Dear Diary (Love, Daddy)

I pick out two forks, getting used to his imposing energy and feeling like a little bunny hopping all around the wolf. “Why do you ask?”

He steps closer. “Just wondering, if you were to move somewhere else, what would you like to take along?”

“All my stuff. Most of the furniture came with the place, but the pictures, the bean bag chair and the pillows.” I scan the room. “And my books…all my clothes, the plants, my scrap books…” I shrug, looking around the small place, more full of my belongings than I ever realized before.

“Then, maybe it would be easier for you to tell me what you wouldn’t take.” His voice is serious, even though the question seems odd.

I answer, pointing out what came with the apartment, and he is right, it’s a much shorter list that way. “It’s silly, but I get way emotionally attached to things. My father hates it. Tells me I’m a hoarder in training.”

I cut a generous slice of cake for him, center it on the chipped bone-china plate, the memory of my mother buying the entire set at a garage sale for a few dollars when I was a seven. I was happier being in the lower-middle class with her than living what looks to others like a privileged life with my father. She was a nurse, we did okay but she only worked part time to make sure she would always be there for me when it counted.

“He shouldn’t say that to you.” Jack clears his throat then finishes, “And people? Do you get attached to them?”

“Yes, people, too.” I start then correct myself. “Sometimes, maybe? No, I guess. Not so much.” I poke the cake slice as if it’s responsible for my past. “I find comfort in my things.”

Because they don’t leave you. They don’t get sick and die. They don’t treat me like an inconvenience.

He pushes his fork through the cake and surveys the bite-sized piece like a connoisseur then nods across the room. “Those folks over there for sure would come.”

I follow his eyes to where there are twenty or so stuffed animals of all sizes squeezed onto the windowsill. “Yes, of course. I know, It’s a little pathetic.”

He smiles one of those smiles that makes you feel better about yourself. Not a smile that makes you feel silly or degraded. Smiles pack a lot of info if you’re just willing to pay attention.

He peers over his shoulder at the blue sloth, the green teddy bear and the white unicorn sitting on the floor like they are having a tea party.

“Not pathetic. Don’t say that about yourself.” He pauses, then adds, “The unicorn looks new. Still has the tag.”

“It is.”

“A gift?”

Is that a flash of annoyance in his eyes? I swallow hard. “I won it at a fair, actually. The week before I moved here. In one of those shoot-em-up gallery deals? I’m a good shot. I have no idea why but if it’s a shooting game, Imma win. Just so ya know…”

I stifle the urge to tuck myself into him. To feel his arm around me, his warmth radiating through me.

His fierce gaze settles on mine.

The silence is heavy and feels like my responsibility, so true to form, I start talking without thinking while I set up my little two-cup coffee maker click it on.

“Do stuffed animals make you uncomfortable? Do you want me to move them to my bedroom? Would you like some coffee? Are you scared of the cake? Or…”

He’s still holding the bite of cake on his fork, why isn’t he eating it? I knew it, he’s comparing it to his mother’s and it’s coming up short.

When he doesn’t answer, my mouth keeps up the rando-string of questions. “Do you play football? Are you a linebacker? Do you frequent that bar?”

“I did play football in college, offensive tackle and I don’t like bars and I despise drunk people.”

I bite my lip. “The people I work with go out drinking almost every night. They’re still drunk sometimes when they come to work in the morning. I can smell it on them.” I screw up my face and shudder.

He finally takes the bite of cake, and I hold my breath. I give him a minute to chew and swallow before asking, “Soooooo?”

“I can only think of one thing that might taste better.”

My stomach does a cartwheel. “What’s that?”

“Something I’ve dreamed of for a long time.”

“Something you’ve dreamed about, or something you’ve tasted?”

“Only dreamed about. But that’s going to change very soon Chastity. Very soon.”

Plop.

Chapter 6

Jackson

The cake is more than good. It’s fucking amazing, but I know it’s nothing compared to how she will taste.

The way she crosses her bare legs and shakes her foot, means she’s not frightened of me. Nervous, maybe.

A good kind of nervous. I don’t blame her.