Saturday Night…
Dakota Roth…
When Uncle Remy asked me about the infinity tattoo it sparked an idea in my head that honestly shocked me that I hadn't thought of it myself. Usually, I wouldn't have had to even think about it - it would have just come to me naturally, but I have to put it all down to the stress and the undeniable attraction that I am feeling towards my dad's best friend.
Uncle Remy. There is a little thrill that courses through me whenever I think of him as an uncle. God, I am a pervert. Sick and twisted. I know that it isn't something that can ever happen. I know that he doesn't feel the same, so I have to bury it. Don't get me wrong - I know that he is attracted to me, his reaction to me is his biggest tell, but that is as far as it goes and while I wish that I felt the same way, I just don't. I want more. I want all of him to myself and that is exactly why it isn't ever going to happen because I can't open my heart that way. I won't allow my heart to get broken. I have come this far in my life without experiencing heart-break and I don't intend to allow it to happen now.
I wouldn't survive it. I know I wouldn't. I am not strong enough. What I feel for him is just too strong. It is too consuming and overwhelming that it has to be all or nothing.
Charleigh quickly grabs the attention of the bartender in the little bar we stumbled upon about an hour ago. Ordering another round of drinks for both of us, we slipped straight back into the conversation we had been having, "... it's frustrating because one minute I think that he might be feeling the same way as me, but then like a flip of a switch, I am left unsure and wondering what the fuck is going on," she explained.
It is more than clear to me that she is having some pretty intense feelings for my dad. It isn't something that I am used to seeing on my best friend if I am being honest.
Charleigh was always the more experienced of the two of us. I admired the way she could just take what she wanted from men and move on without even so much as a thought. So, when she explained the way, she was feeling about my dad - I knew that it was something substantial because she never talked about men unless it was to tell me that she was taking one home with her. I often wished that I could be that free with my body and strong with my mind to just take what I want without letting my heart get involved.
"Have you tried talking to him about it?" I asked, smiling at the bartender who handed over my Jack and Coke.
Was it just me or had he been giving me the eye for the past hour? I mean, he's not bad looking - jet black hair that was shaved around the sides and longer on top, emerald-green eyes that twinkled in the low lighting of the bar, a deep scattering of facial hair that wasn't usually my thing but somehow on him it worked, a muscular body born from lugging heavy barrels and working in the bar, tattoos that covered almost every single visible area of his body, one piercing through his tongue that peaked out of his mouth whenever he spoke.
"Are you joking?" My friend asked looking between me and the bartender and grinned, "see something you like honey?"
"I mean he is handsome-"
"But?"
"He just isn't Remy!" I sighed, resigned to my fate of pining after a man who only sees me as a physical obstacle he has to get over, "anyway you were saying?" Bringing my attention back to my friend.
Honestly, this has never happened to me before - in the sense that I am feeling drawn to one man and looking at other men. It's like I have stumbled into a weird twilight-zone episode where my libido is trying to claw its way out of me.
"There is no way I can ask him honey," she nodded before taking a huge gulp of her coconut mojito, "what if he laughs and tells me to keep dreaming?"
"Ok, first - this is not just me being bias but there is no way that he would ever be that cruel," I began because it was true, my dad wasn't built like that, granted I didn't exactly know him all that well, but I knew that he was a decent man underneath it all, "and secondly, what if he doesn't?"
"I'm not sure that I can take that leap on a what if!" She dropped her head onto the bar and groaned dramatically, making me smile.
Here is the thing - I saw it in my dad's eyes tonight before we left. The raw, untethered hunger flashing in his eyes when she walked into the room wearing the short leather skirt with the slit right up her thigh to her hip and the silver halter-top that highlighted the definition of her upper body while remaining loose enough not to be classed as slutty. Spiked heels had her standing a good, few inches taller than she naturally was. My best friend was a stunner that much I knew, and my dad very much agreed if his reaction was anything to go by.
"Honestly, honey, what do you have to lose?"
"My job. The place I am currently living. My dignity," Turning her head to look at me, her eyes defeated and unhappy, "you are being remarkably cool about all of this!"
"What can I say? I am an extremely evolved human being!" I grinned, making her laugh. "Look as long as you never make me call you 'mom' it's all good with me,"
"Jesus, can you imagine?" She laughed harder now, and I smiled, happy to have at least brought her out of that funk she had been spiralling into, "your turn!"
"My turn? What do you mean?" I asked, placing my glass down on the bar and digging in my little clutch-bag for my cigarettes and holding them up to entice her to join me outside for one.
"I mean you and Mr. Uncle? What is happening there?"
"Nothing to report. I am in over my head and all he wants is something physical -"
"I mean that could be hot-"
"I do agree but, the thing is I want more. I want it all - the sex, the love, the white picket fence, and kids,"
I have thought about this a lot, and that is exactly what I want. It is what I need more than I need the sex actually. I ache for him in ways that feel like they are ingrained in my very DNA - like I was made for him and him for me. Have I lost my mind?
"I know it sounds absolutely absurd given we haven't really known one another for a long time-" yet that didn't feel true either, I mean the guy was one of the very first people to ever hold me when I was born, but there has been distance between us, distance that was forced upon us all and that is something that I will never forgive my mother for. Not for the first time I wonder if my feelings for Uncle Remy would have taken this route if we had stayed here, "but it is hard to ignore the way he lights me up with just one look,"
"Ohhhh, you have it as bad as me," she wiggled her brows at me as she accepted the cigarette that I held out to her, "but there is something else going on with you, so spill it,"
I should have known that she would see it. I have been withdrawn as more and more texts from my mom's boyfriend come through, each one more threatening the one before and it is messing with my head as I grab my phone and pull up the messages then hand them over to my best friend who gives me a confused look before dropping her head to read them.
I have tried my hardest to ignore them and get on with my life but there is no way that I can ignore how terrified they make me.
What if he follows through on his threat and comes here to take me back to Scotland?
What if my dad decides to let me go with him?
I know that I should just talk to him - how can I expect Charleigh to take my advice when I am unwilling to do the very thing, I am suggesting that she do?
My luck with parents hasn't exactly been great up to this point - my own mother took the side of a man she had known for less than a year. My own mother had struck me because she believed him when he said I was the one coming on to him despite the very clear evidence of him being the pursuer. My own mother had thrown me out on the streets as if I were yesterday's trash. Is it really any wonder that I am scared beyond belief at how my dad will react to this?
Charleigh was the only one I could trust with this and as she moved to me and pulled me close, I felt all the tension slip away as I crumpled in her embrace.
Charleigh Smith…
When she handed me her phone, I had been confused at what she was asking of me but the minute my eyes landed on the text thread, I saw it. The real reason, that she had been so withdrawn and quiet the past few days. Hell, I didn't even know how she was as focused as she was because I would be a fucking mess.
The thing with Dakota was that she has told me countless times that she wished that she could be as strong as I was in regard to sex and men but what she obviously couldn't see was that she was so much stronger than she gave herself credit for. After all that she has faced and lived through with her mom and her illness - most kids her age would have fallen apart at what was expected of her. Fuck, if those same kids had half of the pressures that Dakota had - they'd end up in a mental-ward from sheer exhaustion and stress.
Stuart was amping up his reign of terror on my best friend and the anger that coursed through me at the thought of it could have marvelled the Hulk at full strength.
Who the fuck did this asshole think he was?
'Listen you fucking cock-tease, I have gone out on a fucking limb for you. So, get your ass home and take your punishment like a good little girl for daddy!' Just the insinuation of what he was implying made me feel ready to throw up. So, honestly, I can't imagine just how bad this must be feeling for Dakota.
'It will be our little secret baby-girl. Your mom never has to know. I will make you daddy's perfect little slut and you will be thanking me for it!'
Not fucking likely, if I have anything to say or do about it. I may not be family to her, but I think of her as a sister - we share everything with each other. Just look at how accommodating she has been with my whole crush on her dad. I don't know a lot of girls who would not only be ok with their best friend crushing on their dad but also offering support and advice, along with listening to me vent about where things were with her dad. It takes someone truly special to put up with all of that. And I would do anything for her in return.
Even as I hugged my friend close, I kept reading the texts as they grew more and more graphic as it was clear he was getting frustrated by the fact that she was ignoring him. Honestly, I am proud of her because if it was me, I think that I would have ripped seven shades of shit off him. But that was not the way to handle this. Dakota has done the right thing by just letting him fuck up, and he was playing right into it, clearly, he wasn't very smart.
"Come honey, let's get you another drink and talk this out," keeping my arm draped over her shoulder, I led us back inside, grabbed the bartender's attention, who looked right at Dakota with a look of concern on his handsome face, he had been eye-fucking my best friend from the moment we sat down at the bar about an hour ago and where I might normally encourage her to go for it, now was not the time so we waited patiently while he gathered our drinks then I led us to a little booth at the back of the bar where we wouldn't be bothered. At least I hoped that we wouldn't be bothered, "you have done the right thing by the way-"
"The right thing?" The poor girl seemed to be in a bit of a daze.
"By not replying to him, let him knot up his own noose,"
"Thank you!" The relief in her was almost palpable as she slumped into the booth.
"What are you thank-?"
"The reason I haven't shared with anyone is because I know that my mom will accuse me of deleting my responses, she will tell me that I was the one who instigated it and I just-"
"You're terrified that your dad will think the same?"
My best friend had been extremely unlucky when it came to who her mom was and I could understand her fear that maybe her dad would be the same, but the thing is - Jason is beyond proud of his daughter, there is nothing that he wouldn't do for her. Some might say that she could get away with murder and he would still support her. In many ways he made up for the shit-show that was Anna. However, I am not entirely sure how I can convey that to my best friend because her fears were valid.
No one could blame her for the way she was thinking.
"Of course, I am, I mean - it's not like he knows me very well yet, what if he thinks like Anna? What if he thinks that I somehow asked for this?"
"You. Did. Not. Ask. For. This." I practically growled at my best friend because this was exactly what abusers like Stuart did. By making his victim think that she was to blame for all the attention is just a form of control that only weak, small-dick assholes try to assert.
"Thank you honey, but you know as well as I do, not all men have evolved to the whole no means no mentality and as much as I don't want to believe that my dad is one of those, I just don't know him well enough to know for sure,"
"He loves you!"
"Oh, I have no doubt about that but that doesn't always mean that he will believe me,"
To be honest, I think she is projecting a little and maybe being a little unfair to Jason. The man has gone out of his way to welcome her and get to know her. I have never actually seen a father more, proud than when he looks at her.
Ok so I may be a little biased given the intense feelings that I have been having for the man but I truly, deep in my gut, believe that he would move Heaven and Earth just to ensure she was safe and away from the likes of Stuart. I mean had she missed the way he reacted to the news of what sparked Anna's rage that led Dakota home to him?
I may be unsure of how he feels about me but there is no doubt in me about the way he feels about his daughter. I don't think that I have ever met a man who is as good and honest as Jason before, except maybe my own father.
What am I going to do? I am loyal to my friend above all others, but does that mean I should take matters into my own hands and tell Jason about this myself? I know that he has been concerned by how withdrawn she has become. I have seen the worry mask his handsome features and as much as I want to ease that worry, I have to ask myself if telling him would be more for him or for Dakota because if it was the former then I knew there was no way I could confess it to him.
Fucking Anna - she was to blame for all of this. I would happily throttle that woman myself if I thought I could get away with it.