Chapter 14 Talk To Daddy
TALK TO DADDY
MABEL
The air blasting from the vents of my car is finally warming up just as I pull into the parking lot of Mission Taqueria a few minutes later.
Ryder was riding behind me in his truck when we left the gym, but somewhere along the two-mile drive, I lost him.
While there is a tiny part of me that hopes Ryder changed his mind and isn’t going to show up for the tacos he promised, a bigger part is anxiously expecting his arrival, hoping he finds an excuse to touch me again over dinner.
And that scares the absolute shit out of me.
I throw my car in park and absentmindedly run my thumb over the pulse point on my wrist, shivering when I remember the way Ryder’s fingers felt pressing into my sensitive skin, and—
“AGH! No. Call Danny!” I yell, tapping a button on my phone to activate the voice control. It connects to the car’s Bluetooth, and the ringer bleats through the speakers twice.
“Hello there, Mrs. Finch. How’s married life treating you?”
I can practically hear the sadistic grin on Danny’s face through the phone.
“Please don’t call me that. I’m freaking out here, man.”
“Madame Ryder Finch, what perhaps could you be freaking out about?”
“Danny!”
My best friend snickers, and I blow out a long breath, sending the flyaway hairs falling out of my ponytail to flutter off my forehead.
“Alright, alright, I’m done teasing. Talk to Daddy. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Ignoring the disgusting way Danny refers to himself as ‘Daddy’—that’s a thread I have no interest in tugging at—I sigh.
“I’m sitting outside my favorite restaurant, waiting for my husband to show up and buy me tacos. My husband, Danny. I’m dating my husband. I mean, what kind of bizzare-o, backwards world is this?”
“It’s the kind of bizzare-o, backwards world where you become one with the bottom of a bottle of tequila and start letting your vagina do the thinking for you.”
I sputter, absolutely affronted by his accusation.
“I do not let my vagina do the thinking for me. What does that even mean?” And now it’s Danny’s turn to sigh.
“You know, I really should get paid more for being your fairy gay mother, Mabes. Ten minutes before you go out with Ryder in Vegas, you spill the worst-kept secret about your crush. Then you go out with the guy—”
“Because you told me to.”
“You get blackout drunk—”
“Again, because you told me to.”
“And what happens when you get drunk, Mabes? Your brain turns off and your vagina turns on. You spent like ten years repressing your feelings for Ryder and convincing yourself that you hate him, and as soon as you open yourself up to him a little bit—”
“I’ll say it one more time: Because. You. Told. Me. To.”
“Your lady bits got the signal that it’s open season. You’re freaking out because you’re finding it impossible to hate a man who wants to date you because you’ve wanted to hump him silly since you were a teenager.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to ignore the grosser aspects of Danny’s mostly correct observation.
“I undressed in front of him. Ryder. At the gym.”
“You vicious trollop,” he deadpans.
“Well, actually, I suppose I dressed in front of him. I came out of the shower in a towel and he was there and I got dressed. He saw my panties, Danny. Ryder saw my panties.”
“Hold on, I’m texting the town elders. They say it’ll take a little time to get the pyre together, but we should be good to burn you with the other dirty whores by nightfall.”
“Will you be serious for half a second?” I cry, and my best friend laughs.
“I’m sorry, Mabes. I’m just not understanding the problem here.”
“It was so stupid. I was trying to be nonchalant, you know? Like it was no big deal, we’re just two athletes in a locker room, immune to each other’s naked bodies.
But then he was acting nonchalant too, and it hurt my feelings.
I was in nothing but a towel in front of him, and he didn’t do anything.
I mean, I had my back turned and I could feel him looking.
But don’t you think, if he liked me he would’ve… you know…”
“Bent you over and plowed you into next week?”
“Exactly.”
“You know, if you were a character in a movie, you’d be a very unlikeable one.
You’re giving me whiplash here, Mabel. You’re confused because Ryder wants to spend time with you.
You pretend not to know how much he likes you.
You treat him like an enemy. You’re upset that he didn’t mount you like an animal the first time you showed a little skin, even though you created all these rules for this marriage and you’ve given the man no indication that you’re interested in him. ”
“I married him, for god’s sake!”
“Yeah, and according to the version of the story you told me, the second you sobered up, you told a room full of people you both love that you don’t even like him.”
I open my mouth to argue, but I’ve got nothing. Danny is right. I’m a mess. I’m a confused, messy brat and even I can’t be on my side right now.
I’ve spent my life erecting these walls around myself, creating this persona of someone who keeps her head down, doesn’t care what people think, and is laser focused on the next goal.
I’ve had to, otherwise the scrutiny of my job would rot my soul.
But in doing so, I let myself believe the worst in everyone, and I think I might have accidentally turned my heart into a block of ice in the process.
“Oh god, I’m the asshole, aren’t I?” I groan, tossing my head back and pinching the bridge of my nose.
“You said it, sweets. Not me.”
I swear, sometimes I miss the time before my frontal-lobe developed when I could unironically blame all of my problems on anything but me and actually believe the lies I told myself.
“Alright, but how do I fix this? How do I untangle this stupid web of secret crushes and repressed feelings and grievances?”
“Hey, here’s an idea. Talk to your husband! Tell him how you feel, not me.”
“Tell him how you feel, not me,” I grumble in a mocking tone.
A pair of headlights shines through my window, and I see Ryder’s truck pulling into the spot next to me.
“He’s here, I’ve gotta go.”
“Remember Mabes, shoulders back, tits up, and try not to be such a self-absorbed bitch. Love you, mean it!”
I roll my eyes but smile as I tap the screen to end the call. I’m glad I have someone like Danny who loves me unconditionally but isn’t afraid to call me on my shit.
There’s a gentle rap on my window, and I turn to see Ryder waiting for me in the cold.
When our eyes meet, his smile grows a mile wide, showing off the slight gap between his two front teeth and the crinkles by his eyes.
He lifts his hand and presents a bouquet of white lilies, and the butterflies in my stomach that I’ve spent years ignoring take flight, flapping wildly and making me feel unsteady.
“I thought you might have ditched me,” I say when I finally gather the courage to open the car door.
“You mean you wish I ditched you,” Ryder smirks, handing over the small bouquet. I bring the flowers to my nose, closing my eyes and inhaling the light, sweet scent. That gaudy little chapel in Las Vegas flashes through my mind, as does the brief memory of Ryder’s lips on mine after we said ‘I do’.
Lilies only for my beautiful bride.
“No,” I answer, my voice soft and breathy as I stare down at the flowers in my hand. “I’m really glad we’re here together.”
And for the first time, I feel a lightness in my chest when I realize I’m actually telling the truth.
Inside the small restaurant, I sit back and listen as Ryder speaks flawless Spanish with the server, awed when two glass bottles of Coke and the biggest basket of salty tortilla chips with a variety of salsas for dipping appear on the table not a moment later.
“How do you do that?” I ask, grabbing a shiny, still warm chip and using it to scoop a dollop of guacamole.
“Order food? It’s simple, Marshmallow. I think about what I’d like to eat and then I ask for it. You should try it some time, it really makes the dining out experience worthwhile.”
Rolling my eyes, I flick the tortilla crumbs off my fingers in his direction while I finish chewing.
“The languages, Rye Bread. How do you know how to say all this stuff in so many different languages? I’ve heard you talk to the locals in every country we’ve been to. I could barely pass the Spanish requirement in our school curriculum.”
Ryder lifts a shoulder, swirling a chip in a ramekin of salsa verde.
“I don’t know, I’ve just got an ear for it, I guess.”
“But how does one discover that they have an ear for languages when they are being homeschooled by their twelfth birthday?”
“Well, the funny thing about being homeschooled because you’re being trained in a career that requires travel is that you’re exposed to a lot of different cultures at a formative age.”
God, his arrogance is insufferable. Or at least it should be.
I don’t know if it’s the gold band sparkling on his left ring finger or the way his eyes keep dropping to my throat, tracking the movement of my muscles every time I swallow, but today I’m finding that trademark Ryder arrogance more charming than anything.
“It’s not something I set out to do, learning a bunch of languages, but when you’re travelling the world and you’re interested in something new, you tend to pick it up,” he continues. “You’ve done it, too.”
I scoff, bringing the glass soda bottle to my lips. I take a sip, and goosebumps erupt over my flesh. It’s the real cane sugar variety, and the taste tickles my sweet tooth perfectly. I can practically feel the cavities forming as I take another swig.
Totally worth it.