I do.”
She studied me for a beat longer, then nodded. “I guess you do.” She was quiet until the server returned with another beer. This one she approached more slowly. “It’s kind of weird, huh?” she asked.
I’d grown accustomed to the quiet, so I was caught off guard. “What’s weird?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“We both have a parent who drives us bonkers but for completely different reasons.”
I took a swallow of my beer and considered it. “Maybe we should send my father out on a date with your mother. That might fix them both.”
She laughed as if I’d said the funniest thing in the world. Then she sobered. “Wait. Aren’t your parents still together?”
“Yes.” Did I feel guilty about suggesting something that would break my mother’s heart? No, but only because I knew it would never happen.
“Does your father regularly…” Tallulah didn’t finish the question. She didn’t have to. I knew where she was going.
“Cheat on my mother?” I prodded.
She nodded, looking grim.
“Not to my knowledge,” I replied, lifting one shoulder. “I have to think I would’ve heard about it at some point if he liked to play that game. Weirdly, my parents are very sexually compatible.”
Tallulah’s mouth fell open, and there was no stopping my laughter.
“Oh, I know.” I took another drink of my beer. “When I was thirteen or so, I assumed they had separate bedrooms, for some reason. Our house is huge, and I never went over to their wing. If I needed something, I went to the house manager.”
“I didn’t even have a room growing up,” she said. “I had to sleep on the couch because my mother couldn’t afford anything more than a one-bedroom trailer.”
I frowned. “You didn’t have your own bedroom?”
She shrugged. “When my mother was gone, which was often, the living room was my bedroom. It was fine. I survived.” Her tone was edgy. “Finish up your story. I want to hear about the Hawthornes getting freaky.”
I pinned her with a quelling look but continued. “I heard the house staff talking one day,” I explained. “They didn’t know I was there. They were discussing something my parents did the previous evening on the tennis courts.”
She sat straighter. “On the tennis courts?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” She seemed to consider it. “Was there spanking involved?”
I was both horrified and fascinated that she’d managed to put that together. “How did you know?”
She clapped her hands, delighted. “Because there are rackets. They’re begging to be used as a spanking device.”
I was so completely thrown I had to take a few moments to regroup. “Is that your kink?” I asked finally.
She’d been looking at the crowd, which was the opposite of distinguished this evening, but swung her eyes back to me. “Do you want that to be my kink?”
“Do you realize you answered a question with a question? My therapist says that’s a no-no.”
“All of my therapists have said that too,” Tallulah acknowledged. “That’s why I still do it.”
I laughed, and she relaxed a bit. “What were we talking about again?”
“Whether or not I want you to spank me,” Tallulah replied without a moment’s hesitation.
I was halfway through a swig of beer and choked, the liquid sputtering out on the table.
“Oh, gross.” Tallulah grabbed a handful of napkins and cleaned up my mess as I suffered through a series of coughs that made my eyes water. “You need to relax a little bit,” she said to me. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“You just caught me off guard,” I complained.
She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded. “Sorry.”
“I wasn’t asking that,” I insisted, refusing to let it go. “That’s not the sort of thing I ask.”
“Of course not,” she replied amiably. “You would never.”
Her tone was impossible to ignore. “Spanking isn’t my thing,” I announced. “I don’t get the appeal of hurting somebody when it’s time to bring them pleasure.”
Her lips curved. “You know, I didn’t think you would actually say that,” she admitted.
“You thought I was a spanker?”
“No, I didn’t think you would say the pleasure part. I knew you weren’t a spanker.”
“Is that your thing?” Why I felt the need to pressure her on this particular topic was beyond me. I couldn’t help myself.
“I am not a spanker,” she replied. “I wouldn’t say I’m boring in bed?—”
“I wouldn’t either,” I muttered under my breath.
“I am a big proponent of ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,’” she continued with a grin.
“Spanking is weird to me. Not that I want to yuck anybody’s yum,” she added hurriedly.
“As long as it’s two consenting adults and nobody has been groomed or coerced, I’m a big fan of everybody doing whatever it is they want to do. ”
“I would fall into the same category,” I agreed. “I don’t understand why people get up in each other’s business so much when it comes to that stuff.”
“Me either.” She took another sip of her beer. “Obviously, it’s different when we’re dealing with minors or coercion. Otherwise, I don’t care who spanks who and with what if it’s what they want.”
“Yeah.” I fell into a bout of silence, then I frowned. “You know, it never occurred to me that my parents might be doing that out on the court,” I said darkly.
Tallulah’s eyes twinkled. “Sorry.”
“I knew they were doing something freaky because the staff kept talking about it in whispered tones. I just didn’t know it was that.”
She took pity on me and reached over to pat my hand. “If it’s any consolation, I think it’s kind of nice that they clearly still like to get their freak on together.”
I rolled my eyes. “They fight otherwise. My mother is a free spirit, and my father has never met a rule he doesn’t want to follow three times over.”
“Maybe that’s their thing. Some people get off on fighting.”
“I can understand bantering as a form of flirting,” I replied.
She gave me a pointed look, but I chose to ignore it.
“They had huge fights, though. My mother is the one who got me into therapy. She went through a new therapist every three months when I was a kid.”
“If she was such a proponent of therapy, why did she so often fire her therapists?” Tallulah asked. “It seems she would want to follow whatever programs they set forth.”
“You would think that,” I agreed. “My mother is what you might call an askhole , though. She asks a bunch of questions, wants advice from her therapists, and then fires them immediately when they don’t say exactly what she wants.”
“That doesn’t seem like the best way to get therapy,” Tallulah hedged.
“No, but I’m not certain my mother actually needs therapy.” I’d never voiced this opinion out loud, but I felt comfortable with Tallulah. “Maybe she needed it when she was younger, but now she wears her visits like a badge of honor.”
“Oh.” Tallulah nodded knowingly. “Like she gets social credit for having a therapist.”
“Exactly. She likes to say ‘my therapist says,’ and she’s not a liar, so she keeps up with the therapy. She doesn’t really care what they say at this point, though.”
“Huh.” Tallulah pursed her lips. “That’s kind of funny.”
That wasn’t the word I would have used, but I didn’t argue. Instead, I pinned my gaze on her. “Do you want to talk about your mother?”
I expected her to balk. Instead, she shook her head. “Honestly, I had managed to push her out of my head. Other than Candy bringing her up at regular intervals, she was a nonfactor in my life.”
I didn’t believe that. Everything Tallulah did, every choice she made, was based on something her mother had done. Now wasn’t the time to bring that up, though. “So why do you think she showed up?”
“Someone told her I was working at the Stone.”
“And that’s important to her?”
“Oh, without a doubt.” Tallulah nodded sagely. “My mother ranks all the casinos. The higher-end ones mean more money. She’s always desperate to work at those. She can’t get hired at them any longer, though. I think she’s on some sort of list.”
I had questions—oh, so many questions—but I was careful about how hard I pushed her. “You haven’t seen her in a while, right?”
“I haven’t seen her in more than a year. In the past five years, I’ve seen her a grand total of three times. Unless I have a job that she finds interesting—meaning she can use me to get ahead—she’s not interested in anything I do.”
My heart panged for her. Sure, I had the opposite problem—my father was too interested in me—but her situation felt so much more hurtful.
My father, however difficult, cared enough to be in my life.
Her mother only showed up when she thought Tallulah could give her something. It was frustrating to the n th degree.
“I’m really sorry” was all I could manage to say.
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
“I still feel bad for you.”
She shrugged. “I long ago gave up trying to make my mother a better person, even in my head. She’s terrible, and she’s always going to be terrible.”
“But?” I prodded, knowing she wasn’t done.
“But her showing up at the casino is not a good thing.” Tallulah turned grim. “She’s not going to stop until she gets a job there. Stone has always been on the top of her list of prestigious casinos.”
“You don’t want to get her a job?”
She laughed hollowly. “Absolutely not. She’s not a good worker, and she’s not opposed to stealing from guests.”
“Well, then it’s probably best that you don’t get her a job,” I agreed.
“The problem is, she’s not going to give up. Like … ever. She’s going to keep showing up and making my life hell. She won’t care if she gets me in trouble at work. She’ll just keep at it to wear me down.”
She was in a tough situation. No matter what, Sharon was still her mother. Tallulah could be cold and standoffish, but in the end, part of her still hoped Sharon would turn into the mother she’d always wanted.
“What about Olivia?” I asked. “Could she help you get Sharon barred from the property?”
“Maybe.” Tallulah squirmed on her seat. “I don’t really want to go that route. Olivia is my best friend. She would do whatever I ask.”
“You don’t want to ask, though.”
“No, because it puts her in an awkward position. Zach went out on a limb getting me this job. I can’t make things more difficult for him.”
“Have you ever considered that Zach, out of everybody, might understand about a difficult parent?”
“Oh, I think he would understand. He and Olivia are so happy, though. They’re having a baby. I do not want to bring my problems to their doorstep.”
I frowned. “You know it’s okay to ask for help, right?”
“I don’t need help.” Her response was automatic. “I have everything under control.”
“Everybody needs help.”
“Not me.” She was firm.
I thought about arguing further, but sometimes, it was like talking to a wall when conversing with Tallulah. Instead, I nodded. “Okay, but I’m here to help if you need it.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine.”
She wouldn’t be fine. Her life was teetering. Even I could see that. Pushing her now was not the way to fix things. “Well, I’m still here. Remember that.”
“I won’t forget.”
“Good. That’s how I want things to be.”
I WALKED HER HOME AGAIN. I HAD EVERY intention of dropping her off in the lobby, but it didn’t happen. Again. Without a doubt, I knew she was determined to say goodbye to me on the sidewalk in front of the building. That didn’t happen either.
“We should probably stop doing this,” Tallulah said as she opened her apartment door. This time, there was no awkward jockeying or kissing in the hallway outside her unit. We both knew what was about to happen.
“Probably,” I agreed as I followed her inside. Anticipation coiled inside of me. I really had thought we’d be together only once. Now, I wanted to kick myself for ever believing that.
She allowed the door to fall shut and then engaged the safety chain before turning to look at me. “It was supposed to be one time.”
“Do you want me to go?” I knew how she would answer, but I asked anyway.
“Absolutely not.” She pointed toward the bedroom. “I’m all ramped up now. I need something to take the edge off.”
I was right there with her. “You read my mind.”
She giggled as I followed her down the hallway. “Don’t get used to this. We’re just … having a fling or something.”
A fling? It was an interesting word choice. “You shouldn’t get used to it either,” I warned her. “This is a temporary situation.”
“I’m well aware.”
We stared at each other, then I tackled her onto the bed. “Enough talk,” I said, my mouth finding hers. “We’ll pick up the conversation in the morning.”
“Finally,” she said with a sigh. “We’re on the exact same page.”
“It had to happen eventually.”