Daddy Dearest

Two girls walked into the school bathroom, and when they saw me, they muttered something to each other and giggled, shooting me looks. But I didn’t give a shit. Not then, not ever.

I was very aware girls didn’t like me. Why would they? I was infamous for sleeping around and I’d made several guys cheat over the past few school years. I wasn’t trying to make friends, anyway. I was trying to get through my last year of high school with my sanity intact, and I wanted to have as much fun as I possibly could while I was doing it.

I was like Kendall in many ways, but I didn’t do the same things for fun she did.

Her idea of a good time was curling up with a stupid book.

Mine was fucking my enemy’s boyfriend and planting so many hickeys on his neck she couldn’t pretend not to notice.

So when I walked out of that bathroom, I grinned at the girls and blew them a kiss. One of them rolled her eyes and the other one just stared at me. How fun. Maybe she was a curious little bunny. I liked those types a lot.

I walked out into the school parking lot and spotted Levi’s Lexus right away. I waved at him, making sure my shirt rode up when I did, revealing the tanned, toned skin of my navel. I couldn’t see inside the car because the windows were tinted, so I just opened the passenger door and climbed in.

A wave of chilled air-conditioned air hit my skin as I did so, and Levi’s hand brushed my arm briefly.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said playfully, and he laughed out loud.

“You gotta stop calling me that,” he told me sternly. “People are going to think it’s weird as fuck.”

I grinned wide. I loved that he wasn’t afraid of cursing in front of me. He treated me like an adult, that was one of my favorite things about Levi. He never acted like I was a kid, like so many other people did.

“Shut up, you like it,” I teased him, and he just rolled his eyes in response and drove out of the parking lot. “Hey, can we make a quick stop?”

“Sure, princess,” he replied easily. “Where do you want to go?”

“I want to get an ice cream sundae,” I told him. “Pleaaaaase. Like we used to a few years ago. Remember? It was just you and me. And it was always so much fun. I’d just love it if we could do it again.”

“Just us?” he raised his eyebrows at me. “What about your sister?”

“She’s in debate class,” I shrugged. “You know she has a trillion after-school activities. Plus, it’ll be nice to spend some quality time with you. I feel like we never hang out anymore.”

He pondered this for a second before saying, “Well, maybe we should pick up your mom on the way there, unless she’s on another one of those crazy fad diets. You want her to come with us?”

I gave him my best Amanda pout, and he shook his head and chuckled.

“Fine, princess,” he finally surrendered. “Ice cream sundaes, just the two of us. You got it.”

He drove towards the ice cream shop we used to go to. My eyes lit up when I saw it was still exactly the same, even though I hadn’t been back there for years. The last time we went, we took Mom and Kendall with us, and Mom and Levi ended up getting into a huge fight over something moronic like maraschino cherries. Levi took us the fuck out of there after Mom took off. It was a good thing we weren’t banned for life after the scene they’d made.

But thankfully, nobody seemed to recognize us as we made our way into the cafe. Levi picked a private booth at the back of the restaurant, and it gave me tingles as we sat down. It felt like we were on a date. I peered at him over the top of my menu, and he grinned at me and grabbed it out of my hands.

“Don’t you remember how we used to do this?” he asked me. “You don’t get to pick yours out.”

“I know,” I said with a smile. “Daddy’s orders.”

The waitress approached us, and she was totally making googly eyes at Levi which annoyed the hell out of me. I sulked as he ordered for us.

It started when we’d been here a few times and he noticed me ordering the same thing every single time – cookie dough with chocolate fudge syrup.

Levi told me I couldn’t go through life always ordering the same thing. He said I needed some adventure, to try something out of my limits and be a little bit adventurous. And ever since then, he’d been ordering for me. And it was a different flavor of ice cream every time.