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“This is me telling the world that you’re fucking mine.” He jerks me into his hard body, and I feel his erection poking my stomach, twitching with excitement. “Not my step-daughter. Not my kid, not my fucking responsibility. You’re my woman, who I fuck every night, who I worship every day, who I am going to spend the rest of my fucking life with.”
“But what about my mom?” I stutter, and again, hate myself for how insecure and out of my element I am.
“She’s getting the deal of her lifetime. A free apartment and to walk out of this marriage after spending my hard earned fortune. Annabelle will be fine. She’s got Julio to keep her warm at night and enough cash to buy another three Julios if he ever gets tired of her.”
“This is harsh,” I sigh.
“Yes, that’s how you know that it’s the truth. It’s necessary. Come on. Dress up. We’re going out.”
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten all morning. It’s noon. You’re going to eat.”
“Everybody’s looking.”
“That’s because we’re two hot motherfuckers.” Graham takes a sip of his Americano completely at ease, sprawled on a chair in front of me in the coffee shop we sit in. It’s a small place full of hipsters just across from Princeton University. I can see the lush grass of the campus from across the road and my heart pinches when I think about the fact studying in an Ivy League university is not something I’ll be able to do. Throughout my teenage years, I was so focused on just trying to get by and making sure my mother was off drugs, that studying was a luxury I didn’t have much time for. Of course, some will say it’s just a poor excuse but for me it’s the truth. I couldn’t multi-task. On days Graham was at work, which was always, and I heard my mother throwing up in the bathroom, knowing exactly why she was sick, I couldn’t focus on anything else other than the fact that I needed to make sure that she’s okay.
Sure, she’s a lot better now, but I didn’t know she would be.
“Maybe people just assume that we’re having lunch as a father and daughter,” I mutter, trying to distract myself from the fact that everybody is looking at us, they know our sob-story, the poor stripper who married the wealthy NYC-based businessman, and wonder how come we’re together without my mother. Graham and I have never seen together before in public. Hell, mom and him were never seen together before, either.
In response, Graham reaches from across the table, the BLT sandwich he ordered for me and our two, hot and sweet coffees, tugs the collar of my lacey baby-blue shirt and jerks me until my nose meets his. He places his big palm on my cheek, brushes his nose across mine and plants a wet kiss on my lips. When our warm lips touch, I gasp, and he uses this opportunity to insert his tongue into my mouth, deepening our kiss. After a few seconds in which I feel everything tingling, he breaks the kiss. I stare at him breathlessly while he brushes his dress shirt with his palm, unfazed.
“Yeah, well, if they thought we were having lunch as father and daughter, I fucking doubt they still do.”
I look around me and feel my face reddening to a point I can barely breathe. Everyone is now blatantly staring at us, some of them with their mouths agape. A group of senior girls I don’t know very well from my high school are texting furiously while chuckling, I saw them at my party, I can’t believe they don’t even wait until I look the other way, and two preppy women in their fifties, with bleached blonde hair and pastel cardigans, whisper loudly. Something about morals and how the rumor mill has always said that our family brings shame to the neighborhood.
“I need to get out of here,” I push the BLT sandwich aside, I never touched it anyway, and swallow the gulp of shame in my throat. Even the kiss tastes bitter on my lips, and it’s Graham’s kiss. They usually light me up and make me feel alive. He grabs my hand and drags me closer to him, my chair scraping the floor noisily. The chatter in the coffee shop stops, and other than my pounding heart, the silence is almost deafening.
“These people”—he lifts his free hand, pointing at all of them nonchalantly—“they never gave a shit about you, Dolly. These people frowned when you moved into my house because your mother had to work as a stripper to pay for your bills. These people talked behind our backs even before they knew our names. These people don’t matter.” God, he says that loud enough for them to hear, and I see eyes widening and hear gasps that don’t belong to me.
And I get him.
I get Graham.
Because he’s right.
I never belonged, and I never really cared up until now. I’m owning up to this relationship, because he is the man who brought me here and didn’t even flinch when people talked about mom and me like we were trash.
I squeeze his hand in mine and nod. “You’re right.”
He rewards me with another kiss, after which he gets up from the table and cocks his head to the door. “Let’s give them some space to talk about us. It’s not like they have anything else to do with their useless lives.”
Again, I find myself grinning like an idiot. He’s such a badass for saying these things right to their faces. We walk out hand in hand, leaving my sandwich and our coffees behind us, almost untouched. For the first time since I moved here three years ago, I feel proud.
“Remember, kiddo, gossip says a lot about people. But not the people who are talked about. Only the people who do the talking.”
The drive to New York is surprisingly pleasant. I say that because Graham is not a pleasant man, and he is not a very chatty guy, either. But if we’re really going to do this, be a couple, I need answers and a ton of them. I ease into the creamy leather seat of his vehicle and close my eyes, taking a deep breath.
“What have you done to Shawn? This is the third time I’m asking, so please just give me the whole story.”
I can feel Graham shifting slightly in his seat, but I know it’s not because he is uncomfortable with my question. Mostly, he doesn’t give a damn. If he’s not intimidated by Shawn’s father, he is not intimidated by an eighteen-year-old blonde chick.
“I may have added some color to his face.”
There’s a brief silence before I ask, “Aren’t you afraid about him telling his dad?”
