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Me: Lol. To the zoo. It’s one of my favorite places.
Blaine: Perfect. Then I will see you at two, beautiful. Have sweet dreams tonight.
Me: You too, handsome.
I shook my head, smiling and looking up at my father who hadn’t noticed a thing. I sighed and grabbed a blanket, posting up on the couch until bedtime for my normal Saturday night movie marathon. I used to be so jealous of my friends on these kinds of nights. They were out there, partying it up, getting crazy, going on dates, and just having a normal life. Instead, I was twenty-eight, sitting on the couch, and babysitting my father so he didn’t get himself in trouble with the wrong people. I knew roles were supposed to reverse when parents got older and children grew up, but I didn’t think it would happen quite this soon. I rested my head on the back of the couch and hit play on the DVD, having decided on a slew of romantic comedies to keep me occupied. If I couldn’t keep Blaine off my mind, I might as well give in to the fantasy and fill my night with hopeful love stories.
Several hours later, my father went to bed, and I locked up the house and hid the car keys. At least if I did that, I would hear him searching for them, and he never was very discreet. I told my father goodnight and shut myself in my bedroom. As I changed into m
y nightgown, I closed my eyes and listened to the ocean through the open window. That was always something I felt so lucky to have, the ocean across the street. I knew people paid millions for oceanfront property, and I had been lucky enough to take over my parents’ place, which had been my grandmother’s before that. I could remember so many nights lying awake in bed as a little girl, listening to the waves. Now, though, I was lying awake in bed thinking about Blaine.
I wasn’t sure what he saw in me. Sure, I took decent care of myself, always had pride in my appearance, and was incredibly dedicated to being a good person, but I was a nobody. I was a lonely little school teacher in West Palm Beach, with an addicted father and a runaway mother. I didn’t have anything but time to offer Blaine, and with the current situation I was in, I didn’t even really have that much time. He had come from an affluent family and affluent community, something I knew little to nothing about. Still, despite all those fears and doubts, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly lucky, for the first time ever, that I was in that bar that night.
I pushed away all the doubts and laid my head down on the pillow, pulling the blanket to my waist and curling into a ball. I let the feel and look of Blaine’s tight muscular body run through my thoughts. He was so sexy and tan, and his blonde hair and blue eyes added to that rich, bad boy charm. I could tell he was used to getting what he wanted, and the difference in his personality the first night versus today was telling. He wanted to be around me, and it wasn’t just the chase. Hell, he already caught me once. He could literally go to a bar and pick up anyone he wanted, but instead, he was negotiating a date with me and taking me to see all the fuzzy animals at the local zoo. I couldn’t imagine it was a place he frequented on a regular basis.
I wondered what it was like to wake up next to him in the morning, his arms wrapped tightly around me. He had left the other night right after sex so that we wouldn’t wake my father, but I really wanted him to stay. I wanted to wake up in his warm strong arms, his body pressed against mine. I wanted him to wake me up with the big, hard cock he had filled me up with. I sighed as I closed my eyes, drifting off to sleep with visions of Blaine’s body running wild through my soul. That man had me hooked.
Chapter 7
Blaine
I was more than excited to get to Josie’s for our date. I had been up most of the night thinking about her, wondering where all the walls I had built went. Apparently, from the first time I laid eyes on her, they’d all come crumbling down. But I wasn’t scared about it anymore, and I knew that I had to give in and see where this all went. This girl was amazing in every way that I could imagine, and I wasn’t going to let my past dictate my future anymore. I pulled up out front of her house and got out of the car, feeling waves of nerves and excitement billow through my chest. I knocked hard on the door and waited, expecting her father to answer. To my surprise when the door opened, Josie was standing there, looking sweet as always. She invited me in so she could grab her bag, and I looked around for Pops, but he was nowhere to be seen. I figured maybe he was in his room, locked away from the poker for a few hours.
When she came back out, she was gleaming, smiling from ear to ear. Her gorgeous dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her makeup was subtle and illuminating, and she was wearing jeans and v-neck shirt that showed just a hint of that amazing cleavage I knew she had hidden under there. It took everything in me not to cancel the zoo trip and jump her right there in the living room. We left the house and climbed into my car, putting the top down on the gorgeous September day. It was almost fall, but you couldn’t tell for a second out here in sunny Florida.
I usually hated crowds, especially crowds of children, so to say I wasn’t excited about the zoo would be an understatement. However, I couldn’t help but feel content and happy at the look on Josie’s face. She was so adorable at the zoo, just like one of the kids. She pulled me from cage to cage, exploding with excitement when one of the furry, adorable animals stuck its head up. It seemed they liked her as much as I did because every time we went up to an enclosure, all the animals’ eyes were on her. There was even a moment where a small baby monkey played on the edge of the cage where she was standing. Her enthusiasm was catching, and I found myself having a really good time with her by my side. The way she interacted with the animals and the children made me realize why she was a school teacher. I could imagine she was probably a pretty damn amazing one, at that. We bought elephant hats and walked around laughing at each other and eating ice cream. It was like a perfect day I never imagined I would be included in.
When we were done at the zoo, we were both starving, so I drove us to dinner at an upscale beachside restaurant that I had been to with my parents when I was graduating high school. The place was beautiful, but the views and the sounds of the waves were what I came there for. After we had ordered and the wine had been poured, we sat back, looking out over the ocean. The sun was setting, and the sky was a mix of oranges and blues. It was absolutely stunning, not to mention the scenery on the other side of the table was pretty fantastic, too. I could tell she was thinking about something as I watched her run her finger around the top of her glass.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“The future,” she said, sighing. “I was just thinking about all the things I want to do, if my dad gets better that is.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked curiously. “Like what? Tell me about your dreams.”
“I want to start a non-profit,” she said, smiling. “As a teacher, I see kids from all walks of life. As a teacher in West Palm Beach, I see children that don’t have anything. They come to school without supplies, clean clothes, shoes that fit, and a whole slew of other things. As teachers, we try to do what we can to help, and we give our kids what they need to be academically successful, but we all know those aren’t the only factors that come into play. It’s hard to learn when your shoes hurt your feet or you come to school hungry and cold. I want the non-profit to raise money to donate to these kids. I don’t want to donate money to them. I want to donate the supplies, clothes, food, and whatever they need to have a healthy and bright start in their education. Otherwise, we will have another generation of dropouts, high crime rates, and poverty. We have to break the cycle somewhere.”
Her spirit and generosity were so admirable, and I couldn’t help but be inspired by her willingness to give to others. There had to be a way that I could help her achieve this dream, a path I could help her get on to make this non-profit something that would actually work. My thoughts ran quickly through my legal knowledge. I had a background in all areas of law, but I’d grown up with a financial set of parents. There were so many things that she could do, and knowing her, she wouldn’t want to take a cent of the proceeds for anything for her own use. It was very clear that money was not the first thing on her mind. In fact, it didn’t even seem to be on the list of top ten things she cared about.
“How about you?” she asked.
I looked up at her with surprise, realizing that I had never really thought about it. She took me extremely off guard. My life had been pretty much set up for me with no real option to stray from it. I had spent so many years being forced into what my future was that I hadn’t ever really taken the time to think about what I wanted. I felt that it was a frivolous thing to think about since I didn’t feel that I had much choice in the matter, so I pushed it to the back of my brain and left dreaming for other people. I realized, after getting to know Josie, there really wasn’t a perfect situation for dreaming. You either chose to follow your dreams, or you laid down and took what society set up for you. I guess I had laid down and taken it for so long that the idea of dreams had become somewhat of an enigma.
Before meeting Josie, I hadn’t thought about anything other than the fact that I had no path. I was wasting away in an endless cycle of booze and pussy, and I hated everything there was about the law firm. I didn’t want to practice law, at least not for the schmucks we had as clients. I didn’t want to deal with the
constant influx of rich, stupid people in my life. Most of the people I knew never felt what it was like to go through hardship, to be pulled from the brink and be given a second chance. Josie definitely got my wheels turning. I thought about it for a few minutes, sipping my wine and looking out over the ocean. Josie could see I was lost in my thoughts, so she smiled and waited for me to work it out in my mind. She was so damn patient, it was amazing.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” I said, rubbing my chin. “My life has always pretty much been laid out for me. I didn’t have the opportunity to really be given the choice.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said, smiling. “My life wasn’t really what I planned, but in between the moments of darkness, the light was there to give me the ability to dream for the future. In fact, I think that was what kept me sane all of these years.”
“Maybe you are right,” I said, amazed by her intelligence and wisdom. “I don’t know. I do like law. I just really hate the people our firm caters to. I think that if I could take the firm and make it my own, I could bring in some cases for people that weren’t the rich assholes that deserve their misfortune. People that really need help but can’t really afford anyone better than a court-appointed attorney. Those are the people that I really want to see get help. So many of them slip through the cracks, get guilty pleas because they don’t understand the system, and then end up in prison. It's that cycle of degradation that you were talking about, only with crime and adults. I guess it all ties together since those adults were once children, facing the same issues your kids face. It’s crazy to think that the lack of help as a child leads all the way up to these lives where people still don’t give a shit about them.”
“It is sad to think about, really,” Josie said, still looking out at the ocean. “And as a society, we should be standing up for that, but instead, we are too worried about our own pockets and our own lives. What are we if we don’t take care of each other?”
“You’re right,” I said, smiling at her and shaking my head. “I don’t know. I guess those are things I can definitely start to think about.”
I told her I didn’t know, but I knew there was one dream that I wasn’t shouting from the table at the restaurant. There was one dream that I didn’t think I would ever achieve, no matter where my career or life went. I knew at that moment, what I really wanted was to settle down, buy a house, have a family, and live that dream that my father had experienced. My parents were amazing people, and I wanted to enjoy life just as they had, with the family included in that. It was a crazy thought that was floating through my mind, and I knew it was the first time I had ever thought that way. But how could I not with Josie sitting there, listening to me?
