4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” McKenna said with a smirk. “But do you think Debbie will recognize your dick?”
My daughter was out with Lina from gymnastics, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to talk so freely.
With the house to ourselves, Bailey, McKenna and I had formed what my daughter’s best friends were calling the ‘war council.’ As if Bailey were about to go into battle, instead of to lunch with my ex-wife.
Honestly, the metaphor wasn’t that far off.
“I’m serious,” McKenna added, though her smile didn’t fade.
“Both of us know Debbie’s going to go through these with a fine-toothed comb.
Anything we don’t delete she’s going to see.
And if she looks at the picture of that mess you made for Bailey and goes ‘oh my God, that’s my husband’s cum! ’ then we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
Both girls giggled at the thought. I pictured my ex-wife digging through my texts with Bailey—seeing the aftermath of the orgasm she’d given me over the Sweetheart app by sending me pictures of her wet little pussy and dirty words about how badly she wanted to fuck me—and felt an illicit thrill run down my spine.
That’s not the Tom Cottrell you thought you knew, I pictured myself telling her.
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” I told the pair.
I glanced over at the table beneath the TV, where the giant statue of the scantily-clad android woman seemed to be watching me through her blindfold.
“Maybe we should delete a couple of those pictures. I’m not sure I want Debbie seeing one or two of them. ”
“She’s gotta believe it,” McKenna insisted. “And she’s not going to know it’s you. She’s going to recognize Bailey, obviously. But you never showed your face.” She glanced at my wrist. “Or your watch, which is honestly almost as recognizable.”
She had me there. I hadn’t looked at the pictures Bailey and I had exchanged over the Sweetheart app since our rendezvous at the Armada—there was no point in staring at pixels when I had the real thing available on tap.
Seeing them now, far away from the lust-filled haze in which Bailey and I had dared the other to one-up the previous snap with the next one, made me realize just how far I’d gone so quickly with the girl who’d stolen my heart.
“Faceless isn’t everything,” Bailey reminded her bestie. “We’re sure Debbie’s not going to recognize the guy she was married to for twenty-one years?”
“A dick’s a dick,” McKenna said with a shrug. She had Bailey’s phone, which was currently showing the photo I’d sent Bailey of the bulge in my boxers right after she’d sent me her first topless pic. “Tom’s is a pretty nice one, though. That’s the kinda thing a girl might remember.”
“McKenna—”
“I’m gonna be seeing it up close and personal on Wednesday,” she said with a chuckle. “Don’t be such a prude, Daddy. Or is Bailey the only one allowed to call you that?”
My gaze flickered to the front door, even though we had the place to ourselves.
We need to be way more careful than we’re being, I thought.
Bailey must have been thinking along the same lines. “I think we cut most of Tom’s pictures,” she said, frowning down at the phone. “My shots, plus the dirty talk, should be enough to convince Debbie.”
“You don’t want her seeing your man?” McKenna teased.
Bailey rolled her eyes. “It’s not just his dick,” she explained, catching herself and blushing a bit at the word.
It never failed to amuse me how a girl who gleefully got dirtier than anyone I’d ever met when it was just her and me could become so flustered at speaking that way in front of other people.
“That’s Tom’s bedroom. It looks different since the divorce, but the bed’s the same.
We don’t want her twigging to the fact that she’s been in the room where these were taken.
” She hesitated. “It’s also the dick, though.
I can’t speak for Debbie, but I’d recognize it anywhere. ”
“You’re adorable,” McKenna chuckled. “Okay, we make the cuts. No unnecessary risk.” Her thumb hovered over the DELETE button, several pictures already selected. “This is all backed up on Tom’s phone, though, right?”
“McKenna!” Bailey cried.
“Just saying, it’s totally hot,” the auburn-haired co-ed snickered. “Pretty sure it’s a sin to delete sexts this panty-melting.” She hit the button. “Okay, what about the rest of it?”
We all shared a glance. Getting these conversations into a format where it would be safe for Debbie to look at them had turned out so far to be a lot more difficult than we’d anticipated.
Primarily because we could delete texts and photos, but there was no way to go back and add anything new.
Not unless Bailey and I wanted to text each other right now—and new texts that suddenly started contradicting older ones would look suspicious.
We decided to keep the divorced-guy framework. “It’s what Debbie expects,” McKenna said when I brought it up. “Besides, your story’s not that unique. No offense.”
“Debbie’s just uniquely awful,” Bailey grumbled.
That was no big deal. The big issue, of course, was the money.
Specifically, the lack of it.
I don’t want you to give me a dime. Those words were preserved in our text chain, tucked into the story of our romance like a flower pressed between book pages.
The moment BlueJay19 made it perfectly clear that this was not a sugar baby hookup—that what was happening between the two of us was emotional, and physical, and real.
It was the moment I realized how special BlueJay19 truly was.
So of course it had to go.
Bailey could not be on record refusing my money. Debbie would go nuclear.
“Which opens up a whole other can of worms,” the blonde coed said once we’d cleared the offending texts. “It now looks like you set up our first hookup without ever discussing money to begin with. What’s she going to do with that?”
I thought it over. “Knowing Debbie, she’ll probably chew you out,” I said. “You’re new at this—she’d expect you to make a rookie mistake like setting up plans with the mark without discussing payment beforehand.”
Bailey nodded. “What do I tell her about the Armada?” she asked, realizing. “There’s no way she’s going to think I’m still stringing this guy along when she sees the end of our texts.”
I’d already figured that part out. “Tell her you blew his mind,” I said, feeling no need to lie.
“That he’s fallen hard for you, and that you’ve been keeping him at arm’s length ever since.
That you need Debbie’s help to reel him in—to get the maximum amount of money out of him over the longest possible time.
” I paused. “Debbie will believe that. She’ll believe it even more when she sees there wasn’t even any money chat in the initial connection. ”
“Alright, Daddy,” Bailey said, nodding. “I’ll do just that.”
But she looked troubled when she said it. Both McKenna and I noticed.
“What’s wrong, babygirl?” I asked, putting a hand on her thigh.
Bailey swallowed hard. “I just don’t like talking about you this way,” she said, looking into my eyes.
The sheer love and respect I saw there would’ve forced me to have to sit down if I wasn’t on the couch already.
“I mean, I know it isn’t you, not really.
It’s some weird guy we invented who doesn’t even exist, and who is nothing like you at all—”
“Walter,” McKenna suggested. “His name’s Walter, and he’s super rich and totally gross.”
“But it still sucks,” Bailey finished. “I would never have taken your money, Daddy. No matter what.”
“I know that, babygirl,” I told her. The hand on her thigh snaked around her shoulders, holding her close. “And I’m always going to know that, no matter what story you spin for Debbie.”
“You’re a good guy,” McKenna agreed. “I’m looking forward to Bailey getting to finally show off how good once we’ve got blackmail material on Debbie and can get her out of our lives forever.”
My head shot up. “That’s not happening,” I said firmly.
“But—”
“It’s not just Debbie,” I insisted, gritting my teeth. “What did I tell both of you? What’s the most important thing I said when I co-signed on this whole crazy arrangement?”
I didn’t need to remind them. They knew.
“Savannah can never know,” Bailey whispered.
“That’s right. My daughter would never understand this.” I held Bailey tighter, even as my gaze stayed on McKenna’s face. “You two are Savannah’s best friends. Bailey is her best friend, and has been for years. My daughter finding out what we’re doing behind her back would break her.”
McKenna frowned. “No one’s going to tell her,” she promised, making a little ‘cross my heart’ gesture. “But with all due respect, Mr. C, Savannah’s stronger than you think. And you can’t hide this forever. Can you?”
Bailey stiffened in my arms. She didn’t say it, but I knew exactly what she was thinking. What scene was playing across the backs of her eyelids as she leaned in closer to me and shut her eyes.
I knew because it was playing in my head, too.
I want to marry you. I don’t think Bailey even knew the words were going to come out until they did. I’d been inside of her, buried balls-deep on top of my ex-wife’s bed, and in that moment of near-total insanity, something buried deep in Bailey’s heart came bursting to the surface.
We hadn’t talked about it since. We’d been studiously avoiding that conversation.
But I knew what my babygirl felt. And I knew my own heart, too.
No, I told myself. Jesus, Tom, you’re twice her age. And she’s your daughter’s best friend.
My life would explode. Everyone would think I’d gone mad.
And they’d be right.
“It’s not just Bailey, either,” I said, more to convince myself than to convince them.
“I spent twenty-one years married to Debbie, being a normal suburban Dad. A family man. Men like me… we go a little wild after the divorce, sure, but we don’t do things like this.
That’s not the environment I raised my daughter in. ”
“Your daughter’s a grown woman,” McKenna grumbled. “She—”
“Stop.”