Page 17 of My Big Fat Daddy Issues

I'm Sorry Daddy

Eve Fontaine

Chapter 1

Hallie

Greyhound stations always smell like spilled coffee and sour rain.

I sit on my duffel and hug my knees. The action does nothing to keep my body from shaking. Still, I try to force steadiness into my limbs.

The vending machine next to me hums and clunks as a fluorescent light stutters. Somewhere, a man coughs into his sleeve, and the automatic door keeps opening to allow more travelers entry, letting in cold air and spitting it straight at my bare shins.

I shouldn’t have gone to my academic probation meeting still half-drunk from the night before. I shouldn’t have dropped out.

But, the biggest of all is I shouldn’t have calledhim.

God… Why did I call him?

But I know why. I ran out of options. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go. I turned the word home into a gaping wound, untouched and left to fester.

My phone sits black in my palm, betraying no notifications nor music. The only thing it shows is my reflection on the screen. A girl with mascara ghosts under her blue eyes and a mouth that never knows when to stop.

He’s not coming.

What do I do? Take up residence in the stinky women’s bathroom at the Greyhound station? The handicap stall is spacious. I could make it work.

Headlights sweep the glass and my heart kicks up. A bus grinds past, rattling the entire building, spewing diesel fumes into the air. When it goes, I’m left with silence again and the humiliation of wanting something I don’t deserve.

And then I hear it.

The sound… That engine… A roar that fills the air instead of cutting it.

A tall black pickup with rain sliding off it in long streaks pulls up slowly. It’s almost like the night itself decided to stop for me.

My heartbeat stutters so hard my breath feels like a soft-ball lodged in my throat. Then, he steps out. The whole world narrows to a single point. Him.

The first thought isGod, he’s bigger.

The second, coming in just as fast, isdon’t stare.

The third, which is uninvited and unwanted, is a pulse of heat that starts low and spreads through me. My skin doesn’t fit right, and my bones vibrate.

He’s broader and harder somehow, like a storm built out of muscle. The air changes around him. It’s heavier, feeling like the calm before a summer storm.

I hate that my body reacts before my brain does. My stomach clenches. My thighs press together. My hands start shaking. It’snot from fear, not exactly, but from a hunger so strong that I think it belongs to someone else.

I shouldn’t want him. Not this man. Nothim.

He’s shared a bed with my mother since I was…God, nine? I’m so bad.So, so bad.

But my desire doesn’t care about the rules. It only knows the shape of his shoulders. The sound of his boots on wet asphalt as he approaches the spot I’ve claimed as my own.

He doesn’t say a word when he stops in front of me. All he does is stand there, looking at me the way a man looks at something he intends to fix or break. I don’t know which one I’d rather have.

“Get up.”

It’s quiet and rough. His command is threaded through calm. It’s just how I remember, that voice that he’d use when I was breaking the rules.