Nick
NICK
THE MOANING STARTS out softly—so quiet I don’t hear it at first, but it gets louder until it’s practically screaming, and then there’s no denying what I’m hearing.
Tate and Zo? are having sex.
Good lord.
This is a big house. For me to hear her two floors up, Zo? has to be making a hell of a lot of noise. And she is—shouting so loudly that the neighbors can probably hear her, too.
As if it isn’t bad enough that I unintentionally fell for my son’s girlfriend, now I’ll have to listen to him fuck her every night while I try not to get aroused. This is fucked up.
Although… Jesus. I sit up in bed and shake my head in disbelief. Maybe hearing her make these noises will help me get over her. It sounds so fake, so theatrical, that it’s off-putting. I didn’t think she would be like that at all.
In the VIP booth, when we were together, every sound that came out of her mouth ratcheted my own arousal up higher and higher. It was breathy, authentic, real. This sounds like someone turned the pornography up to the loudest volume, but when I hear a scream of “Yes, Tate!” I know it’s real life.
The noise goes on longer than I think I can stand until, eventually, I give up the idea of even trying to sleep. Even though it will bring me closer to Tate’s basement bedroom, I pull on pajama pants and go downstairs to pour myself a scotch. It can’t be any worse down there than it is up here, anyway.
But it is—oh, it is. The ecstatic screaming reverberates down the first-floor hall, bouncing off the walls.
I’m so certain it’s Zo? with Tate—because who else could it be?—that when I walk into the kitchen and see her sitting at the island, my mind at first cannot compute.
How can she be here when she’s down there?
She turns to look at me, the perfect symmetry of her heart-shaped face drawn together. No tears on her cheeks, no redness, but the grim look in her eyes tells me everything I need to know. I sigh as the reality of the situation hits me. Then I step into the room, walk mechanically toward the cupboard, pull down my bottle of Balvenie, and hold it up to her.
“Drink?”
She nods without saying a word, her messy topknot of blonde hair bobbing with the motion. I pull down two glasses and pour generously, sliding one glass over to her and then taking a seat beside her.
“Thank you.”
Zo? takes a long sip. She sucks her breath in, surprised by the taste, and then blows out sharply, and I resist the urge to laugh. She’s obviously not a scotch drinker. But gamely, after blinking her eyes a few times, she picks up the glass and tries again.
For several long, uncomfortable minutes, we sit in silence against the backdrop of moans and squeals. It’s so fucked, but I don’t know what to do about it, so we just sit there, sipping our drinks and staring into the middle distance, waiting it out.
My gut says she needs the company right now, although, for all I know Tate and Zo? could have some kind of arrangement. Because she works as a stripper, maybe he gets to have sex with people on the side, I don’t know. But her current discomfort is clear, and my heart goes out to her as she sits there drinking, the line of her mouth tight and shoulders hunched inside of the oversized sweatshirt she’s wearing.
She’s a smaller version of the woman I’ve seen at the club, folded in on herself, with no sign of her luminous smile. It kills me to see her like this, with her spark dulled. I’m ashamed to think that my son would do this to anyone.
When she finishes her drink and puts down her empty glass, I lift the bottle and hold it out towards her.
“Another?”
She slides her glass my way.
We drink a bit more as the noises continue, rising up through the floor, coming up the staircase, climbing the walls until it feels like the whole house is rocking. It’s beyond maudlin to sit here listening, and it’s surely not doing Zo? any good, so finally, I turn to her and say, “It’s quieter upstairs.”
She nods, pressing her lips together, and I take her hand to lead her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
We walk down the hall, and I hold my bedroom door open, feeling like a creep for leading her there, but not sure where else she could sleep.
“You can have my room,” I tell her. “I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch. Sorry, the bed isn’t made.” I glance at the bed, where the covers are half thrown off, the sheet crumpled, and then indicate the couch under the window. “There’s also a couch in here, too, if you’d rather sleep on that.”
“Thank you.” She looks up at me with shiny emerald eyes. “The bed would be okay.”
She climbs into the other side of my bed, the side that hasn’t been slept in, and leans back against the headboard. The cognitive dissonance of seeing her there nearly unravels me.
Here she is, the girlfriend of my son. The girl who lives in my house.
Here she is, the betrayed girlfriend of my son.
Here she is, the only woman who’s made me feel something—really feel something—in ages. A girl I’m acutely interested in. Borderline obsessed.
She is all of these things.
“Will you stay with me for a while?” she asks, patting my side of the bed with her hand.
Although everything in me tells me I’m supposed to keep distance between us, Tate’s inexcusable behavior has empowered me to take some license. I feel justified sitting down on my side of the bed and stretching my legs on the mattress. Even though I’m slightly self-conscious of the fact that I have no shirt on, I lift my arm around her shoulders anyway, feeling protective. She immediately leans into me, her head on my chest, her soft blonde hair curtaining my stomach.
She smells like shampoo and body spray, and exactly the way I remember her from the club, and she feels so fucking good in my arms, like she fits.
“I actually don’t drink very much,” she says with a little giggle.
“You don’t?” I’m surprised because she’s around alcohol all the time at work. But given her dance training, she’s probably too disciplined. “Are you drunk, Bean?”
“Maybe a little,” she says with another giggle. “I like that nickname.”
I chuckle with endearment and lean my head back against the headboard, looking at the ceiling and thinking about all the things I want to say. How ashamed I am of my son… and of myself. Tate has failed to protect her, and maybe I have, too. I should have drawn a line in the VIP booth. I should have known better.
“I’m sorry, though,” I say, not knowing how to say she deserves better. That she deserves everything. “I’m sorry for this and… for a lot of things.”
She turns her face inwards until her nose is pressed against my skin and shrugs.
“Meh.” She hiccups, giggles at herself, and then gives a little sigh. “You smell good.”
She burrows her nose deeper against me and I think, I should stop her. I should stop this. But I don’t do anything. I just sigh and relax into the warm weight of her against my side.
* * *
I blink awake to movement and cool air as Zo?'s warm body moves away from me. Early morning sunlight streams through the window, and she’s sitting up, rubbing her eyes.
“What time is it?” she asks, and I blink again, groggy with sleep.
I can’t believe we fell asleep.
Together.
“Hey Google, what time is it?” I mumble.
“It’s eight twenty-nine a.m.,” my home device replies.
“Shit.” She swings her legs off the bed and stands. “I’m late for class. Fuck!” She pushes hair out of her face and tugs at her sweatshirt, looking down at herself, and even though there’s panic in the air, I notice how irresistibly cute she is in the morning, her bun messier than ever and her cheeks pale. “Shit. All my stuff is in Tate’s room.”
Tate’s room.
The idea that she might have to go down there and see some other girl in bed with Tate spikes my blood with adrenaline. When I see that kid today, we are going to have some serious words.
“I’ll get it.” I get up and pull jeans out of the bottom drawer of my dresser. “Tell me what you need. And I’ll drive you.” She lifts wide green eyes to me. I can see the polite refusal forming before she speaks. “And don’t fucking say no,” I say, walking to the bathroom with my jeans under my arm. “Just accept the offer and tell me what you need from downstairs.”
* * *
In the car, we don’t talk about what happened the night before. I learn that Zo? moved to the city to audition for the ballet company here, and that she trains for four hours a day on top of working nights— at the bar , she tells me, obtusely.
I don’t dare ask any questions about work, nothing that could lead to talking about the night we met, so I’m careful to keep the conversation on neutral territory. I ask her if she always wanted to be a dancer, and where she grew up, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me and my thoughts as far away from her body as possible.
When I get home, Tate is sitting on the couch, waiting for me—but not straight-backed and looking nervous, which I would have preferred. He’s shirtless, as usual, hunched over a tablet and so consumed by whatever game he’s playing that he doesn’t appear to notice me when I walk in.
I’d been strict when I walked in his room that morning, in a way he hasn’t seen me be before. I’d let myself into his apartment and was immediately struck by the mess and chaos. Clothes were strewn over the floor and furniture—much of it beaded and sparkling, so Zo? isn’t off the hook there. Two figures were curled up under the covers in the bed, just as I’d feared. The hulking form of my son and a smaller form beside him with dyed blonde hair splayed over the pillow.
“Tate.” I’d used the most booming voice I could muster, and it worked. He startled and sat up. “Tate, get up. I’m driving Zo? to her class, and then we’re going to talk when I get back.”
The blonde head had lifted then, too. Mascara-streaked eyes blinking in confusion at me.
“It’s time for you to go home. Tate, call your friend an Uber and meet me upstairs in a half hour.”
I’m pleased to see that he at least obeyed, except that now that I’m here with him, I don’t know what I’m going to say.
I’ve failed Tate as a parent again and again. From the moment he was born, I didn’t seem to know what to do. When he cried, I fumbled awkwardly while Rebecca knew just how to hold him. I never seemed to know the right thing, while she stepped into the role so effortlessly. Even now, I find myself wishing we could call her in and see what she would say and do. How do you reprimand your adult son for cheating on his girlfriend? Is this even my responsibility?
But the way he chooses to conduct himself in a relationship is important. I don’t want to be responsible for setting another toxic male loose on society. Not to mention that the hurt he inflicted on Zo? impacts me—not just because I’m inappropriately tuned into how she feels, but because he brought her here into my house, made her part of my community, and then caused problems for all of us through his actions.
The more I think about Zo?, the less I worry about parenting Tate, and the more clearly my argument forms.
“Put down the tablet and give me your full attention,” I command, sitting on the chair opposite Tate.
He does, but sets it down languidly on the coffee table and raises his eyes to meet mine slowly. His way of trying to be in control. I recognize the tactic.
“When I suggested that you could live here, it was because I hoped it would be an opportunity for us to get closer. I wanted to get to know my son. And when you moved a girl in without even asking me, I didn’t say a thing.”
“Dad—” he interjects, but I cut him off.
“Do not interrupt me. I assumed you were serious about the girl, that it meant something. So I let it be. I sure as hell did not think there would be a revolving door of girls coming through this place. I’m not mad that you have a sex life. I was young once, too. But Zo? lives here, Tate. The amount of disrespect you have shown her is unbelievable. It made me ashamed of my son.”
He gapes in surprise, and the word reverberates between us.
Ashamed .
I can see the outrage forming in the flush that rises over his cheeks.
“It’s honestly none of your business what happens in my personal life,” he retorts. “Where do you get off even thinking you have a say? You haven’t been around in forever, and now you think you can comment on my relationship? You don’t know what’s happening between me and Zo?. You don’t know any of it. And why should you?”
“Not my business?” I demand. “It’s my business when I can’t sleep for all the noise you two were making. It’s my business when your girlfriend is sitting in my kitchen because you have a girl downstairs, and she has nowhere left to go. It’s my business when I’m the one who has to get your girlfriend’s clothing from your room in the morning because you’ve got some other girl in your bed. You have made this my business, Tate, and even if it wasn’t, I’d be just as mad. Can’t you at least acknowledge how monstrous your behavior is? How could I have raised a son like that?”
“Because you didn’t raise a son like that!” He jumps to his feet, points a finger at me, and speaks in the loudest, most outraged voice I’ve ever heard from him. “You say you’re ashamed, that my behavior reflects on you. Well, where the hell have you been my whole life? How do you even feel you have any say over what kind of person I am?”
I should cool us both down, lower the temperature, and hear what he’s saying. He’s calling me out for my absence as a father and there’s pain there, I know it. But all I can focus on is how he deflects the blame, refuses to acknowledge that what he did was shitty in the extreme, and so I jump to my feet as well, matching his tone.
“I have every say over it when it happens under my roof! Whose fault was it if not yours that Zo? and I had to sit together listening to you have sex with some stranger?”
“You and Zo? didn’t have to sit and listen!” he yells, but I exceed his tone.
“We had no choice!”
“Fuck this!” Tate picks up his tablet and moves towards the doorway. “This is so fucking typical. You want me to live here, but everything has to be on your terms. There’s no room for me here because you need to be in control of every fucking thing. Well, fuck this. I’m not going to live under your thumb. I’m a grown man. Yes, I make mistakes, but you don’t get to weigh in on them. You gave up the right to comment on my life the day you left us. I don’t even know why I fucking agreed to live here. You need to be in control of every little thing that happens under ‘your’ roof?” He tucks the tablet under his arm and makes air quotes for emphasis. “Fine. I’ll go back to living with Mom. Fuck this bullshit!”
He storms out of the room with all the power and frenzy of a tornado, sucking the air out in his wake. I sit down in the chair again, winded but still activated, my heart pounding, while I listen to him stomp down the stairs and start swearing in the basement.
When he comes back up with a suitcase and a computer monitor under one arm, I can only watch him with a mixture of disappointment and disdain. Six months into living together, and I’ve failed as his father again.