Shouldn’t.
But did.
Oh, God did I.
The thought of her at my house, under my roof…
“Yo, you ready to fuckin’ work, or should I take my lunch break?” Comfort asked.
I flipped him off, forgot about all things Sophia—or at least put on a really good front as I tried to anyway—and went back to work.
I worked on helicopters. I drove around the country, fixing anything in about a five-hundred-mile radius that needed fixing, and today what needed fixing was a brand-new helicopter that had hit a pelican near the Gulf of Mexico in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Years ago, when I was fresh out from the Army, I’d been a bright-faced, young motherfucker that thought I was going to have a booming business in a week.
I didn’t.
In fact, it took me almost ten years to get to the point where people took me seriously enough to work on their aircraft.
Now, years and years later, I was one of the most sought-after motherfuckers in the South.
And I had thirty-two employees that worked for me.
“I’m ready when you are, motherfucker,” I grumbled as I started pulling feathers out of places there shouldn’t be feathers.
“Is that a beak?”
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out and felt my heart lurch.
Sophia: Hey, Mr. Crow. I’m heading to your house soon. Has the code changed?
Rubbing my greasy hands down the length of my pants, I unlocked it and replied.
Me: No. Same code. Set the alarm when you get there. Make yourself at home.
In my bed. In my clothes.
Give me something to think about after you’re gone.
I was such a dirty bastard.
Goddamn, when she called me ‘Mr. Crow’ I felt things inside of me turn to fucking stone.
I loved the way she said my name.
I…
Sophia: Does he still get that special dog food?
I swallowed hard, trying to push back all those sick, depraved thoughts of my best friend’s kid. My kid’s best friend.
Me: Yep. Food is in the container outside the dog door. Clem didn’t tell you any of this before she went to Vegas?
Sophia: Ummm.
I laughed and texted her back before shoving it into my pocket.
Me: I know where she went. I know all. Don’t think I don’t.
Then I went back to work.
“What’s with that goofy fuckin’ look on your face?” Comfort asked.
I glanced over at him. “What look?”
“The one where it looks like you are about to strangle someone. Or spank someone.” Comfort waited. “Have I been bad, Daddy?”
I threw a wrench at him, causing him to duck and laugh.
But then my fuckin’ mind, and my depravity, took root.
What I wouldn’t fuckin’ do to hear her call me that.
“Hey, Daddy,” Comfort teased. “If we finish this up in the next hour, we’ll be able to drive home tonight. And my wife will love me more. It only takes six hours to drive home…”
And for some reason, the thought of getting home in the middle of the night, and not in the morning when it was most likely she’d be gone, started to sound really fuckin’ appealing.
“Fine,” I said, even though I hated driving through the night with my big ass trailer and he knew it. “Just this once.”
CHAPTER 3
Thou may ingest a satchel of Richards.
-Sophia to Clem
SOPHIA
I don’t know when my daddy obsession started.
Could be, it was when I was a teen and Haggard had gone out on a date while I’d had a sleepover with Clem.
It could also be a few years later, when he’d gone out on another date, and he’d come home looking a bit more disheveled—with a hickey on his neck—than when he’d left.
All I knew was that at one point, I looked at Haggard as Clem’s dad, and the next I looked at him like he was sex on a stick and I wanted to taste him.
I walked toward the crazy-ass dog who liked to eat walls and stopped in front of him as I stared into his cute brown eyes.
One would never know that this cutie pie could reach a ceiling when he wanted to.
“You hungry, Sweetie Pie?”
The dog’s name was Body, or Busybody when he was in trouble. But I called him ‘Sweetie Pie’ because it made Haggard’s cheek twitch.
And I loved teasing him, even if it drove him slightly mad.
Getting a rise out of him was my favorite pastime.
If I couldn’t have him the way I wanted him, then I might as well drive him crazy, so I stayed on his mind…
Body barked in agreement, and I snatched up his food bowl—which was in the pantry for some reason—and took it out to the carport.
I looked up and found myself staring at the open garage door.
Usually, that was closed.
Had Clem forgotten to close it when she’d left today?
Feeling slightly freaked out to see it open, I closed it while I filled Body’s food bowl to the brim.
They didn’t measure out his food. He ate what he wanted to and stopped when he was full—something in which I would kill to be able to do—and then it was there when he was hungry again later.