Chapter 17 #4
“Yeah, I am sometimes. Everyone gets low. Before I met Mac, I was in a pretty bad place. I was beginning to give up on the idea of finding a guy who really cared about me. I was kind of giving up on everything.”
“Meeting my dad changed that?”
I grin. “Sure did.”
“I’m glad. He looked happy when he walked in here. He deserves that. He’s a really good guy, my dad.”
“The best,” I agree.
“I just don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Naomi, the only way you could truly disappoint him is by taking drugs again. I don’t think he cares what you do with your life, as long as it’s what you want.
Degree. No degree. Career. Homeless without teeth.
” That draws a huge smile out of her. “Your dad will love you as long as you’re alive and doing the things you want to do. ”
Naomi slips off her other pump and pulls her knee up.
“I actually do love it, you know. Physics. Even the math part, which is kind of killing me. When I’m not under so much pressure, I love the science.
I’m just so afraid of falling behind and not getting the grades I need.
Mom keeps telling me that if I graduate anything less than summa cum, I’ll never get a decent position and the market’s so tight for academics. ”
“Do you want to go into academics? I don’t know anything about your field, but it seems like there would be a lot of jobs for physicists.”
“Oh, sure,” she says. “Lots in the private sector. But Mom says that real research only goes on at the great schools. Everything else is commercially driven.”
“Is that a bad thing? I mean, my art is commercially driven. People pay me to tattoo them. Does that mean it’s not as good?”
“No,” Naomi admits. “It’s really good. Would you tattoo me? I’ve always wanted one. Mom says tattoos are for rednecks, but I think they’re cool.”
“Sure.”
We spend another ten minutes talking about potential tattoo designs.
She really likes the idea of a geometric heart which I think would suit her and I do the rough beginnings of a sketch with a pencil and a sticky note she hands me.
As I work, I start to wonder if Amy and Mac have killed each other out in the hallway when Amy slams back into the room.
She sweeps her gaze up and down her daughter, who has relaxed even more in her absence, pulling an oversized “Queens College” sweatshirt off the bed and tugging it down over her knees as she sits curled in the chair. “Put your shoes back on, Naomi.”
“Mom, they hurt my feet. Brenna doesn’t care. Do you, Brenna?”
“No.” I could stick my Docs out and wiggle them under Amy’s nose, but I’m afraid she’d combust. “It’s your room. You should be comfortable.”
Amy narrows her eyes at me. “You would think that. Are you even old enough to drink?”
I scoff at her. “Get real.”
“Brenna owns her own business,” Naomi tells her mother. “And she doesn’t have a college degree.”
“Of course not,” Amy sneers.
“Amy, enough,” Mac says quietly as he enters the room. “Naomi, I think it’s time Bren and I head back.”
“Oh.” Naomi sits up. “Already? Brenna and I were just getting to know each other. You’ll come back next weekend, right?”
“Definitely. I’ll take this and work on some designs,” I say, waving the sticky note. “Just give me your email.”
I pull out my phone, open a new contact, and hand it to Naomi. Under her mother’s baleful glare, Naomi types in her contact details, including her cell number.
“Text me when you get back to the City, okay?” she asks.
“I will. I’ll video call you so you can see my shop.”
Naomi gives me an unfettered grin that cracks my heart because it contains all of the child she was. Mac’s daughter. Smart and lively and happy. Before the treadmill ground her into this sad, dull skeleton of a person.
I hold out my hands, cautious about pushing this new connection, but Naomi moves into my arms immediately and gives me a warm hug.
After Naomi releases me, Mac moves in and gives his daughter a long hug that leaves tears in both their eyes when they part.
“I’ll call you tomorrow at our time, kiddo,” Mac says as he pecks a kiss onto her sunken cheek.
“Okay, Dad. I love you.”
Mac staggers and I jump out of the chair to steady him. “Sir, are you okay?”
He nods and swallows hard before leaning back over to crush his daughter in another hug. “I love you, too, baby. I loved you before you were born, and I’ve loved you every minute of your life, and I’ll still love you when we’re both stardust again.”
“Bye, Dad. Drive safe.” Naomi cracks a smile as Mac releases her. “Speed kills, you know.”
Mac blinks back tears and manages a wry smile. “It does. I’ll go slow if you do.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Dad.”
He presses another kiss on her forehead before putting his arm around me and walking me out of the room.
I cry all the way back to his bike. I can’t help it. Mac doesn’t try to stop me, and I feel like I’m crying for him, too, since he can’t seem to let it out. He doesn’t say anything as we reach the bike, just hands me my helmet, swings on, and waits for me to climb on behind him.
“We’re going back to the motel,” he says, his voice thick.
We checked out before going to the IHOP, but I’m not going to question him. “Yes, Sir.”
He wheels the bike around and drives us the ten minutes back to the hotel.
I’m quiet, trying to gauge his mood, as we walk into the motel reception and he books the room we were in for another night.
When the manager tries to say the room’s not ready, Mac waves it away.
“We’ll take it now. They can clean it after check out tomorrow. ”
“Okay, mister, if that’s what you want.”
“I do.” Mac pockets the key and takes my hand.
He doesn’t say anything more as we return to the room, which is still looking as rumpled as we left it.
As soon as we’re through the door, he’s on me, slamming me back against the wood, tearing off enough of our clothes to get inside me.
He’s a storm: bruising kisses and nipping teeth and pinching fingers and brutal thrusts that bang me into the door so hard my teeth rattle.
I just cling to him until he comes with a groan and a rictus that looks more like a grimace of pain than pleasure.
“I’ll take care of you in a moment, girl,” he pants as he drops his face into my neck.
“I’m okay for now, Sir.”
Mostly I’d just like to unglue my back from the door and make it to the bed, or the couch, or even the floor, I’m not picky as long as it doesn’t have splinters.
He adjusts his hold on me and walks us over to the bed, slipping out of me as he sets me down.
I unlace my Docs, kick them off, push off the rest of my clothes, and scoot back into the pillows.
I’m not sure what Mac plans next—I’m not sure he knows, either, because he stands there with his jeans around his knees looking confused—but I don’t plan to let him out of this room until he’s vented in a way that doesn’t involve his dick.
He sinks to the edge of the bed and begins striping off the rest of his clothes. I scoot forward and wrap myself around him.
“You had a good talk with Naomi,” he says as he tugs his jeans down his calves.
“I did. She’s great, Mac.”
He rubs his hands through his hair. “She is. She’s a great kid when she’s not trying to kill herself with methamphetamines.
I do know what those are, by the way. Amy loves to shove my lack of education in my face, but I’ve researched it and talked to Naomi’s doctors.
I know what they’re poisoning themselves with. ”
“I don’t doubt it.” And I don’t. Mac’s devotion to his daughter is obvious. “She has a ton of love for you.”
He nods and I hear him swallow hard. “Today’s the first time she’s said those words since she was fifteen.”
Fuck, no. That can’t be right.
“That’s the first time she’s told you she loves you in six years?”
“Yeah.”
I sit back enough to rub his back but keep my legs around his hips. “Mac, she may not have said it, but she loves you. All she cares about is disappointing you.”
“Only way she could disappoint me is if she keeps taking the drugs.”
“I told her that. I know addicts lie about using and relapse is really common, but she seems serious this time.”
Mac nods. “This is the first residential rehab program she’s been in since leaving Florida. They have an amazing recovery rate. If she stays in the program, she has a four in five chance. I’m just afraid Amy will convince her to leave.”
“Sir, I’m not telling you what to do. She’s your daughter.
But your ex is freaking toxic. If Naomi even thinks about leaving the program, you should invite her to move in with you at Logan’s rather than going back to school.
If you need me to get out of the way—” My throat tightens with what I’m offering.
It’ll kill me to do it, but it feels right.
“So you can focus on your daughter, then that’s what you should do. She needs you.”
“Bren.” Mac shifts away from me and turns around, the blue of his eyes all the more piercing against the bloodshot whites. “Real talk. Do you need space? I know that was ugly and if you want to back off me because Amy and Naomi are just too much, I’d understand.”
“No, Sir, that is not what this is about. I like Naomi and I—” No, I’m not saying those three words right now. “I want to be part of your life. But if you need Naomi to move in with you . . . I could stay in my apartment and we could just date, so you can focus on her.”
Mac’s shaking his head before I even finish speaking. “That’s not what I want. If you need space, I’ll give it to you, but this isn’t coming from me. Nomes needs my help and my attention and I will give it to her, but not at the expense of what’s between us.”
He knows just what to say to silence my doubts. And I’m sure I’m grinning like an idiot hearing him prioritize me like that.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I didn’t mean to make it about me. I just want you to be free to focus on your daughter if that’s what you need to do.”