“Oh, no,” he said, not taking the check. “No, no. You can keep that.”
Since he looked at the check like it was on fire, the more reasonable mother was reasonably flummoxed.
“Why? This is what you get paid for, isn’t it?”
The girl was sitting as far away from him as she could, staring down at her hands, refusing to be mentally present. Couldn’t blame her there.
“It is, but I didn’t actually take your case. I wasn’t there to get your daughter. Obviously I’m glad that she was brought back home to you, but I was working someone else’s case; honestly, even if you wouldn’t have contacted me, she would’ve been returned to you. I wouldn’t feel right taking your money.”
The woman nodded as if she accepted his answer, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was suspicious of him. Maybe it was just his own guilty conscience, but he was already counting down the seconds until he could leave.
Throughout dinner, Ethan awkwardly made conversation with her parents, and the girl was silent unless someone forced her to talk.
It was a painfully uncomfortable situation, and he felt like the longer he sat there, the more damage he was doing. So he ate as quickly as he could, and Lauren did most of the talking while he uttered suitably polite responses. When he finally shoveled the last bite into his mouth, he intended to get the hell out of there, but he noticed that no one else had finished.
Waiting for everyone else to finish was excruciating.
Especially Willow, who had barely touched her food.
Everybody but Willow had finished and she showed no signs of finishing soon, so he finally said fuck manners and he took the customary breath of someone who regretted what they were about to say.
"Well, I appreciate the meal, but I should really be getting home now."
"Oh, but we haven't had dessert yet," Lauren said, her eyes darting into the kitchen. "You have to stay for dessert, it's one of Willow's recipes. She's quite the cook, you know, always trying out some new recipe."
Of course he hadn't known, and he wished he didn't. He didn’t want to know what her hobbies were, or anything else that would make him feel worse than he already did.
It was bad enough seeing her in her home with her family, looking every bit the teenage girl she was. It made him feel lower than he had before. He was 32 years old, for fuck's sake. She had just turned 18. He was almost old enough to be her father, and he suddenly couldn't look at her across the table without seeing her on her knees in front of him, her mouth slightly swollen, her eyes red from crying...
He felt disgusting. He felt like a monster. He couldn't have felt worse if he had hurt her because he wanted to.
He was fighting images of Willow with a gun to her temple, bending to take his cock in her mouth, and her mother was sitting there trying to feed him dessert while Willow had to sit there silently and take it.
Clearing his throat, he abruptly pushed his chair back. "No, thank you, I really have to go."
After offering one more time to wrap him up some to take home, Lauren smiled graciously and said, "Well, okay. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping my daughter return home safely. I can't tell you how grateful we all are."
Barely managing not to flinch, he nodded and thanked her again for dinner.
"Willow will walk you out," Lauren volunteered.
"Lauren," Ashlynn snapped, obviously the only one of the two to notice how uncomfortable Willow was.
Willow pushed back her chair, standing. "It's fine."
Avoiding looking at her more suspicious mother, Ethan nodded once politely and kept his head down, falling into step behind Willow.
With
his head down like that, he couldn't help looking at her ass as she walked in front of him.
Self-disgust washed over him as he quickly averted his gaze.
Willow opened the door, and when he looked up at her hesitantly, as if he wanted to speak, she stepped outside with him, closing the door behind her. Then she crossed her arms across her chest and looked up at him expectantly.
"Thank you," he said simply.
She merely shrugged, looking out at the lawn instead of at him. "No point ruining your life. One of the other goons would have done it anyway."