28. Tyler
TWENTY-EIGHT
TYLER
“Let’s go ice skating!” Kylie randomly shouts from the living room one afternoon. The girls are done with school for the semester and have been going crazy decorating the house for Christmas. This is the first year I’ve even bothered getting a tree, which is currently being decorated with different colored ornaments.
“Do you even know how to ice skate?” I ask. Ice skating isn’t a huge pastime where we’re from, definitely not like here in Nebraska.
“No. But you know how, don’t you, McKenzie? You can show me, right?” She looks at McKenzie, who is wearing a Santa hat and has a candy cane hanging out of her mouth. It’s been absolutely torture to not stare at her all afternoon. Every time she laughs, I want to look at her. Every time she picks up an ornament, I want to see which one she picks. Every time she sucks on that damn candy cane, I want to grab her face and kiss her.
“Yeah, I know how to skate. And I’m more than happy to watch you two fall on your asses for an hour.”
Kylie laughs. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Fine.” I sigh, like I could possibly say no to either one of them. “We’ll go after you finish the tree and clean this mess up.” I point to all the bags and empty ornament boxes scattered around the living room.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t have any Christmas decorations,” Kylie says as she hangs another gold ball on the tree.
I’d never needed Christmas decorations. It’s usually only me at the house, and I typically fly home to Georgia for Christmas for a few days. Decorating the house wasn’t a priority for me. But this year, the girls wanted to decorate, and I didn’t want to disappoint my girls. So, the three of us went and picked out a tree and bought every decoration we could possibly need. Even some I would rather never see again, like the little weird elf or gnome thing that Kylie put in our shopping cart before we made it to the checkout. I have no idea where she plans on putting that, but I hope it’s somewhere I don’t have to see it every day.
“Just never needed them.”
“Well, this year, it’s going to look like the North Pole threw up in the house,“ Kylie says proudly as she surveys her work.
I laugh. “We aren’t even going to be here on Christmas.”
McKenzie shoots me a look. Spending Christmas away from her is the last thing I want to do, especially now that she’s such a steady constant in my life, but it would look suspicious if I stayed home. She’s going to her mom’s house anyway, and as nice as her family was to me when I met them at the funeral, I doubt they’d be as happy to see me if I showed up holding McKenzie’s hand. I imagine most mothers wouldn’t want a thirty-seven-year-old man dating their twenty-two-year-old daughter. I know I’d be pissed if a man my age told me they were interested in Kylie.
That’s just it. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stay away.
My feelings for McKenzie are growing stronger every day. I don’t bother fighting it anymore. There’s no point. We both know that nothing will keep me from sneaking into her room every night. Even if we don’t have sex, I just need to be near her, hold her, kiss her goodnight. I’m worried for my sanity at this point. Every spare second I have, I’m thinking about her.
“I know,” Kylie says. “But we still need it to be festive until we leave. Get us into the spirit.”
McKenzie chuckles. She’s acting like she doesn’t care either way if there are decorations in the house, but I know better. She’s told me before how her mom usually goes all out for holidays. I think she’s trying hard not to think about how this is her first Christmas without her dad. But I saw the way her eyes lit up when we made our way to the decorations section of the store. I’d have bought her any damn thing she asked for in the moment just to see that joy.
One disastrously decorated tree later, the three of us get bundled up because we’re actually going ice skating.
After a quick internet search, Kylie finds a seasonal rink for us to go to. In the few years that I’ve lived in Nebraska, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ice skating rink, but I probably wasn’t paying attention.
We pull up to the rink, and luckily, there aren’t many people here, either because it’s cold as fuck or because they have normal jobs to work and it’s the middle of the week. We rent our skates and pull on our gloves before heading to the edge of the ice.
McKenzie glides right on and takes off in a circle around the rink.
“Show off!” I call to her when she comes back toward where Kylie and I are still trying to step onto the ice.
She laughs and holds out her hands for us. Kylie grabs on, but I hesitate for a moment. I think it’s clear that she’s just helping me on the ice, but there’s always that chance that someone will see it and think it’s something more.
I stop overthinking it and put my gloved hand in McKenzie’s. She holds us steady while we step onto the ice, helping us get our balance before letting go of my hand. I wish I could keep holding it. I’d love nothing more than to skate around this rink with her like a real couple. But I know that’s not an option. I can’t date her in the open. Not now, at least.
McKenzie keeps Kylie’s hand in hers as they do a slow loop around the rink. I follow behind them, trying really hard not to fall on my ass.
Kylie eventually lets go of McKenzie and starts skating on her own. Both of us are wobbly at first, but soon we’re steady enough to do an entire lap without looking like newborn giraffes.
McKenzie skates circles around us, literally. She even does a little twirl thing with her leg in the air and everything.
“How’d you get so good at skating?” I ask her once I’m able to keep up with her.
“I don’t know. I mean, I played ice hockey with my brothers sometimes when I was younger. But I grew up next to this girl who trained in ice dancing. She would sometimes teach me how to do little things like that twirl. She’s actually a pretty big-time ice dancer now. I bet I’ll see her on TV at the Olympics one day.”
I can’t stop staring at her smile. She’s beautiful all the time, but seeing her like this, not stressed, just having fun, might be my favorite version of her. It also makes me want to kiss the hell out of her, which I absolutely can’t do with my daughter a few feet behind us.
“That’s really cool, McKenzie. You never cease to amaze me.”
She leans her head back a little as she laughs, making it even more tempting to kiss her.
“Guys!” Kylie calls from behind us. “I’ve got to run to the bathroom.” She points to the small building next to the rink.
“Ok!” McKenzie calls and gives her a small wave.
As soon as my daughter is out of sight, I take McKenzie’s hand, and we skate around the rink. I’m grateful the place is mostly empty except for a few kids and their moms. No one seems to recognize me either, which is nice.
“I wish I could take you on dates like this, just the two of us,” I tell her. Not that I don’t love hanging out with Kylie, but it would be nice to not have to hide my feelings for McKenzie. We never usually talk about what we would do if we were outside of the little bubble we’ve created, so it’s not surprising when McKenzie looks at me with wide eyes.
“Don’t look so surprised. Do you really think I want to sneak around with you forever?” I ask.
“I-I mean, I don’t know. I guess I figured this was just sex for you.”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, I hate myself. I hate that I ever made her feel like this was just sex to me. “Baby, this has never been just about sex for me. It’s so much more.”
I hear her let out a small gasp, and I wish like hell I could kiss her right now. But instead, I drop her hand because I know my daughter will walk back out of the bathroom at any minute.
“It’s more for me, too,” McKenzie finally admits right before Kylie falls into me.
“Ok, like I thought this was going to get easier, but it turns out it’s not,” Kylie says with a laugh. And just like that, the conversation McKenzie and I were having about our feelings is over. That pretty much sums up our entire relationship. Stolen moments wherever we can get them.
“You’ve just got to practice. It took me a while to learn how to skate, and I had to use my brother’s hand-me-down skates,” McKenzie says.
Kylie laughs. “ Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing any ice skating competitions soon or anything. Dad, get our picture. All of us.”
I take out my phone and change it to selfie mode to snap a picture of the three of us. Kylie on one side, McKenzie on the other. Then the girls grab each other’s hands and skate off, leaving me behind. I snap another quick picture of them, and it just happens to capture McKenzie looking over her shoulder at me with a smile on her face.
This girl has got me in so much trouble, but I’m so far gone for her that I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.
I let the girls skate a few more laps before I grab us hot chocolate, and they meet me at a picnic table nearby.
“Thanks for making us do this, Ky,” McKenzie says. “It was fun.”
“I know,” Kylie says humbly. “I’m full of good ideas.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far, but this was fun. Although, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”
“At least you didn’t fall on your butt,” Kylie counters. We all laugh because she did fall a lot.
“Yeah, you’re probably gonna have a bruise tomorrow,” McKenzie says with a wince.
“Great.”
The three of us finish our drinks before driving home. I keep stealing glances at McKenzie through the rearview mirror because I can never seem to get enough of her.
Later that night, we lay in her bed after we fucked as silently as possible. I miss when she could be as loud as she wanted. There’s nothing quite like hearing your girl scream your name as she comes. But we do what we have to do right now.
McKenzie reaches for her phone, and when she opens it, the screen she had been looking at comes up.
My stomach drops.
Apartment listings.
“Why are you looking at apartment listings?” I ask as calmly as I can even though internally, I’m panicking. She wants to leave?
“I can’t stay here forever, Ty.” Ty. No one has called me Ty in a really long time, and I love the way it sounds on her lips.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Come on. You don’t think people would start to get suspicious?”
“Fuck everyone else.” Childish response, but it’s the best I could come up with. Of course I worry people might find out what’s going on between us, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now, I need to have McKenzie close.
“And now that the semester is over, I’ll be able to work more shifts again. And I don’t have as many credits next semester. I should be able to afford an apartment a little away from campus.”
“McKenzie, no. Save your money. Stay here for free. I like having you here. Kylie likes having you here.” I may sound desperate, but I don’t really care.
“I don’t think Kylie would like having me here if she knew I was sleeping with her dad.”
Ok, she has a point. “I want you to stay,” I say again.
“Tyler. It’s not a good idea.”
“None of this,” I motion between us, “is a good idea, but that hasn’t stopped us.”
“Well—”
“Don’t even go there, McKenzie.” I cut her off. There is no way we’re stopping this, so I don’t need her to finish whatever she was about to say.
She sighs. “I just feel like I’m mooching off you, and I hate that.”
“Mooch away, baby. Please, just think about it. I want you here with me. And you’ll be able to save money so when you graduate, you’ll have some savings.”
She purses her lips before she sighs. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” I grab her phone out of her hand and put it back on the bedside table before I make my way down her body again.
“What are you doing?” she asks as I pepper kisses on her bare stomach.
“I’m gonna eat your pussy.”
Her eyes go wide. “But your cum is still inside me.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
Then I devour her, showing her just what she’d be missing if she wasn’t living here with me.