All for Maddie Read online

  “Wow, Whit. It is true. Are you really with that guy? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What do you mean, it is true?”

  “Dana told Sue, Sue told Wendy, Wendy told Joanne, and Joanne told Vicki. I overheard Vicki and Jordan talking about it. Vicki said that you were taking Maddie and moving to Lincoln with him.”

  Great the whole fucking resort knew. I needed more beer. “Yup, it’s true,” I said glaring at Alex as Jaron handed him a beer.

  “But he was with that girl, the blonde, when he was here.”

  “Oh, that was his sister.” When did I become such an expert liar?

  “I can’t get over how much Maddie resembles him, now that the cat’s out of the bag.”

  I snorted and walked over to the cooler.

  “Damn girl, you going for the quick fix tonight?” Jaron asked.

  “Yup,” I replied, taking two beers.

  “You gonna help pay for that?”

  “Alex will take care of me,” I smartly replied, using his words with a daggered glare directly at him.

  He smirked and took out his wallet.

  By the fifth beer, I was feeling it. My hips began to move to the beat of Aerosmith’s, Dream on. One of the camp guests that I remembered checking in that morning with a bunch of guy’s eyed me all night. I discreetly gave it back. I wasn’t hiding it from Alex. I knew he was staring at me, but I hid it well from my co-workers and friends. I would have been taking him home had I not had a baby sitter.

  “Why the hell aren’t you over there, all over that? If that was mine, I’d be home in bed by now,” Naomi asked.

  “Yeah, well, we kind of had a fight. I’m trying to ignore him? Let’s dance,” I coaxed, pulling her to the dirt circle with some other guests.

  Naomi and I grinded into each other to ‘Don’t Spit Me Out’ and singing at the top of our lungs. I noticed my eye candy joining us, hoping that he didn’t move into me. He did. I didn’t know whether to keep dancing or tell him to back off. I was afraid to look Alex’s way. I tried to inconspicuously get Naomi between us. She was too busy doing some kind of nasty with her hips.

  I just hopped around, dancing, trying to get him to back off when I felt him behind me, placing his hand on my hip, grinding into me. It wasn’t him. I had been around Alex enough to know that smell. I turned, placing one foot between his legs and let him show me his moves. I was drunk. Had I been sober he would have already been in the fetal position, holding his nuts. Alex could move. Holy Fuck! Alex could move.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, leaning into his neck. Jesus Christ he smelled good. Oh Lord, I needed to stop drinking.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He smirked down at me, placing his hand on my waist and pulling me into his crotch. Yup, I needed to quit drinking.

  “Exactly what I said I was going to do. I’m getting drunk.”

  “Not while you’re hanging all over other men.”

  “We’re not a couple. We’ll never be a couple.”

  “We are as long as we’re here and around anyone that works here,” he assured me.

  I tried to pull away from him when the song ended. He stopped me and pulled me even closer when a slow song started. “Where you going? We’re putting on a show, remember?” he asked.

  “Alex, you need to back off,” I said in some sort of low rasp. I should have known better than to get drunk around someone that looked like he did.

  He pulled me closer and kissed my neck. Holy Fuck, I needed away from him. “Why’s that, Whit? Am I making your pussy wet?” he whispered just below my ear. I could feel his warm words as my eyes closed. Slowly losing control in his arms.

  Get a grip, Whitley.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, needing to be closer to him as well. I whispered the warm words to the same place he had. “Yeah Alex, I’m sure my pussy is very wet right now. It’s what happens when I get drunk. You see, I like to fuck when I’m drunk.” I could play his game. I wasn’t the weak damsel he presumed me to be. He helped with that when I was seventeen.

  “I could fuck you,” he offered, in some sort of girly voice. He was cracking. I could tell I was making him nervous.

  I could have sworn I felt his cock twitch on my stomach. No, I knew I felt it.

  “I’m sure you could. You like fucking comatose women, don’t you, Alex?” I asked and spun out of his arms.

  I should have stopped drinking. I shouldn’t have hit the bottle of Jack the first time or the sixth or was it the seventh? I was fucked up. I was going to be sick.

  “Naomi, come with me. I have to pee,” I coaxed.

  “I’m not riding on anything with you,” she assured me as I stumbled, grabbing hold of the bed of Jaron’s truck to keep from falling. I didn’t even know where Alex was anymore. I stopped caring after um….a few drinks.

  “I’m not going to the bathhouse. I’m going in the bushes.”

  I dropped my pants and toppled over, laughing as I went down.

  “That’s it. You’re done. What the hell is wrong with you?” Naomi asked, pulling me up as I laughed harder. “I’ve never seen you this drunk.”

  I was done. I needed to lie down before I threw up all over myself.

  “Don’t even think about it. Move over,” Alex demanded as I got behind the wheel in the cart.

  “Why Alex? Because you’re a really good driver? Do you drive really fast, or do you prefer driving really slow. I like my men to drive really fast, you know, really force the throttle,” I laughed.

  That’s the last thing I remembered until I woke the next morning.

  I moaned. Wow, did my head ever hurt. I wondered what time it was. It was dark in my room. Someone had closed the curtain. Where was my cellphone? Shit, where was Maddie? I wondered, sitting up and seeing the time, hoping she wasn’t cooking something. I looked over at the clock. What? That wasn’t right. There was no way it was almost noon. I dropped back to my pillow, remembering that my dad had her. And, oh yeah, Alex was there. Jesus did my head hurt.

  I climbed out of bed, looking down at my nightshirt. I didn’t remember changing clothes. God, please don’t tell me Alex did it. I slid on a pair of shorts and quietly opened my door. Ah man, I hated bright lights. I squinted seeing Alex and Maddie lying on the floor with two coloring books. Standing in the door, I silently watched them. He was so good with her.

  “No, not dat one,” Maddie demanded, pulling the green crayon from his hand, “you have a use a pink one.”

  “But grass isn’t pink,” Alex explained. “Grass is green.”

  “Nu-huh, I have a pink grass in my Eeser basket.”

  Alex laughed. “Okay, I’ll make pink grass. Do you want to go to the store with me?”

  “Um, how many sweep times?”

  “How many sleep times?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s how she tracks time,” I helped.

  Alex looked up to me. I was sure I looked rough. I felt rough.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, not understanding Maddie’s sleep times.

  “Sleep times, like how many days does she has to wake up before something happens.”

  “You want to know how many sleep times until we go to the store?” he asked her.

  “Uh-huh,” she replied, going crazy on her coloring page with a green crayon.

  “Right now… What? Do you need to check your calendar or something? Why do you get to use the green crayon?” he asked.

  I laughed.

  “You have a pink one,” she claimed, looking at him like he was an idiot for asking.

  “Do you have any idea how much like your mama you are?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I tightened my lips to keep from laughing and walked to the kitchen.

  Great, no coffee.

  “I take it you’re not a coffee drinker,” I alleged, making coffee.

  “I drink coffee. I just drank it at eight o’clock this morning.”

  “Do you know where my c
ellphone is?” I asked, looking around. What the hell did I do with it? I walked around, looking for it when it started ringing. I hadn’t even noticed Alex dialing. I picked it up from the bottom of Maddie’s bookshelf. How the hell did it get there? I wondered, shutting off his ring tone.

  “Change it,” he demanded.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, and I think it’s very immature of you. Change it.”

  “I wonder if I can find one about this guy. Do you know any songs about this guy?”

  “I’m afraid to ask? This guy?”

  “Yeah, it’s what I refer to you as, you know. This guy thinks he is going to tell me what to do? Does this guy think he is God? Is this guy for real? Does this guy have a brain? Does this guy—”

  “Yeah, okay. I get it,” Alex determined, cutting me off from my rant.

  “Her is whiny,” Maddie said, looking up to Alex. Traitor.

  “Her is whiny. Let’s go to the store and leave mommy alone with her coffee for a while,” he offered standing from the floor.

  “Why are you going to the store?” I asked.

  “We’re cooking out here with your dad and Dana, later.”

  “Oh, you invited my family for supper without asking me first? What if I already have plans?”

  “You don’t. Should I kiss you goodbye?”

  “Only if you don’t mind walking funny all day.”

  He laughed. “I’m going to get the car seat out of your truck. We’ll be back in a little bit. Go take a bath or something. You look like,” he stopped, remembering Maddie standing beside him, holding his hand. “You look like you could use it,” he substituted.

  “Hey, you want a go see my beach?” Maddie asked, looking up.

  “When?” he asked, looking down at her.

  Stretching her neck to look up to him she stomped her foot and cocked her hip. “You need a check a calwander?”

  Oh my, that girl didn’t miss a beat. I loved it. He picked her up and threw her into the air, causing her to squeal with laughter.

  “Where is your beach?” he asked, kissing her cheek.

  “It over der,” she pointed in the wrong direction.

  “We’ll cook out by your beach. We’ll go there later,” I told her, willing the coffee to drip faster.

  <><><>

  I soaked in a hot tub with a washcloth over my eyes. That was it. I was never drinking again. I had the worse hangover ever.

  I didn’t care about what I looked like. I pulled my long hair into a messy bun not even brushing it out and pulled on jean shorts with a t-shirt. I wasn’t trying to impress Alex Stupid Wesson; he could go to hell.

  Alex came in carrying Maddie and holding her out. I could see right away that she’d had an accident. I instantly had a smirky smile when I saw the wet spot on his shirt.

  “I pee,” she admitted as he sat her down.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “I thought she could hold it. I didn’t want to go into the ladies room, I wasn’t going to let her go alone, and I wasn’t sure if it was okay to take her in the men’s room,” Alex explained, removing his wet shirt.

  Holy. Sweet. Baby. Jesus.

  “You could have taken her in the men’s room. When she says she needs to potty, you need to get her there. She can’t hold it yet,” I said, taking her hand and leading her to the bathtub. I needed to get away from that…that…Jesus, I couldn’t even begin to describe those abs, that stomach, that sexy as hell line of hair just below his belly button, that statuesque chest, the jeans that hung low on his hips. Okay, maybe I could describe it. My eyes needed to be reverted.

  “I did eat a bug,” Maddie said, helping me out of my bafflement.

  “You ate a bug?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why did you eat a bug?”

  “My daddy say me could.”

  I looked over my shoulder with a frown.

  “It was out of the bubble gum machine. Don’t worry, it was cherry flavored,” Alex clarified.

  <><><>

  I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Alex had his jeans rolled up, wading in the water with Maddie. I did kind of smile. I couldn’t help it. She looked so darn cute, holding on to his pant leg, trying to balance herself as she walked across the tiny stones.

  “Are you happy?” my dad asked, tearing me from my trance of Maddie with her daddy. I was glad that I was staring happily at them. I didn’t want him to think I was leaving him to be miserably forced to live with a man I detested.

  I smiled a weak smile over at him as he slid his arm around me and kissed the side of my head. I wanted to start crying.

  “I just want you to be happy, Whit. I want Maddie to be happy, and I can see that he does love her. I don’t want to lose either of you. I love you both to pieces, but I understand. I think Alex is a good man, I think he will be good for both of you. You have my blessing, sweetie.”

  “Thanks Dad, that means a lot. But what about my house? We just built it. How am I going to make the payments if I’m not working? Maybe you can rent it out too. That should make the payment.”

  “I’m not renting out your house. Alex and I talked about it this morning. He wants to pay it off so that you and Maddie have a place to stay when you come home.”

  That pissed me off. There was no way I was letting him pay off my house. I worked hard for that house. He wasn’t swooping in and holding that over my head too. No way in hell. I, of course, decided to save that fight for later. I was trying my best to keep my dad in the dark as much as possible, letting him think that I was in love with Alex as much as Maddie was. I wanted him to think I was happy. I didn’t want him worrying about us.

  “Dana Ray, the fire’s ready,” Dana called from the grill.

  We sat at the picnic table and ate steak, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob on our little beach. I was going to miss this place. Maddie and I had so many memories there. She loved our little beach as much as I did.

  Dana and I cleaned up the mess while my dad, Alex, and Maddie tossed a Frisbee back and forth.

  “Catch,” Maddie said, throwing it to me. It didn’t glide through the air at all. It rolled and clunked to the sand after hitting the picnic table.

  “Come here,” I coaxed, walking to the front of my dad. I knelt behind her and helped her hold it. It glided to my dad and he caught it. She squealed delighted that she had done it.

  “I frow it to Nana, Papaw,” she explained.

  Dana walked in front of them and my dad knelt to help her. I was staring down at her with my dad, feeling a little sad at how much I knew they were going to miss each other. My sadness was quickly replaced with rage. Alex slid his arm around my stomach and pulled me to him, kissing my neck from behind.

  That wasn’t the end of it. Alex continued to play the loving boyfriend. He was constantly, holding my hand. I pulled it away, pulling me toward his chest. I elbowed him. The last straw was when he pulled me to him and kissed me, right on the lips. I tightened my lips, not kissing him back. I wasn’t puckering shit for him. I did however, wrap my arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear.

  “If you fucking touch me one more time, I’m going to slice your fucking throat. Stop it!” I demanded. He laughed, causing my dad to look at us with a satisfied smile.

  Maddie insisted her daddy bathe her once we were back home. He was her shiny new toy and I was the old broken one in the bottom of the toy box. She even put her head back and let him rinse her hair. I hated him. Oh my God, I hated that man.

  I showered next and put on jeans and a t-shirt. I was going to find Naomi and something to drink. I would swear off alcohol another time.

  Maddie was curled up in his arms, engrossed in cartoons when I emerged.

  “Where’re you going?” Alex asked.

  “To talk to Naomi,” I said, sliding in my flip flops.

  “I see Nomi too,” Maddie decided, jumping down.

  “No, you stay here with daddy. Mommy will be back in a few minutes.”r />
  I kicked my flip flops off and plopped to the chair when she sat on the floor and screamed. “Okay, Maddie. I’m not going. I’ll stay here with you,” I said in a tone that she totally missed.

  “Okay,” she instantly stopped crying, crawled back on Alex’s lap and was lost in her movie.

  “You really should stop doing that,” Alex said.

  “I probably don’t care, but what? What should I stop doing, Alex?”

  “Giving her, her way all the time.”

  I didn’t reply. I got up and walked to the refrigerator. Like he knew how to raise kids. Damn. One beer. I took it and walked out to the porch, quietly opening the door so that Maddie didn’t notice.

  Bring me beer. I’ll pay you when you get back here, I texted Jaron.

  Where’s your boyfriend?

  He’s here.

  “And he’s not my boyfriend,” I quietly said to myself.

  What the hell, Whit? I thought we were friends. One minute we’re having wild sex and the next you’re moving away with some guy? Why didn’t you tell me?

  Have we ever had that kind of relationship? We have sex. You know that.

  Are we ever doing that again?

  Always thinking with your dick. Bring me beer.

  Fine. 6?

  No, 12.

  Oh yeah, I forgot you had company.

  My company wasn’t touching my beer. He wanted to be super dad, he could get up and tend to her while mommy laid in bed hung over.

  Jaron pulled up ten minutes later on the golf cart. He got off and handed me the 12-pack. I opened one right away.

  “You can stay and drink a beer if you want,” I offered, nodding to the 12-pack.

  He looked up to the opening door. You have got to be kidding me.

  “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll see ya around,” he said, nodding his head at Alex.

  Alex sat on the top step beside me. “She’s asleep,” he said.

  I snorted. “Yeah, she tends to do that before nine o’clock every night.”

  “Do you drink beer every day?”

  “Nope, mostly since you just fell into my life.”

  “You can’t hate me that much,” he assumed.