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Tess has been fiddling with her phone since I started my truck. “You can park in the garage. Plenty of room.”
“You’re turning off the security cameras so your dad won’t see I’m here, aren’t you?”
She looks up with an apology written in her eyes. Tess shouldn’t follow her father into politics. She wouldn’t know how to lie. “He doesn’t usually bother to check the cameras when he’s out of town but yes. I did.”
I don’t give a rat’s ass how Ballerini feels about me fucking his daughter. She’s a fully functioning adult. She shouldn’t allow him to keep her on such a short leash.
Tess interprets my silence as hurt. She lays a hand on my thigh. “I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of you.”
“Why not?” I pull her hand to my cock instead. “You should be.”
She actually laughs. But she also takes her hand away. “Garage is open now. Pull in next to my car.”
There’s a different energy about being with her tonight.
Last time we collided in the heat of the moment. The very definition of impulsive. Tonight is all intentional. I even stuffed a few condoms in my wallet once I knew I’d be seeing her.
While Tess unlocks the door I consider bending her over right here and now. When I remember that her panties are in my back pocket, my cock swells.
As I’m tossing around these fun ideas, Tess gets through the door and disappears into a dark hallway.
Something occurs to me that hadn’t crossed my mind before.
This was Olivia’s house too. At least for a while. I forget how long she was married to Tess’s dad. Around six or seven years. She was Tess’s stepmother, which adds another fucked up layer to the saga. I don’t know why, but I’ve never given much thought to how Tess must have been affected by Olivia’s deep dive into depravity.
A light flips on inside the house. If I stand out here in the garage any longer Tess will get curious about what’s keeping me.
She’s slipping her heels off when I find her in the living room. The place hasn’t changed much on the inside, still looks like it’s been vomited on by a beige monster. Matilda would be horrified by the blandness.
Tess, quick and cute in her bare feet, is already halfway up the stairs. “Aren’t you coming?”
Fuck yeah, I’ll be coming on a lot of things.
But first my eye is drawn to the photos hanging in the stairwell. There’s Tess in various stages of childhood. Thank god no pictures of Olivia are in sight.
Then I pause at a closeup of a beautiful redhead. Her head is tilted and there’s a cunning sparkle in her green eyes, like she knows a secret the rest of us don’t. Though she bears little resemblance to her daughter, I know who she is without being told.
At least her picture is allowed to stay up. My mother eliminated all photographic evidence of my father within days of his murder. Maybe she found his face too painful in the gruesome aftermath. She never thought about how I might feel.
Tess pauses at the top of the stairs, notices where I’m looking. “I don’t remember her. I still wish I did, even if it would make the loss hurt more.”
“You go to sleep now. We’ll be up at the crack of dawn to get those bluegill. Your daddy loves you.”
The last words he ever said to me. Other than all the screaming a couple of hours later.
In a few more steps I see Tess’s mother again. This time she’s got company. She beams as she stands beside West Emerald’s current police chief in a cap and gown. He’s so young there that it must have been his high school graduation. The wannabe Emerald City mayor stands on Josh Ballerini’s other side, wearing his standard bogus politician grin.
Tess probably doesn’t know that her uncle called me, right after the truth came out that I wasn’t the one who set the freaking fire at the West Emerald Golf Club years ago. He’d been the arresting officer the day I was dragged from my mother’s house. He felt bad, wanted to apologize. His precious justice system had failed.
That guy’s law and order conscience is his own fucking problem. Not sorry I hung up on him.
And there’s no need to bring up any of that shit tonight.
Tess has already moved on to her bedroom, which looks like the cave of a fifteen-year-old girl. Lots of pastel colors, shelves full of trophies and framed motivational cat posters with lame captions like, “If you believe it can be done then you can do it.” Doesn’t make a damn bit of sense but I wouldn’t take advice from a cat anyway.
She flashes a playful smile as she closes the bedroom door behind me. Her closet is open and I see familiar colors amid the neat line of dresses and sweaters.
“You still have your school uniform.”
