Daphne Vs. Daddy

Ding dong

The front door bell rings, and I quit ripping the spinach to pieces to hurry to the front door to let Dominic in. He's looking so damn handsome, I almost can’t breathe for a moment, looking up at him.

“Hey baby,” Dominic says, pulling me forward, into his arms. “You look good enough to eat.”

He proves his words by nuzzling my neck and then moving his lips up to mine. He runs his tongue along the seam of my lips and then dips into my mouth with a muted groan.

“There you are,” my mom says, bustling into the room, interrupting our nookie. Dammit. I was quite enjoying that lip lock. I pull back with an unhappy sigh, which my mother ignores.

“Okay, Dominic, you and I need to have a talk while the lasagna is cooking,” she says seriously, directing us toward the family room. “A whiskey?”

“Do you have Yamazaki Bourbon Barrel?”

“Of course. As soon as Daph told me it was you, I bought a bottle.”

I won’t lie, hearing my mom talk like that—that she knows more about Dominic than I do—sent a little spark of jealousy through me. It’s weird to be jealous of my own mom, but dammit, she used to fuck Dominic every night. Surely she’s regretting leaving him behind, right?

Trish comes in and settles down next to my mom, and as I look back and forth between them, watching the happiness light up both of their faces at the sight of the other person, I realize—my mom may know Dom’s favorite brand of whiskey, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be married to him. There’s a world of difference between those two things.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” my mom says with a happy laugh, and gets up to get Dominic his whiskey. “Daph, what are you wanting?”

“Do you have the makings of a cosmo?” I ask hopefully.

“No, sorry. Gin and tonic instead?”

“Sure, that’s good.” It’s free alcohol; I’m not going to turn up my nose at it.

After my mom distributes drinks for all—including red wine for her and Trish—she settles back down next to her wife and pins Dominic to the couch with her laser-focused gaze. Dominic is stroking his thumb over my hand, reassuring me. I’ve never been nervous before, bringing a boyfriend home like this—usually, whether my mom likes a guy or not, I’m still going to date him. I’m way too old to get permission from my mother on who I date.

But Dominic…? This is a whole different ball of wax.

“What are your intentions with my daughter?”

So, my mom totally beats around the bush, if by beating around the bush, you mean takes a baseball bat to the bush and whacks it to pieces. She has all the subtlety of a pissed-off giraffe.

“Moommmm, don’t—”

“It’s okay,” Dominic says, squeezing my hand. “Mary, before I say anything else, I want you to know that nothing ever happened between Daphne and I when I was married to you. Not even in a vague way. It wasn’t until I met her at the Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel that I looked at her as anything other than my ex-wife’s daughter. We didn’t set out to have this happen, it just did.”

“Thank you, I appreciate you saying that.” And her shoulders did look a little less tense. I can breathe a li

ttle easier. “After Roger, it’s hard for me to get excited about any guy Daphne brings home.” Mom never did like Roger, and his birthday present that totally went off the rails didn’t help matters. She wasn’t exactly heartbroken over me breaking things off with him.

“As for my intentions with your daughter, right now, they’re simply to get to know her. We’ve only been dating for 10 days or so, so I can’t say anything more than that. I know her as a girl I helped raise, not as a woman to love. That is a side of her that I’m still learning about.”

He takes a sip of his whiskey and I smile up at him. He seems so calm, so in control, so confident. Seeing him like this just makes me want to fuck him.

Well, let’s be honest, everything makes me want to fuck him.

“Well, you know, you should be careful. My ex-husband is a powerful man and if you don’t behave, he’ll kick your ass.”

There is dead silence in the room for a moment, and then everyone busts up laughing. Trish leans over and kisses my mom, laughing heartily. “God, you're a riot,” she says with a huge grin on her face. They start snogging, and I loudly clear my throat.

“Hey, you didn’t let Dominic and I do that earlier, it’s not fair that you get to do it now,” I say.

My mom waves a hand in our general direction. “Dinner won’t be done for another 45 minutes. You guys go upstairs. Leave us be.” She dives back to Trish’s lips and they start making out again, so I look over at Dominic and wiggle my eyebrows lasciviously.

“Wanna go check out my room?” I ask in a naughty whisper.