Page 51 of Peaches

Stunned, and turning slightly to my right, I lock eyes with Grace and can’t help my smile as my tension surprisingly subsides. Kind of like it did that first night we came here.

“Is this a private conversation, or can anyone join,” her eyes smile back at me, as if knowing I needed her distraction from the discussion and the company I am being forced to keep.

A feeling of relief washes over me, one sparked by my random act earlier. The one where I confided in her, when I’ve never let anyone in since my mother. It’s peaceful, knowing you at least have one other person in the room who’s on your side. My mother always was. Marie is now, when she’s not playing the ever-perfect hostess. But having Grace here, knowing she understands a shadow of the skeletons I keep in my closet, I find serenity in it, and God, I don’t know when’s the last time I ever felt this way.

“We’re talking business, young lady,” my father says as I watch her face. My eyes are still glued on her presence at my side, and the feelings I am not used to experiencing that are floating between us, breaking through the shit in front of me I should be focusing on instead. “Something, I am sure would bore you.”

I’m too caught up in her silhouette, the way her nose curves up into an adorable nub, the slight flush from the summer night’s heat on her cheeks, to even hear the man I call my father speak. That is, until he speaks again.

“Do yourself, and all of us a favor, would you, Princess,” he states with annoyance. “Walk back to the garden party side of tonight’s events and leave the more important matters to those in attendance who have the power to actually do something about them. We’re not debating color patterns, or china choices, but meaningful matters your brain couldn’t possibly comprehend.”

Excuse the fuck out of me?

I’m about to knock his teeth in, strip the jacket right off my body and go blow for blow until it’s lights out. But Grace steps in front of me and I pause as I watch the wheels turning in her marvelous brain as she chooses her words carefully.

I’m all for still kicking the shit out of him, and any of hisfat cock suckingfriends, because let’s face it, they all deserve it. But I kind of want to see just what my little peach will do, too.

“My brain comprehends just fine, Mr. Knight,” she firmly replies, and then cuts him off before he can speak again. “It’s a known fact, that while a male’s brain may be 10% larger than that of his - female companion - my brain,a woman’s brain, is actually optimized for intuitive thinking. Giving me a firmer grip on reality. Comprehension, I can assure you, is no issue. Your brain, however, is three times more likely to give you an antisocial personality disorder. One, I think all in attendance, can agree needs no diagnosis for the way you are seen treating members of your family, or members of the opposite sex.”

My father goes to speak, and just like the other men standing around me, my mouth is on the floor for the huge fucking balls Grace Presley has in talking to Grant Knight the way she is. Something I’ve danced around having the balls to do myself, but I’ve never fully let go and let himhave itlike she’s dishing it out in rapid succession right now.

She holds up her hand, cutting him off once more, and what’s even more surprising, is my father lets her!

Holy shit! Has hell frozen over?

The only women I have ever seen have that power before is Marie or my mother! Before I can let myself drown in that comparison, she goes on.

“But please, don’t hurt mysimple-mindedbrain any further with your chauvinistic rebuttal. I’m sure a man like you, who prefers to look down on everyone else, also favors ending the night in his own good graces and is someone who undoubtably needs his ego stroked constantly. After all, antisocial, narcissistic men typically do. So, don’t mind me Mr. Knight, I’ll return to the petty gossip arena, where women like me, Oh I’m sorry, ‘all women’ belong. Am I right?”

She glares at him and I stand a lot fucking taller. Proud. So, fucking proud to call this woman my…

Well, shit, my nothing if we’re all being honest.

But tonight, she’s my wing “woman.” A partner any man in his right fucking mind, unlike my fathers’, would be damn honored to have by his side.

When no one speaks, Grace turns on her heels and proudly walks away to rejoin Marie and the other women across the patio. I catch the eyes of my grandmother and see a look of rejoicing achievement on her face as she studies me and her son, my self-centered selfish father, across the way. She holds my stare, a knowing secret I don’t yet understand hidden in her eyes, and it pierces my heart making me oddly doubt my new feelings.

What is she hiding, and does that mean Grace is hiding something, too?

The look in Marie’s eye says she’s team Peaches, and I know in my heart I am as well. But a slight hesitation for the woman that just walked away builds inside my chest and I can’t understand it.

Why? For no other reason than self-sabotage, I guess, when I know she’s perfect for me.

“You allow your woman to…”

My head quickly turns to my father and the look alone that’s etched in stone on my face stops his sentence before he can even utter another word. All my doubt and hesitation are now immediately gone at just the remembrance of the way he treated her.

“I let my woman, what, Dad?”

If steam could billow out of his damn ears for how hotheaded he is right now, it wouldn’t surprise me. But like the man he was raised to be, and the narcissist that cares too much about what other people think, he disguises his anger and stands a little taller among his friends.

“I won’t have a woman, who doesn’t know her place, on the arm of my son! If that is who you’ve chosen, then I think it is time we revisit the terms of your contract.”

“My contract?” I spit out. “That’s right, you’re the only father I know that holds his only child to a law binding arrangement for his own self-fulfillment. You know what, fuck the contract!”

Not really! I really fucking need that thing!

“Grams and Pops were the ones who drew it up in the first place. You don’t have any real power over it. Not whileyourmother is still alive. So, you can take your self-righteous, (oh shit, is this confidence coming from me, or Peaches? It’s foreign but familiar all the same), hypocritical, dictator mindset and shove it up your fascist ass!” Now it’s his turn to have his chin on the floor.

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